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AQA A Level Sociology Crime and Deviance Paper 3 Full Notes
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Completed, in-depth notes for complete C&D topic in sociology paper 3. Achieved an A* in my Summer 2023 exam.
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Crime, deviance, social order and social control. Functionalist explanations of crime, deviance, social order and social
control.
Durkheim: Crime is inevitable and is needed for society to function. Too much crime
can result in anomie (disintegration of norms and values). Too little crime can lead to
stagnation (little progression in society). Three positive functions:
- Boundary maintenance – The publication and reporting crime and deviance
remind people of what is and isn’t acceptable in society and the
consequences of such behaviour. Examples include the extreme punishment
for breaking Covid-19 lockdown rules.
- Social cohesion – Can bring society together in mutual grief as well as
condemnation of the perpetrator. Examples include Grenfell Tower.
- Adaptation and change – Crime and deviance acts as a mean to promote
change in society. Deviant behaviour can be an indication that a social
change is required or that there is a problem in society. Examples include
Sarah’s law.
Evaluation:
- As a macro approach Functionalist theory looks at the impact of crime on
society and completely ignores the impact of the crime on the victim. For the
victim the crime is unlikely to have been a positive experience.
- The positive functions could be achieved through other means, it doesn’t have
to be through crime e.g., protests.
- They do not quantify how much crime is beneficial and how much is too much.
- Marxists suggests crime is only positive for the ruling class. Boundary
maintenance reinforces ruling class ideology.
Davis: Minor criminal behaviour and deviancy can act as a safety valve preventing
greater or more deviant behaviour from occurring. People commit low level criminal
acts as a release for their urges and preventing them from committing more severe
crimes. E.g., Polsky stated pornography and prostitution provide a safe way to
release sexual frustrations and desires thus preventing more serious sexual offences
such as rape.
Merton: Crime and deviance is due to structural (society’s unequal opportunity
structure) and cultural factors (the emphasis on success). A strain will be developed
in response to acceptance/rejection of cultural goals and the legitimate means of
achieving them.
- Conformity – accept goals and means.
- Innovation – accept goals and reject means. Innovate new ways of illegitimate
means e.g. drug dealing.
- Ritualism – reject goals and accept means. W/C and lower M/C with routine
jobs.
- Retreatism – reject goals and means. Addicts and the homeless (marginalised
groups).
- Rebellion – Neither accept or reject goals and means. Revolutionary groups
who replace the cultural goals with their own e.g., terrorist groups, Black
Panthers.
,Evaluation:
- Sees deviance as an individual response to strain and ignores deviance
committed by groups.
- Focusses on utilitarian crimes and ignores those with no economic motive.
Cohen (subcultural): W/C youth believe in the success goals of society but lack
opportunity to gain by approved means due to failure in education and living in
deprived areas. They feel they are denied status, leading to status frustration. They
react by developing a delinquent subculture, based on deliberate reversal of
accepted values and behaviours, as revenge. Allows W/C youth an opportunity to
achieve status in their peer group instead, which now motivates them instead of
financial gain.
Evaluation:
- Explains non-utilitarian crime.
- W/C boys don’t share same status-based values as M/C (Willis’ ‘Learning to
Labour’). If they don’t achieve the goals they don’t see themselves as failures
and thus don’t experience status frustration.
Cloward and Ohlin (subcultural): They agree that W/C youths are denied legitimate
opportunities to achieve success and that their deviance stems from the way they
respond to this, but not everyone in this situation adapts to it by turning to innovation.
The reason for different subcultural responses it due to unequal access to illegitimate
opportunity structures. Different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate
opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers.
They identify three types of deviant subcultures that result.
- Criminal – characterised by utalitarian crimes in stable W/C areas with an
established pattern of adult crime. Provides learning opportunity and career
structure for young criminals and alternative to legitimate job market.
- Conflict – characterised by violence, gang, street crime. In socials
disorganised areas with high population turnover. Lack of stable criminal
subculture means approved and illegal means of achieving goals are blocked,
and so can only obtain status through peer group.
- Retreatist – W/C youth who are double-failures. Failed to succeed in both
mainstream society and criminal cultures.
Evaluation:
- Most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subculture but drift in and
out of delinquency.
- W/C has its own separate values from mainstream culture that doesn’t value
success.
Marxist explanations of crime, deviance, social order and social control.
Traditional Marxist:
Criminogenic Capitalist Society – Bonger argued that since the capitalist system is
based on greed, selfishness and exploitation, these values come to shape
individuals’ attitudes to their lives. Crime is therefore inevitable as poverty may mean
this is the only way to survive. Crime may be the only way to obtain the consumer
, goods advertised by capitalism. Alienation and lack of control may lead to frustration
leading to non-utilitarian crimes such as violence and vandalism.
Selective Law Enforcement and Creation – Chambliss discovered that policing policy
concentrated upon the criminal actions of the working class and working class areas,
rather than suspect activities of the social elites. Snider says R/C interests can easily
become reality through the creation of laws which favour the R/C and makes the
W/C accept and obey.
Ideological Functions – The R/C pass laws that give the impression they are helping
the working class rather than helping capitalism e.g. health & safety laws. Pearce
argues that such laws often benefit the R/C too by keeping workers fit and healthy,
they can continue to generate profit. This conceals the fact that it is capitalist
conditions that makes people criminals.
Evaluation:
- It largely ignores the relationship between crime and other inequalities e.g.
ethnicity and gender.
- It is too deterministic, not all poor people commit crime, despite the pressure
of poverty.
- Left Realists argue that Marxism ignores intra-class crimes (where both the
criminals and victims are W/C) such as burglary and ‘mugging’, which cause
great harm to victims.
- Communist societies have crime!
New Criminology (Neo-Marxist):
Agree with Marxists – capitalist society is based on exploitation and class conflict;
the state makes and enforces laws in the interests of the capitalist class; a classless
society would reduce the extent of crime.
Disagree with Marxists – reject the view that workers are driven to commit crime out
of economic necessity. They see crime as a meaningful action and a conscious
choice. Criminals are not passive puppets who behaviour is shaped by the nature of
capitalism; they are deliberately striving to change society.
Social Theory of Deviance – Taylor et al put forward a theory of deviance that
combines structural Marxism and interactionist labelling theory.
I. The wider origins of the deviant act in the unequal distribution of wealth and
power in a capitalist society.
II. The immediate origins of the deviant act - the particular context in which the
individual decides to commit the act.
III. The act itself and its meaning for the actor - e.g. was it a form of rebellion
against capitalism.
IV. The immediate origins of societal reaction - the reaction of those around the
deviant e.g police, family and community, to discovering the deviance.
V. The wider origins of societal reaction in the structure of capitalist society -
especially the issue of who has the power to define acts as deviant and label
others, and why some acts are treated more harshly than others.
VI. The effects of labelling on the deviant’s future actions e.g. why does labelling
lead to deviance amplification in some cases but not others?
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