aqa a level sociology - crime and deviance summary of key sociologists and studies.
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Course
A level sociology
Institution
A Level Sociology
aqa a level sociology summary of crime and deviance key sociologists and studies.
each topic in the aqa spec is covered: functionalism, interactionism, marxism, right realism, left realism, gender, ethnicity, media, globalisation, control punishment & victims.
17 pages showing each key sociologi...
Value consensus- socialisation and social control
Inevitability of crime
- Crime is a normal and integral part of all societies:
Not everyone is socialised into shared norms and values
There is a diversity of norms and values
Modern societies- anomie
Positive functions of crime
- Boundary maintenance - social solidarity & moral panics
- Adaptation and change- culture needs to change as society changes,
functionalists want this to happen gradually.
Therefore durkheim requires a medium amount of crime to be able to balance
the needs of society.
Polsky- pornography is a safe way for men to express their sexual needs
without threatening the monogamous nuclear family.
Criticisms-
Not all crime causes solidarity
Crime is not functional for the victims
Merton Strain theory
People partake in illegal activity when they are unable to achieve socially
approved goals by legitimate means.
- Structure - Society has an equal opportunity structures
- Cultural - there is a strong emphasis on success goals and weak
emphasis on using legitimate means to gain his goals.
E.g the American Dream
Many disadvantaged groups I denied the opportunities to legitimately achieve
the cultural goals. meritocracy isn't possible because Society has an unequal
structure.
This results in frustration that turns to “strain” to commit crime →
anomie.
Messner argues Socialisation doesn't teach values such as kindness anymore
due to the idea that success is more important.
Adaptations to strain
Conformist - accepting goals and means
Innovation - accepting girls but by illegitimate means→crime
Ritualism - reject goals but have internalised legitimate means
Retreatism - reject goals and legitimate means
Rebellion - revolutionary change
Criticisms-
Not everyone has the same goals
Official statistics are tainted
,A. Cohen Status frustration
- Agrees with Merton but believes that crime is a working-class phenomenon.
- Lower classes are less likely to achieve mainstream goals by legitimate
means due to structural disadvantages such as education.
Cohen criticises Merton
- Ignores the fact that crime is often committed in groups.
- Only focuses on utilitarian crime.
Cultural deprivation leads to strain → leads to subcultures.
Alternative status hierarchy
- Subcultures and manage that invert the norms of mainstream Society
meaning that lower classes will partake in violence and crime as a way
to gain hierarchy, as a result of this.
Explaining non-utilitarian crime.
Criticism
Working class people don't necessarily have the same values as middle class
people.
Parsons Change has to happen gradually → organic analogy.
If change happens to fast institutions become unbalanced and will
not be able to socialise adequately→ anomie
Cloward and Ohlin Deviant stems from working-class youth not achieving “money success”
- There is also unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures.
Types of deviant subculture
1. Criminal - provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in
utilitarian crime. a stable criminal subculture with professional crime
2. Conflict - High levels of social disorganisation prevents a stable
criminal subculture from forming so violence is used to display status.
3. Retreatist - not everyone succeeds at being a criminal→
“double failure”
Criticisms-
Associates crime with the working class ignoring that the upper class can
commit crime.
Ignore wider power structures.
Miller - working classes have their own separate subcultures so they're not
necessarily failing - just working towards different norms.
People drift in and out of subcultures.
INTERACTIONISM
Becker “The not the act but it's the reaction to the act”
crime is a social construction
Labelling theory - the conviction of the crime was based on stereotypes and
pre existing labels.
Cicourel Negotiation of Justice
- Decisions around a rest are influenced by the stereotypes about the
offenders.
, - Typifications - Crime institutions have perceptions on what the deviant
type will be, so certain people are more likely to be arrested or
stopped and searched.
Negotiation - middle class people often negotiate their way of the law, for
example by having contacts in the police force they may be able to get out of
criminal charges or by using their cultural capital. E.g a warning rather than a
prosecution.
Lemert Primary deviance - the act
Secondary Deviant- the reaction to the act
E.g the study on stuttering
- found that failure to speak but about humiliation and self-consciousness the
anxiety brought upon chronic start. qualities of that person became irrelevant
and the master status of this person became “the person that stuttered”.
This can directly cause the self-fulfilling Prophecy - in which the individual
lives up to their deviant label.
Secondary deviance is likely to provoke hostile reactions from the individual
and from Society. This could lead to a deviancy amplification spiral.
- This is when an attempt to control deviance leads to an increased level
of deviance e.g societal reaction towards mods and rockers.
S. Cohen Folk devils and moral panics
Relationship between media and crime and the representation of different
social groups
Youth subcultures in 1960s Crashed and the media made this huge deal
What was reported was different from the reality of the situation, the media
had created a moral panic suggesting the actions of young people were
damaging society's morality.
As a product of creating more panic this man that's a media created folk devils
- were the people blamed for the moral panic. In this case it was the mods
and the rockers which increased police typifications.
Malinowski Exponent of labelling theory
- Studied traditional culture on pacific island.
He found that a youth killed himself because he's been publicly accused of
incest. However he also family incest was comment on the island but it was
only acceptable if it was discreet.
This shows:
It's not the where but it's the reaction to the act
Not everyone defines something as an act of deviance. People have to
enforce the rules so if one person is labelled the left with a limited choice.
A.Cohen Status frustration
- Agrees with Merton but believes that crime is a working-class phenomenon.
- Lower classes are less likely to achieve mainstream goals by legitimate
means due to structural disadvantages such as education.
Cohen criticises Merton
- Ignores the fact that crime is often committed in groups.
- Only focuses on utilitarian crime.
Cultural deprivation leads to strain → leads to subcultures.
Alternative status hierarchy
- Subcultures and manage that invert the norms of mainstream Society
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