Sociological explanations of crime and deviance

sociological explanations of crime and deviance

1. indequate socialisation

   • young people turn to crime due to negative family influence
   • New Right believe it is due to parentally deprived homes
     • leads to delinquency as kids are inadequately taught norms and values
   • social factors
     • schools (no discipline)
     • (lack of) religion
     • media (glamourise crime)

2. opertunity structure

   • people with less work and educational oppertunities
     • more likely to commit crimes like theft, fraud and assult

3. relative deprivation

   • groups feeling unfairly disadvantaged
   • never feel content

4. nature of society (marxist view)

   • highlights divide between rich and poor
   • capitalist based on
     • materialism
       • thinking money and possessions are most important
     • (capitalist) economic and political system
       • individuals make profit off businesses and industries
     • consumerism
       • if people spent money the country will have a strong economy
     • competition
     • encourages greed and selfishness
       • people needs to buy what society tells them to
   • rules are made by ruling class
     • one law for rich and one for poor
     • marxists agree

5. labelling theory

   • people are identified and treated according to stereotypes
     • self fufilling prophecy
     • pushes people to crime

6. sub-cultural theory

   • COHEN
   • argues juvenile delinquency is a group phenomenon
     • young males mainly
       • become part of a gang where delinquency already is.
     • link between delinquency and education
       • working class boys cannot achieve same expectations as middle class
         • experience status fustration
   • develop norms and values different from mainstreem society

7. anomie

   • ROBERT MERTON
     • Society set goals people are encouraged to achieve
   • when goals are not achieved there is anomie
   • people turn to alternatives and may break social rules
   • means confusion
   • four types of deviancy
     • innovators
       • achieve goals through illegitimate means
         • e.g. fraud or theft
     • ritualists
       • keep working but not for success
         • stuck in dead-end jobs
         • no ambition
     • retreatists
       • abandon goals
         • drop-outs
         • turn to drink, drugs and other deviant behaviour
     • rebels
       • reject goals
         • replace with their own
           • e.g. revolutionalists