1. Crime and Deviance

2. Why do people commit crimes?
19th century  It was believed that
criminals were born, not made
criminal tendencies were biologically given, not learned
Cesare Lombroso (1870s, Italian criminologist)
Criminal types could be identified by anatomical features
Studied appearance and physical characteristics of convicted criminals (shape of skull and forehead, jaw size, arm length)
Concluded that criminals displayed signs of atavism (they had traits held over from earlier stages of human evolution).

3. An illustration from Lombroso’s book Criminal Man

4. Lombroso’s theory was discredited through lack of evidence, yet biological explanations of crime have continued over the last century.

5. Somatotype theory
Somatotype theory distinguished three main types of human physique, each linked to a type of personality, claiming that one body type was directly associated with delinquency.
Mesomorphs (muscular active types), theory argues, tend to be more aggressive and physical, and therefore more likely to become delinquent than ectomorphs (thin physique) and endomorphs (round and fleshy physique)!

6. There is no evidence that any traits of personality are inherited in this way, and even if they were, their connection to criminality would only be a distant one.
If biological approach cannot answer the question “why do people commit crimes?”, what other approaches could work better?
Psychology
Sociology

7. Psychological approaches to criminality
Psychological approaches concentrate on personality types.
Most research carried out in prisons and other institutions such as asylums, and in these settings psychiatric ideas were especially influential.
Emphasis placed on distinctive traits of criminals (feeble-mindedness, moral degeneracy).
Eysenck (1964) suggested that abnormal mental states were inherited, and that these could either
Predispose an individual to crime, or
Create problems during socialization process

8. Psychopaths are withdrawn, emotionless characters who act impulsively and rarely experience feelings of guilt.
Individuals with psychopathic traits do sometimes commit violent crimes, but there are problems with the concept of psychopath:
It is not clear that psychopathic traits inevitably lead to criminal traits.
Nearly all studies of people that possess these traits have been of convicted prisoners and their personalities tend to be presented negatively.

9. Psychological theories of criminality can explain some aspects of crime.
While some criminals may possess personality characteristics distinct from the remainder of the population, it is improbable that majority of criminals do so.
There are many different types of crime, from violent and aggressive murders to calculated and well-planned fraud, from rape to petty theft ...
It is not possible to suppose that those who commit crimes share the same psychological characteristics.

10. Both biological and psychological approaches to criminality presume that deviance is a sign of something “wrong” with the individual, rather than with the society.
Crime is seen as caused by factors outside an individual’s control, embedded either in the body or mind.
Both biological and psychological theories are positivist in nature (try to identify causes of crime, treat causes and prevent criminal behavior).

11. Any satisfactory account of nature of crime must consider the social institutions of a society.
The social and cultural context in which crime and deviance take place.
What exactly do we mean by “crime” and “deviance?

12. Basic Concepts
Deviance – non-conformity to a given set of norms accepted by a significant number of people in a society
Crime – non-conformist conduct that breaks a law
Sanction – any reaction from others to individual / group behaviour aimed at ensuring compliance to norms
Criminology tends to focus on crime whilst the sociology of crime and deviance is broader, taking in non-criminal forms of social deviance

13. Sanctions may be positive (offering rewards for conformity) or negative (punishing behavior that does not conform).
Sanctions can be levied informally (less organized and more spontaneous reactions to non-conformity) or formally applied by a specific body of people or an agency to ensure that norms are followed – courts, prison, laws).

14. The sociological study of deviance directs attention to the issue of power and the influence of social class.
Deviance from or conformity to social rules or norms calls for the question “whose rules are they?”.
Social norms are strongly influenced by divisions of power and class.

15. Functionalist theories
Interactionist theories
Conflict theories
Control theories

16. Functionalist theories
See crime and deviance resulting from structural tensions and a lack of moral regulation within society.
If the aspirations held by individuals and groups do not coincide with society’s available rewards, the disparity between desires and their fulfillment will be seen in the deviant motivations of some of its members.

17. Emile Durkheim
Anomie: lack of clear norms to guide behaviour leading to disorientation and anxiety.
In modern societies traditional norms and standards become undermined without being replaced by new ones.
No clear standards to guide behavior in a given area of social life.
Characteristic of modern societies with emphasis on individual choice and freedom

18. Two positive functions of deviance:
According to Durkheim, crime and deviance are social facts; inevitable and necessary elements of modern societies.
Two positive functions of deviance:
Adaptive function, it can introduce new ideas and challenges into society and be an innovative force (bring about social and cultural change).
Boundary maintenance, between us (the good people) and them (the deviants); hence provoke a collective response that heightens group solidarity and clarify social norms.
Durkheim’s ideas were influential in shifting attention from individual explanations to social forces and relations.

19. QUIZ
In the documentary “16 Tons”, the song ‘16 Tons’ is played several times to make a point about the living and working conditions of the miners. One particular line
“I owe my soul to the company store”
has a particular reference. What is that reference?

20. Robert K. Merton
Anomie: The strain put on individuals when widely accepted cultural values conflict with their lived social reality.
Found the sources of crime within the social structure of American society. What happens when not everyone can achieve the American Dream?
Those who do not succeed find themselves condemned for their inability to make material progress. Then there’s pressure to try to get ahead by any means, legitimate or illegitimate.

21. Deviance and crime are products of the strain between values and the unequal distribution of legitimate opportunities within society.
Five responses:
Conformists: accept cultural goals and means
Innovators: accept goals, devise new means (crime)
Ritualists: reject goals, ritual acceptance of means
Retreatists: reject both goals and means
Rebels: aim to replace cultural goals and means

22. Critical points
Merton failed to appreciate the significance of subcultures in sustaining deviant behavior.
Reliance on official statistics is problematic.
Overestimates the amount of lower working class criminality, implying that everyone in this class should experience the strain towards crime.

23. Contemporary significance
When society as a whole becomes more affluent, why do crime rates continue to rise?
In emphasizing the social strain between rising aspirations and persistent structural equations, Merton points to the sense of relative deprivation among working-class as a motivator for deviant behavior.
Demonstrates that individual choices and motivations are made within the wider social context, which shapes those decisions according to place of social groups and differential opportunities available to them.

24. Subcultural Accounts
Following Merton, Cohen saw adaptive responses resulting from contradictions within society as occuring collectively through the formation of subcultures.
US studies of 1950s and 1960s
Young men from poor neighbourhoods: no opportunities to achieve, so replace mainstream values with the values of gang loyalty, aggression, toughness, delinquency.
May be particularly acute where young men initially accept mainstream values but are constantly frustrated in their attempts to realise them.

25. Redefining deviance
Durkheim thought that society needs deviance because through defining deviance we become aware of what is not deviant and learn the standards we share as members of society.
It is not necessary to eliminate deviance completely, the society needs to keep it within acceptable limits.
Erikson (1966) “Defining deviance down”
What happens when the amount of deviant behavior gets too high?

26. The society redefines deviance so as to exempt much conduct previously stigmatized and raising the “normal” level so that behavior seen as abnormal by earlier standards is no longer considered to be so.
Deinstitutionalization of mental health patients
Sexual orientation
Religious activism

27. Evaluation
Functionalist theories emphasize connections between conformity and deviance in different social contexts.
Criticized for presuming that
middle-class values have been accepted throughout the society.
A mismatch of aspirations and opportunities is confined to the less privileged.
White-collar crime is ignored

28. Interactionist theory
Deviance as a socially constructed phenomenon.
Reject the idea that there are types of conduct that are inherently deviant.
How do behaviors come to be defined as deviant?
Why certain groups and not others are labelled as deviant?

29. Labelling Theory
Deviance not as a set of characteristics of individuals or groups but as a process of interaction between deviants and non-deviants.
Deviance isn’t a property of the individual or group but the relationship between ‘deviants’ and those who define them thus.
Why some people come to be tagged with a deviant label?
In what circumstances might the following acts be seen as deviant or as normal?
Sitting at a bus shelter
Dancing in the street
Smoking marijuana
Appearing naked in public

30. Deviant acts produce deviant individuals only through the process of labelling.
People who represent the forces of law and order, or are able to impose definitions of conventional morality on others do most of the labelling.
The labels that create categories of deviance express the power structure of society.
The rules in terms of which deviance is defined are framed by the wealthy for the poor, by men for women, by older people for younger people, and by ethnic majorities for minority groups.

31. Howard Becker: Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.
Once a child is labelled a delinquent, s/he is stigmatized and likely to be considered untrustworthy.
Howard Becker: Deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.
Critical of criminological approaches that saw a clear distinction between the “normal” and the “deviant”.
Deviance is not about behavior but label.
State-defined “normal” type of sexual intercourse. (AYM)

32. Lemert (1972). Labelling does not only affect how others see an individual, but also influences the individuals sense of self-identity.
Deviance is quite commonplace and people usually get away with it (traffic violations vs small-scale theft from workplace).
Primary deviance (initial act of transgression).
Secondary deviance (individuals accept the label and see themselves as deviant).

33. The Saints and the Roughnecks (Chambliss, 1973)
The connections between macro-sociological factors like social class and micro-sociological phenomena such as how people become labelled as deviant.
Paradox of social control (learning to be deviant is accentuated by the very organizations that are set up to correct deviant behavior).
Deviancy amplification: acceptance of a label as ‘deviant’ can create further deviant behavior.

34. Evaluation
Begin with the assumption that no act is intrinsically deviant or criminal.
Critics argued that certain acts are universally and consistently prohibited across all societies, such as murder, rape and robbery.
Is killing always regarded as murder?
Marital rape?
Labelling changes over time.

35. Focusing heavily on secondary deviance, labelling theorists neglect the processes that lead people to commit acts of primary deviance.
Labelling of certain activities as deviant is not completely arbitrary
Differences in socialization, attitudes and opportunities influence how far people are likely to engage in behavior labelled as deviant.
It is not clear whether labelling actually does have the effect of increasing deviant conduct.
Delinquent behavior increases after conviction, but is it result of labelling? Other factors, such as increased interaction with other delinquents or learning about new criminal opportunities may also be involved.

36. Conflict theories
Based on elements of Marxist thought, New Criminology argues that deviance is deliberately chosen and often political in nature.
Reject the idea that deviance is determined by factors such as biology, personality, anomie, social disorganization or labelling.
Rather, people actively choose to engage in deviant behavior in response to the inequalities of the capitalist system.
Members of countercultural groups (Black Power, gay liberation) were engaging in political acts which challenged the social order.

37. The New Criminology
New Criminology frames the analysis in terms of the structure of the society and the protection of the power of the ruling class.
Marxist inspired analysis:
Laws and values are created by and in the interests of the ruling class
Working-class deviance is a form of resistance against the power of the ruling class
The working class is more closely policed than the middle classes
Fear of crime and urban unrest distract the public’s attention from the real problems of capitalism
White-collar and corporate crime often go undetected and unpunished

38. Stuart Hall (1978) Policing the Crisis
Mugging as a moral panic encouraged by the state and the media as a way of deflecting attention away from rising unemployment, declining wages and other deep structural flaws in society.
Muggers overwhelmingly portrayed as black.
Crime and deviance patterned in such a way that some social groups, such as young black and south Asian communities, were more likely to be victims of crime or seen as a social problem than others.

39. Reject the idea that laws are “neutral”, to be applied evenly across population. Laws are tools used by the powerful to maintain their own privileged positions.
As inequalities increase between the ruling class and the working class, laws become more important instruments which the powerful use to maintain order.
Ferguson, Baltimore

40. Criminal justice system – more oppressive towards working-class offenders (cocaine and crack cocaine).
Tax legislation disproportionately favors the wealthy. Law enforcement focuses on less powerful segments of the society (prostitutes, drug-users, petty thieves) rather than pursuing white-collar criminals which are more harmful to the society.
New internal security law

41. New criminology widened the debate about crime and deviance to include issues such as
Levels of harm
Social justice
Power
Politics
Crime occurs at all levels of society and should be understood in the context of inequalities and competing interests.

42. New Left / Left Realism
1980s, a new strand of criminology appeared known as “New Left” or “Left Realism” based on the ideas of new criminology.
Distanced itself from “left idealism”, which they saw as romanticizing deviance and downplaying the real problem of crime, particularly among the working-class.
Left Realism moved away from the idea that mass media created unneccesary public disquiet by exaggerating the figures, or that most crime was a disguised form of protest against inequality.
Instead, it emphasizes that crime rates are on the rise, and the public is right to be worried.

43. Accepts a class-based analysis of society and power.
Left Realists, hence, argued that criminology needs to engage more with the real issues of crime control and social policy, rather than debate them abstractly.
Accepts a class-based analysis of society and power.
Draws attention to the victims of crime.
Victim surveys give a fuller picture of crime than official statistics. They reveal that crime is a serious problem, particularly in impoverished inner-city areas.
Poorest and most disadvantaged at greater risk of crime than other social groups. Crime and victimization concentrated in marginalized neighborhoods.

44. Criminal subcultures develop where groups are marginalized or socially excluded.
Not only due to poverty, but due to political marginalization and relative deprivation (people’s experience of being deprived of things that they and everyone else is entitled to).
Remember Social Exclusion and the case of Tarlabaşı!! Processes that operate to deny some social groups full citizenship within society.
Criminalized youth groups operate at the margins of respectable society and pit themselves against it.
Rising crime rates among black youth can be attributed to the failure of racial integration policies.
Left realism advances realistic proposals for changes in policing procedures and argues for community involvement in policing to build trust.

45. Law enforcement needs to become more responsive to communities, rather than relying on military policing techniques.
Locally elected police authorities that are accountable to citizens.
Citizens more involved in setting policing priorities for their area.
Left Realism, a more pragmatic and policy-oriented approach than its predecessors.

46. Evaluation
Critics of Left Realism accept the importance of their stress on victimization, but criticize their focus on individual victims within narrow confines of the political and media-driven discussion of the crime problem.
Focus on most visible forms of criminality (street crimes) and neglect offenses carried out by the state or large corporations.
Criticized to be too much grounded in mainstream criminology with a focus on changing policies and losing the radical edge of new criminology.

47. Control Theories
Control theories posit that crime occurs as a result of imbalance between impulses toward criminal activity and the social or physical controls that deter it.
Less interested in individual motivations for carrying out crimes based on the assumption that given the opportunity, every rationally acting person would engage in deviant acts.
Crimes are result of situational decisions (a person seeing an opportunity and taking advantage of it).

48. When bonds with society are weak, delinquency and deviance may result.
Hirschi (1969) argued that humans are fundamentally selfish beings who make calculated decisions about whether or not to commit crime by weighing the potential benefits against risks.
Four types of social bonds linking individuals to society and law-abiding behavior
Attachment
Commitment
Involvement
Belief
When bonds with society are weak, delinquency and deviance may result.
Low levels of self-control are result of inadequate socialization (at home or in school).

49. Right Realism
Social context: election successes of Thatcher and Reagan, vigorous law-and-order approaches to crime in both countries (UK and US).
Deviance seen as a property of an individual (pathology) who acts selfishly, immorally and with poor self-control.
Escalation of crime due to moral degeneracy,
Decline of individual responsibility (dependence on welfare)
Liberal education
Collapse of the nuclear family and communities
Erosion of traditional values

50. Dismissive of other theoretical approaches, particularly those that link crime to poverty and class-based inequalities.
Favours:
Strong sentencing policies with use of prison as punishment and deterrence (growth of prison population)
Zero-tolerance and target-hardening policing strategies, situational crime prevention
Such techniques do not engage with underlying causes of crime (poverty, social inequalities, unN) and protect only certain segments of the population and displace delinquency into other areas.

51. Expansion of police forces in response to increasing crime
Use of exclusion orders
In response to feeling of insecurity among certain segments of population, public spaces are transformed into “security bubbles”.
Young people excluded disproportionately because they are perceived as greater threat to security.
Expansion of police forces in response to increasing crime
Does having more police translate into lower crime rates?
What is the role of the police in controlling crime?

52. Broken windows Wilson and Kelling (1982) “Broken Windows”
Any sign of social disorder in a community will encourage more serious crimes to flourish.
One unrepaired window is a sign that no one cares
Minor acts of deviance can lead to a spiral of crime and social decay.
Problem: How will the police identify what constitutes social disorder?
Wihout a systematic definition, police might see anything as a sign of disorder and anyone as a potential threat.
Increasing complaints of police abuse and harrasment, particularly by young, urban, black men (potential criminal)

53. George Zimmerman (neighborhood watch, white) shot dead Trayvon Martin (16 year-old, black male)

54. Sociological theories of crime
Emphasize continuities between criminal and ‘normal’ behavior.
The contexts in which certain acts are seen as criminal and punishable by law vary widely and are linked to issues of power and inequality within society.
Social context is important in criminal activities. Social learning and social surroundings are influential in whether someone engages in criminal act.

55. The way in which crime is understood directly affects the policies developed to combat it.
If crime is outcome of deprivation or social disorganization, policies might be aimed at reducing poverty and strengthening social services.
If seen as opportunistic and freely chosen by individuals, then countering attempts rely on changing environments.