DEVIANCE, CRIME AND SOCIAL CONTROL notes

Topic overview

 Introduction
 Social construction of crime
 Theories of crime and deviance
 Methods of social control
 Measurement of crime
 Distribution of crime

 INTRODUCTION
 Definitions
a) Crime
 It is behaviour that breaks the law and is punishable by the legal system. Such behaviour is controlled
through public sanctions enforced by agencies of social control for example police, magistrates, judiciary
etc.
 Examples of criminal acts (in Zimbabwe) include prostitution, public drinking, drug abuse, homosexuality,
public indecency, robbery, murder etc.
b) Deviance
 Deviance is behaviour which goes against the norms, norms and expectations of a social group or society.
Deviant activity is not necessarily illegal, such behaviour is controlled by use of informal sanctions through
social groups such as family, friends and peers.
c) Delinquency
 When youths engage in deviant behaviour such as drug abuse, especially if it is regular or persistent, it is
termed delinquency of juvenile delinquency.

 Types of crimes and deviance in Zimbabwe

 Corporate Crimes refer to offences committed by or on behalf of large companies and directly profit the
company rather than individuals. Slapper and Tombs suggest there is a diverse range of corporate crimes
and that it is very widespread.
 White-collar crimes include offences like bribery and corruption in government and businesses. They are
underrepresented in official statistics giving the misleading impression that most crime is committed by the
working class and that middle classes commit fewer crimes.
 State crimes – are crimes committed by the government e.g. governments break national and international
criminal law e.g. funding of terrorism, war crimes and genocide, corruption, use of torture, abuse of human
rights etc.
 Utilitarian crimes
 Street crimes

 Social construction of crime and deviance

 Both crime and deviance are socially created. This is the way something is created through the individual,
social and cultural interpretations, perceptions and actions of people.
 Crime and deviance are relative terms. There is no absolute way of defining these two terms.
 Deviance changes with time and place as norms, vales and social expectations change. Subcultures have
different norms in society, so what is deviant for one group may be conformity for another.
 Plummer (1979) said that the same act can be seen as deviant or non-deviant depending on the situation.
 Societal Deviance is acts which are seen as deviant in most situations by most members of society.
 Situational Deviance is acts which are seen as deviant depending on the circumstance.
 Becker (labelling theory) argues that there is no such thing as deviance except in the mind of the observer.
Becker gives an example of nudity: being nude on the beach is regarded as normal. However, the same act
is regarded as deviance when performed in the CBD, for instance.
 Deviance, like beauty, lies in the eyes of the beholder.

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 While the behaviour of some people may be defined as deviance, others experience no such labelling.
 Homosexuality and women smoking may be regarded as normal in western societies. The same actions are
regarded as criminal and deviant respectively in the Zimbabwean society.
 Deviance varies in terms of time (e.g. the war veterans of today were once called terrorists); context (for
example, homosexuality is a crime in Zimbabwe and not in South Africa) and the person who is committing
the deviant act (for example, sex by young unmarried adults and sex by married couples).

 THEORIES OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE

*Consider spiritual, psychological, biological as well as sociological explanations/theories!
 There are various theories that seek to explain what causes a person to perform a deviant behaviour and
these include psychological, biological and sociological theories.

 SPIRITUAL /RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS OF DEVIANCE

 The belief is found in both African Traditional Religion and Christianity where deviance is said to be caused
by evil spirits. Both the cause and the cure are said to be found in the supernatural. The world is viewed as
a battleground between two opposing forces (evil and good) that compete to control the world including the
minds, behaviour and lives of people.
Solution
 The solution is that one must consult diviners or church pastors.

 PATHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO DEVIANCE

 The approach is twofold; the physiological and the psychological. Both view deviance as an illness.
A. Biological theory
 Criminals are genetically different.
 Lombroso, an Italian doctor (1876), devoted considerable attention comparing anatomical features of
criminals and non-criminals i.e. manifestation of biological factors on facial expressions e.g. long jaws, extra
nipple or toe, etc.
 Chromosomal abnormalities - British criminologists (1960) argued that crime resulted from chromosome
abnormality. Normal individuals have XX for women and XY for men. There are instances where in men there
is an extra y and this is what leads to an inclination towards deviant behaviour.
 Moir and Jessel (1995) argued that hormonal and chemical imbalances make individuals more likely to be
criminal. They say these chemical imbalances affect men more than women and that is why statistics show
men commit more crime e.g. the influence of androgen (hormone) in males which is believed is behind
aggressive behaviour.
 Body type – Sheldon and Glueck associate deviance with a body type called a mesomorph. This is an athletic,
aggressive, boisterous and tense individual and therefore prone to criminal tendencies.

Evidence of the influence of biological factors:

 Lobotomy studies – removing a brain part believed to be responsible for causing criminality.
 Castration of sex offender’s e.g. serial rapists.

Critic:

 It tends to ignore social and psychological factors responsible for criminality.

B. Psychological theories

 Criminals are mentally different. Deviance is either caused by psychologically inherited personality or
incomplete socialisation.
 Eysenck (1964) concluded that individuals who commit crime have inherited psychological characteristics
which predispose them to crime.
 Early socialisation resulting in individuals becoming ‘psychopath’- a person suffering from chronic mental
disorder with abnormal or violent social behaviour.
 Eysenck (1970) argues that people who are extroverts are likely to commit crimes because they like
excitements, talking risks and chances that are impulsive.

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 Bowlby (1946) argues that children who do not experience emotional support from their mother will suffer
from maternal deprivation. They will also develop a psychopathic personality (acting impulsively without
regard for consequences of their actions and without any sense of guilt).

Evidence of the influence of psychological factors:

 Rehabilitation centres e.g. ZIMCARE
 Psychiatric units e.g. Harare psychiatric unit

Critique of pathological approaches

 To use physical appearance is biased because children from the working class are more likely to have
characteristics of mesomorphs. This results from the environment in which they grow up (involvement in
manual labour makes them physically fit).
 Those who make the laws usually have a bias towards those in lower strata therefore the working class
people are likely to be thieves because of their economic conditions.
 Psychological theories ignore cultural and social factors that affect individuals in adult life. Individuals
are not captives of their childhood experiences but are capable of changing.

 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIES

With reference to Zimbabwe, show how sociologists explain criminality.

 Functionalist perspective
 It seems strange that some functionalists should argue that deviance is a necessary part of all societies, and
that it performs positive functions for social systems. After all, deviance breaks social norms and values,
hence one would expect that deviance is a threat to order.
a) Functions of deviance:
i) Crime as inevitable (Durkheim, 1938)
 Crime is ‘an integral part of all healthy societies’. It is inevitable because not all members of society can be
equally committed to the collective sentiments – the shared values and moral beliefs – of society.
 Durkheim imagined a ‘society of saints’ populated by perfect individuals. In such a society there might be no
murder or robbery, but there would still be deviance. The general standards of behaviour would be so high
that the slightest slip would be regarded as a serious offence.
ii) Crime as functional (Durkheim, 1938)
 It only becomes dysfunctional when the rate is unusually high or low.
 All social change begins with some of deviance. Since a certain amount of change is healthy for society, so is
deviance.
 If crime is inevitable, what is the function of punishment? Its function is not to remove crime in society but
to maintain the collective sentiments at their necessary level of strength.
b) Functions of crime (Cohen, 1966)

i) Deviance as a ‘safety valve’ e.g. Functions of prostitution

 It is a safety valve; it provides a relatively harmless way of expressing discontent and in the process
protecting the marriage.
ii) It is also viewed as a warning device - a sign that some aspects of society are ineffective and draws
the attention of decision makers and policymakers that something should be done.
Deviance is therefore not the disease but only a symptom. What we should be worried about is not the
deviant behaviour but the causes of such behaviour.

c) Social structure and anomie (Strain theory – Functionalist Merton, 1968)

 Merton argued that functionalists needed to pay attention to things that were dysfunctional for society.
 Deviance result from the culture and structure of society. All members of society share the same values –
value consensus. However, since members of society are placed in different positions in the social structure,
e.g. in terms of social class), they do not have the same opportunity of realising the shared values. This
situation can create deviance.

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 Cultural goals and institutionalised means: in all societies there are institutionalised means of reaching
culturally defined goals. In Zimbabwe the accepted ways of achieving success are through educational
qualifications, talent, hard work, drive and determination.
 However, some people put much emphasis on success, and relatively little importance is given to accepted
ways of achieving success i.e. there is a tendency to reject the rules of the game’ and strive for success by
any means available – anomie, a situation of normlessness where rules cease to operate.

Responses to cultural goals:

 Conformity – accept both goals and means of achieving them.
 Members of society conform both to success goals and to the normative means of reaching them.
 In the following ways members rejects normative means of achieving success and turn to deviant means:
 Innovative – adopt non-conventional and illegal means of achieving success engaging in criminal actions.
 Ritualism – people lose sight of their goals, but plod in meaningless jobs, working hard but never really thinking
about what they are trying to achieve.
 Retreatism – drop out of conventional society, reject both the means and goals e.g. drug addicts, suicides,
vagrants etc.
 Rebellion – rebel and seek to replace the shared goals with alternative, often opposing goals and vales e.g.
terrorism.

Evaluation of Merton:

 Not clear that all members share the goal of material success.
 Fails to account for white collar and corporate crimes which are committed by those who have achieved
material success.
 Fails to account for violent crimes or gang crimes e.g. juvenile delinquency. Instead it explains utilitarian
crime i.e. crime which result in financial or material benefit.
 Does not explain why an individual chooses on particular form of deviant adaptation rather than another.

 Inadequate socialisation – West

- Working class criminality is due to inadequate socialisation or poor parenting.
- For example, in his study of 411 working class boys, 20% became delinquent – these mainly come from broken
families (single parent families) or from families in which fathers were unemployed or on low incomes.

 Subcultural theories of deviance

 Subcultural theories explain deviance in terms of the subculture of a social group. They argue that certain
groups develop norms and values which are to some extent different from those held by other members of
society. For example, some groups of criminals or delinquents might develop norms that encourage and reward
criminal activity. Other members of society may regard such activity as immoral, and strongly disapprove of
them.
 Members of subculture are not completely different from other member of society, however their
subculture is sufficiently different from the culture of society as a whole to lead those committing acts that
are generally regarded as deviant.
a) The Delinquent subculture – Cohen
Adapts Merton’s’ theory to explain collectivist or gang crime committed by juvenile delinquents (working class
boys). Reasons include:
 Inadequate socialisation. Parents fail to equip them with the right skills required for success in education,
hence they underachieve.
 Schools therefore deny them status, yet society stresses importance of acquiring status.
 In frustration they form anti-school subcultures (counter cultures) which turn the value system of the school
upside down and award status for deviant activities.

Evaluation:
 Sociologists have questioned the view that working class boys are interested in achieving status from
teachers e.g. boys in Willis study wanted factory jobs
 Fails to acknowledge that most working class boys generally conform at school and in society even when they
leave education.

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 Feminists argue that Cohen ignores working class girls and assumes that delinquency is a male problem.

b) Delinquency and opportunity – Cloward and Ohlin

 Like Cohen and Merton, Cloward and Ohlin also explain deviance in terms of the social structure of society.
 Because of their lower position in the class structure of society, working class people face greater pressures
to deviate in order to achieve economic success.
 In addition to the legitimate opportunity structure of society of education and work, there also exists an
illegitimate opportunity structure – how well a criminal gets on in the criminal world depends on the type of
criminal opportunities that are available to them in their area.

Three types of illegitimate opportunities which produce three different types of subcultures:
 Criminal subcultures – emerge in areas where people are exposed to an established pattern of
illegitimate opportunity e.g. organised crime.
 Gangs or conflict subcultures – in areas which lack access to organised crime hierarchies some young
people may turn to gangs or conflict subcultures, which engage in highly masculined territorial or respect
driven violence.
 Retreatist subcultures – if young people fail to gain access to either the criminal or conflict
subcultures, they may form retreatist subcultures in which drug use and property crime are the major
activities.

 The Underclass and crime – Murray

 The underclass is a distinct group that exists in the inner city and on council estates which subscribe to a
“way of life” / culture made up of deviant norms and values e.g. being work shy, welfare dependant, engaging
in criminality.
 New right sociologists argue that this value system differs significantly from the mainstream working class,
for this group to constitute a “separate and distinct social grouping”.
 This underclass is reproduced generation by generation as parents socialise their children into this culture.
 Structural obstacles beyond the control of individuals are responsible for their poverty and encourages
fatalism and dependency e.g. groups such as ethnic minorities may be denied access to jobs and decent
housing because of racism, single mothers may find it impossible to return to work because of lack of free
child care.

 Interactionist approaches/labelling theory

 Labelling theory offers a processual explanation of deviance i.e. concentrate on the social psychology of
deviance, the conditions that bring about deviant acts in individuals and small groups.
 Focuses on the consequences of deviants interactions with conventional society, particularly with official
agents of social control.
 It devotes little effort to explain why individuals begin to engage in deviance. Rather it stresses the
importance of the process through which society defines acts as deviant and the role of negative social
sanctions in influencing individuals to engage in subsequent deviant acts.
 For example, Becker examined how dance musicians became deviant marijuana users. Cannabis started as a
recreational activity and they were labelled as ‘deviant’ by onlookers. The police arrested them in the process
and the deviant status became the ‘master status’. The musicians were pushed out of mainstream society and
then embark on a ‘deviant career’ which ends when they join a deviant subculture, leading to further deviance.
 Four key concepts associated with interactionist theories of deviance:

 Crime is socially constructed – an act which harms an individual becomes criminal if those in power
label that act as criminal. As Becker (1963) puts it, ‘deviance is not a quality of the act a person commits,
but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender”. Deviant
behaviour is behaviour that people so label. He gives the example of a fight involving young people: in a
working class neighbourhood this may be defined as delinquency by the police but in a wealthy
neighbourhood it is simply defined as ‘youthful spirit’.
 Not everyone who is deviant gets labelled as such – negative labels are generally given to the powerless
by the powerful e.g. white collar crimes are less publicised in Zimbabwe

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 Labelling has real consequences – it can lead to deviance amplification, the self-fulfilling prophecy and
deviant careers. This can be traced on how Chidumo and Masendeke had to live a life of deviance fro they
were always seen as the worst criminals in the history of Zimbabwe.
 Labelling theory has a clear ‘value position’ – it should aim to promote policies that prevent labelling
minor acts as deviant. Labelling theory believes that deviance is made worse by labelling and punishment by
the authorities
a) Labelling theory (Becker)
 There is no such thing as a deviant act – an act only becomes deviant when there is societal reaction to it.
 A label is a master status in the sense that it colours all the other statuses possessed by an individual. If
individuals are labelled s criminal, mentally ill or sexually deviant such labels largely override their status as
parent, neighbourhood and friend.
 Since individuals’ self-concepts are largely derived from the responses of others they will tend to see
themselves in terms of the label. This may produce a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby ‘the deviant
identification becomes the controlling one.’
 Becker argues that ‘deviance is created by society’.

b) Societal reaction as the ‘cause’ of deviance (Lemert, 1972)

 Primary deviation (initial deviant acts) – consists of deviant acts before they are publicly labelled.
 Secondary deviation – the response of the individual or group to societal reaction.

c) Institutions and mortification (Goffman)

 Institutions such as rehabilitation centres and prisons degrade people.

 Goffman’s study of the treatment of mental patients in institutions illustrates the idea of secondary
deviance. He shows how deviance can actually be created by the societal reaction to it.
 He found that when inmates arrived, pressure was placed on them to accept the institutions definition of
them as ‘mentally ill’. Their individuality was in turn striped away from them through what Goffman calls
a mortification process:
i) Their clothes are removed and possessions taken away.
ii) They are issued a ‘new identity’ in the form of regulation clothes.
iii) Every day is strictly controlled with a compulsory set of activities.
iv) Little freedom of movement is granted.
v) Their actions are continuously watched and assessed.
The effects of all this leave inmates unprepared for life in the outside world. This is because:
 Some accepted the institutions definitions of them as helpless deviants.
 Others were unable to function at all in the outside world.
 The label ‘ex-mental patient’ makes re-entry into society very difficult.

Critic of interactionist theories on crime

 It tends to be deterministic – not everyone accepts their labels

 It assumes offenders are just passive – it does not recognise the role of personal choice in committing crime
 It gives the offender a ‘victim status’ – Realists argue that this perspectives ignores the actual victims of
crime
 It tends to emphasise the negative sides of labelling rather than the positive.
 It fails to explain why acts of primary deviance exist, focusing mainly on secondary deviance.

 Ecological theories (Shaw and McKay)

 Blame the type of community in which people live.
 The Environmental Approach to crime was first developed at a Chicago University. Shaw and McKay argued
that cities like Chicago were divided into a series of concentric circles or zones radiating outwards from
the centre, with each zone having particular social and cultural neighbourhood characteristics.
 One zone they identified is the ‘zone of transition’ which lay just outside the central business zone and
had the highest levels of crime. The zone of transition is a run-down area with poor and deteriorating
housing where the poorest people live with a high turnover of population. For example, high density Mbare
suburb in Harare.

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 The ‘zonal hypothesis’ gave rise to three related concepts, which were used to explain crime and deviance:
i) Social Disorganisation – high rates of population turnover which prevents the formation of a stable
community. They are characterised by weak social ties and lack of social control. The constant movement of
people in and out of the area (population turnover) prevent the formation of stable communities and sense
of social control, producing a state of social disorganisation i.e. a little sense of community. Also in areas of
social disorganisation, different delinquent values develop (a subculture of delinquent) in which young males
learn criminal behaviour like drug abuse, violent, theft from cars etc.
ii) Cultural
Transmission – where in areas of social disorganisation different delinquent values develop. The children
living in these communities, and the young boys, learn from the older boys and criminal traditions are
established and accepted in the area.
iii) Differenti
al Association – developed by Sutherland who suggested that people’s behaviour is conditioned by
reference to the behaviour of others around them.
 Rural Communities generally lack the social disorganisation found in ‘zones o transition’. Inhabitants change
address less frequently than urban-dwellers and Marshall and Johnson point out that rural areas are more
‘close-knit’, with higher levels of social interaction between people in the area. People are more likely to
know other members of the community, with community bonds being stronger which could contribute to
lower crime rates.

Critic of the theory:

 Tautological - it is unclear whether high crime rates are a result of social disorganisation or are a factor
contributing to it.
 It fails to explain why the majority of people living in urban areas choose not to commit crime.
 People have free will and are not easily influenced by those around them.
 Crime may actually be due to over policing of some areas.

 Marxist approaches

o Traditional Marxism (Gordon)

 Working class crime is an inevitable product of capitalism and the inequality it generates.
 Inequalities in wealth and income create poverty and homelessness for the working class.
 Crime is therefore a rational response to these problems.
 Capitalism encourages crimogenic values e.g. greed and materialism, which are conducive to all classes
committing crime.
 Such values promote non-economic crimes e.g. violence, rape, child abuse, vandalism etc.

o White collar and corporate crime (Croall, 2001)

 Marxist sociologists argue that more attention needs to be paid by law enforcement agencies to white collar
and corporate crime. Its financial costs to society far exceed that of conventional working class crime.
 White collar crime – crime committed by a person of ‘respectability and high social status’ in the course of
their jobs e.g. fraud, accounting offenses, tax evasion, computer crime etc. (Sutherland).
 Corporate crime – crimes committed by companies by failing to comply with standards of health, safety or
quality laid down by law e.g. financial frauds, crimes against consumers and employees..

o Left realism (Young and Lea)

 The causes of crime for left realists are:
i) Relative Deprivation – is not being able to obtain the items which others have. Deprivation underlies much
crime and efforts must be made to improve working-class conditions.
ii) Marginalisation – refers to the frustration at the inability to solve problems through political
channels, leading to an increasing sense of hostility.
iii) Subculture – are formed out of a sense of frustration, the lifestyle chosen by some working-class
people to solve their problems of living in a capitalist society, which often leads to antagonism against the
police and authority generally. The existence of subcultures may offer illegitimate opportunities.

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Hughes (1991) says that left realists haven’t explained why some people who experience relative deprivation
see crime as a solution and others don’t. He argues that there would be a lot more crime if relative
deprivation was the main cause.

o New criminology – Neo Marxism (Taylor, Walton and Young)

 Working class people choose to commit crime because of their experience of the injustices of capitalism.
 Therefore working class crime is political - a deliberate and conscious reaction to working class people
interpreting their position at the bottom of the socio-economic hierarchy as unfair and exploitative.
 For example, crimes against property such as theft and burglary are aimed at the redistribution of wealth.

Evaluation:
 Ideas are overly romantic. They fail to explain why most victims of crime are working class or in what way
violent crimes are political.

 Feminist approaches
 Women are actually treated harshly than men especially if they do not fit the ‘feminine stereotype’ of how
a woman should behave or look.
 For example, women who are interpreted as sexually promiscuous are more likely to be given prison terms
(Heidensohn – Feminist theorist).

 METHODS OF SOCIAL CONTROL

Examine the role of formal and informal social control in controlling individuals’ behaviour

 Give a brief definition of each type of social control, noting that social control is exercised over both criminal
and non-criminal forms of deviant behaviour.
 Give some examples of each type e.g. imprisonment or fines or ‘grounded’ by parents.
 Examine some of the different social institutions that exercise social control such as education, the family,
police and prisons.
 Consider different sociological perspectives on the question of social control such as functionalist and
Marxist views as well as ‘late modern approaches’ such as those of Foucault or Stan Cohen.

 Social Control refers to the various methods used to persuade individuals to conform to the dominant
social norms and values of society. It is carried out by ‘Informal’ and Formal’ Agents of social control.
 Informal agents include family, media, peer group, education and religion. Formal agents include police, laws,
army, and courts.
 Social Order along with social control maintains the status quo and creates a value consensus of how to
behave. Sociologists are interested in the Social Causes of crime and deviance and look at them as a Social
Phenomenon.
 Deviance is inextricably linked to the concept of social control. According to Durkheim it is inevitable that a
society has some of boundaries to behaviour that is acceptable.
 Individuals and social control
‘Why do not people commit crime? Criminal activity occurs when people’s attachment to society is weakened in
some way (Hirshi, 1969). This attachment depends upon the strength of the ‘social bonds’ that hold people
to society. According to Hirshi there are four crucial bonds that bind us together:
a) Attachment – to what extent do we care about other people’s opinions and wishes?
b) Commitment – this refers to the personal investments that each of us makes in our lives. What have
we got to lose if we commit crime?
c) Involvement – how busy are we? Is there time and space for law-breaking and deviant behaviour?
d) Belief – how strong is a person’s sense that they should obey the rules of society?

Increasing attachment to society by improving the factors above will lower the level of crime.

a) Informal social control

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 It is more indirect and is manifested in the social interaction in which we engage in every day. Sociologists
have argued that the family, the peer group, the local community and schools are all key institutions in
providing the basis for informal social control.

 The family and social control

 Farrington and West (1990) research demonstrated that there are consistent correlations between family
traits and offending. In particular offenders were more likely to come from homes with poor parenting -
especially when the fathers themselves had criminal convictions, poor and single parent families. Failure
within the family to provide adequate socialisation and informal social control can lead to crime.
 The community and social control (Murray, 1990)
 The family exists within a particular community. Farrington and Wests research not only pointed to the
importance of the family, but also to the social network in which the family is located.
 The close relationship between family, community and offending was taken up by Murray’s underclass theory
where young people
i) Have no desire for formal paid employment, preferring to live off benefits and the illegal economy.
ii) Have a range of short term sexual liaisons
iii) Routinely have children born outside relationships
- The children of these children are brought up with little or no concern for the values of the society in
general.

 Formal social control

 It is that which is practised by specific social agencies which have the role of maintain order in society e.g.
the criminal justice system consisting of police forces, the judiciary, and the probation and prison officers.
 Functionalist perspective
 See the criminal justice system as operating to look after the interest of society as a whole.
 Without control and punishment, society would collapse into a state of anomie.
 According to Durkheim, societies could only exist if the members share certain common values (the collective
conscience). However, many other values exist too that have rather less general acceptance
 Thus a system of law exists to mark an unambiguous boundary line, identifying actions that transgress the
boundary of acceptance into behaviour generally regarded as so deviant as to be illegal.
 For Durkheim, the type of punishment provided by the formal system of control reflect the type of society:
i) Less complex, mechanistic societies – punishment is based on retribution e.g. savage penalties imposed on the
wrongdoer, punishment is both public and physical so people are executed, mutilated and branded.
ii) More complex, organic societies – punishment shifts from public punishment to imprisonment i.e.
restitutive law.

 Marxists perspective
 Criminal justice system operates solely for the benefit of the ruling class. That is, controlling the working
class and ensuring that any opposition to capitalism is quashed, ignoring possibly more harmful acts performed
by the ruling class.
 Forms of punishment also reflect their interests e.g. slavery was an early form of punishment because of the
need for manual labour. With the arrival of capitalism, the prisons served the useful purposes of training
workers in the disciplines of long hours of meaningless work etc.

 MEASUREMENT OF CRIME

 Questions
 Assess the usefulness of victim surveys and self-report studies in explaining the nature of crime statistics.
 Official statistics on crime are not reliable. Do you agree?

 Methods of measuring crime in Zimbabwe

 Sociologists use three ways to understand why people commit crime, who commits crime and what sort of
crimes are committed.

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  The three methods of collecting information are police recorded statistics, victim surveys and self-report
studies. Each method has a number of weaknesses.

A. Police recorded statistics (official crime statistics)

 OCS are drawn from the records kept by the police and other official agencies and are published by the
Home Office.

Strengths

 Provides an excellent historical overview of changing trends over time since they are collected over
a relatively long time.
 They also give a completely accurate view of the way that the criminal justice system processes
offenders through arrests, trials, punishments etc.

Weaknesses

Police recorded statistics are social constructions. They cannot be simply taken at their face value because:

 Non reporting of crimes

 They only show crimes that are reported to and recorded by the police. A lot of hidden issues are uncovered
when victim and self-reported studies are carried out. There is a “dark figure” of unrecorded crimes.
 A high proportion of ‘crimes’ are not reported to the police at all. Reasons for non-reporting of crimes:
a) Individuals may regard the ‘crime’ as
 a private matter between friends and family;
 too embarrassing e.g. male rape etc. ; or
 Too trivial to bother the police with.
b) People may not be aware that a crime has been committed e.g. fraud.
c) The victim may be relatively powerless e.g. child abuse;
d) The victim may feel that the offence may not be taken seriously or fear humiliation at the hands of
the police e.g. rape.
e) The victim may distrust the police e.g. ethnic minorities.
f) They may fear reprisals.

 Unrecorded crimes (Non recording of crimes by the police.)

 At times people actively report crimes to the police but every year a high proportion of crimes fail to
appear in the official statistics.
 Not all crimes that take place are recorded by the police. For a crime to be recorded at least three things
must happen:
i. Somebody has to be aware that a crime has taken place.
ii. The crime must be reported.
iii) The police or another agency must accept that a law has been broken.
 Some crimes, like tax evasion, do not have an obvious victim and it is crime like these that are least likely
to be reported.

 Bias in OCS
 Self-report studies indicate that there may be police bias against working class delinquents.
Chambliss’s (1973) study of two American gangs provides support for this view:
ii) The working class – ‘roughnecks’ – were viewed with suspicion and each was arrested at least once.
iii) The middle class – ‘saints’ – were never arrested, although they carried out more serious delinquent
acts.
 Thus, he concluded that the police do not view middle class delinquency seriously as such activities are
often dismissed as ‘harmless pranks’!

 The role of the police

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 The police filter the information supplied to them by the public according to factors such as:
i) Seriousness – some offences are regarded as too trivial.
ii) Social status – the police may view the social status of the person reporting the matter as not high
enough to regard the issue as worth pursuing.
iii) Classifying – the police officer determines the category and seriousness of crime e.g. from assault
to aggravated assault.
iv) Discretion – chances of being arrested for an offence increase markedly depending upon the
‘demeanour’ of the person being challenged by a police officer i.e. their appearance, attitude and manner.
For example, Anderson etal (1994) show that youths who cooperate and are polite to police officers are
less likely to be arrested than those regarded as disrespectful.
v) Promotion – arrests reflect a balance between comradeship and a desire for promotion.

 The role of the courts

 Official statistics of crimes committed and published also reflect the decisions and sentences of the
courts.

 The role of the government

 What is considered to be a crime changes over time. Any exploration of crime over a period is therefore
fraught with difficulty, because any rise of fall in the levels of crime may reflect changes in the law as
much as actual changes in crime.

 Underestimation of white collar crimes

 There is evidence that offences committed by adults of high social status are less likely to lead to arrests
and conviction than those committed by adults of low social status.
 Sutherland was the first sociologist to study what has come to be known as ‘white collar crime’ – crimes
committed by persons of high social status and respectability in the course of their occupations.
 Examples include:
i) Kleptocracy - where ‘the theft of public resources by a ruling elite appears to be the ruling principle of the
state…’
ii) State crime – involving states themselves or their leaders committing acts against international laws or
violating human rights (such acts may not be against national law and are unlikely to lead to prosecution within
that country while the regime that committed the offences remain in power,
iii) Fraud and;
iv) Financial crime.
 While it may be difficult to quantify the extent of white collar and corporate crime, there is evidence that
it may be widespread and that its costs may be very high.
Nelken (2002) criticised Sutherland on the following grounds:
a) People of high social status may also commit crimes outside of their occupations.
b) Some crimes may be the responsibility of organisations or corporations – often called ‘corporate crimes
– rather than committed by individuals.
c) The phrase ‘persons of high social statuses is ambiguous as it does not give a clear definition of ‘high
social status.’

 Activities of law enforcement agencies

Marxists blame the law enforcement agencies for affecting OCS through:
 Selective policing
 Over policing
 Acceptance of bribes
 Harassing of people who report incidences of crimes they witnessed.

 Underestimation of corporate crime:

Croall argues that a number of factors combine to reduce the apparent extent and seriousness of white collar
and corporate crime:

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 It is difficult to detect – many white collar crimes are ‘crimes without victims.’
 In cases of robbery and corruption, parties involved may see themselves as gaining from the arrangement,
both are liable to prosecution and therefore neither is likely to report the offence.
 In cases where the victim is the public at large (such as misrepresentation in advertising), few members of
the public have the expertise to that they are being misled, or knowledge of the legal procedure to redress
the wrong.
 White collar crimes, if detected, are rarely prosecuted. With their massive resources and skilled lawyers,
the companies involved use delaying tactics to such effect that every other case is settled out of court.
 In the case of professionals, their own associations usually deal with misconduct and prosecution is rare.
 The sociological study of white collar crime provides some support for the view that there is one law for the
rich and another for the poor. Sutherland argues there is a consistent bias ‘involved in the administration of
criminal justice under laws which apply to business and the professions and which therefore involve only the
upper socio economic group.’
 Such crimes also tend to be morally ambiguous e.g. many people do not see crimes such as tax evasion as
wrong in the same way that smuggling is seen as wrong.

White collar crime therefore is not socially constructed as crime and not seen by the general public as a
problem despite the fact that its costs far exceed that of conventional working class crime.

 As a result OCS portray crime as predominantly working class behaviour.

 State crimes
 Cohen (2001) argues crime statistics should also include ones committed by the state. E.g. abuse of human
rights.
 State crimes are often covered up and rarely result in prosecution because the state has the power to
decide what offences are prosecuted.
 Marxist explanation; state crime is not recorded as the law is made by the bourgeois state to keep them
in power. Thus, it will only criminalise the deviance of the proletariat.
 Weberian Explanation; state has the legitimacy to use force and may justify it in order to protect public
interest. E.g. Anti-Terrorism legislation or murder of Bin Laden. However, what constitutes public interest
varies. E.g. Invasion of Iraq.

 Perspectives on the usefulness of criminal statistics (OCS)

a) Positivist perspective
 Rely on the uncritical acceptance of the accuracy of OCS.

b) Interpretivist perspective
 The labelling view rejects the accuracy of OCS as it is socially constructed.

c) Marxist perspective
 Believe that law and its enforcement reflects the interests of the ruling class.
 Crimes of the poor are strictly enforced and the immoral activities of the rich are either ignored or not
defined as criminal.
 OCS reflect these inequalities and scapegoating.

d) Feminist perspective
 Believe that crime statistics do not reflect the amount of crime against women e.g. sexual attacks and
domestic violence.
 These often occur in a domestic setting where the police are reluctant to get involved
 Many women also do not feel they can report these offences.

e) Left realist perspective

 Accept that crime is a genuine problem especially for the poor groups in society.
 Crime statistics cannot be simply rejected as inaccurate

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 Left realists favour detailed victim surveys in local areas as they can reveal the basis for many people’s
genuine fear of crime.

B. Victim surveys
 A sample of the population, either locally or nationally, is asked which offences have been committed against
them over a certain period of time.
 Victims are asked about whether they have been victimised in the previous 12 months using questionnaires.
They are also asked about whether crimes have been reported to the police.
 Those who claim to be victims are asked to give an open ended description of the incident, so that it can be
coded by the researchers into the appropriate category of crime, or discounted if the incident is found not
be criminal.
Strengths
 Overcomes the fact that a significant proportion of offences are never recoded by the police.
 It gives a picture of the extent and patterns of victimisation – something completely missing from official
accounts.

Weaknesses

 Victims’ memories are often faulty or biased

 The categorisation of the crimes is left to the victim, leading to considerable inaccuracy in the categories.
 Victim surveys omit a range of crimes e.g. fraud and corporate crimes.
 Victims tend to underreport sexual offences, despite victim surveys being anonymous.
 Victims may not be aware that they are victims of crimes. The media play a role in sensitising the public
towards crime worth reporting. For example, the change in portrayal of domestic violence from a family
matter to being a criminal activity.

C. Self-report studies
 A survey in which a selected group or cross section of the population are asked what offences they have
committed.
Strengths
 Reveal much about the kind of offenders who are not caught or processed by the police
 It is possible to find out the ages, gender, social class and location of the ‘hidden offenders’.
 The most useful way to find out about victimless crimes such as illegal drug use.

Weaknesses

 Problem of validity – respondents may lie or exaggerate

 Problem of representativeness – most self-report studies surveys are on young people and students. No
surveys on professional criminals such as drug traffickers.
 Problem of relevance – because of the problem of representativeness, most crimes uncovered tend to be
trivial.

Nevertheless, self-report studies have been widely used.

 DISTRIBUTION OF CRIME

Assess the view that crime is an activity largely undertaken by young working class males.

 Crime rate is not evenly distributed across the population. There are variations in crime rates between
different social groups. OCS suggest that young working class males are more prone to crime than the elderly,
females and middle class people.
 To obtain higher marks on social distribution, familiarise yourself with:
a) The limitations and strengths of OCS.

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b) Theories of crime and deviance.

GENDER AND PATTERNS OF CRIME

 85% - 90% of offenders are male; male crimes generally outnumber female crimes by 5 to 1 – according to
OCS.
 Types of offences: men dominate all offences (robbery, murder, rape, fraud, etc.); for females it is likely to
be shoplifting.
 Official figures such as these have raised three main questions about gender and crime:
i) Do women really commit fewer crimes than men, or are the figures misleading?
Some sociologists have suggested that women’s offences are consistently under recorded by the authorities.
Although women continue to commit comparatively few crimes, some people have suggested that the
proportion of crimes committed by women has been increasing.
ii) If women are becoming more criminal, how can this be explained?
iii) Why do those women who do break the law commit crimes?

 Reasons why females commit less crimes:

 Different socialisation (feminists – Smart and Oakley)
‘Masculine’ values are potentially criminal values because they revolve around risk taking behaviour, toughness,
aggression etc. the ‘crisis in masculinity’ is linked to rising male violence (Mac En Ghaill). Femininity, on the
other hand, involves values that may be passive and potentially less criminal.
 Women experience less opportunities to commit crime (feminists) – constrained by the mother-
housewife role.
 Gender bias and criminal justice (the ‘masked’ female offender) – Pollak (1950) – OCS seriously
underestimate the extent of female criminality.
 Most crimes committed by women go unreported
 Most crimes are unlikely to come to the attention of authority’s e.g. shoplifting, abortion etc.
 Female domestic servants commit may unreported crimes.
 Leniency towards female offenders – i.e. ‘chivalry thesis’ which claims that women are let off relatively lightly
by the predominantly male police, judges, magistrates, in the criminal justice system - evidenced by self-
report studies.
 Criminality, sex and the law – in theory the majority of laws are sex blind. However, there are few
laws that only apply to members of one sex e.g. in Britain only men can be convicted of rape or offences of
homosexuality. On the other hand only women can be convicted of infanticide or soliciting as prostitutes.
 Women and social control – Heidensohn (1985).
Like Carlen, she uses the control theory to explain why women commit less crimes than men:
a) Control of women at home – being a housewife directly restricts women by limiting their opportunities
for criminality. ‘Domesticity’ is seen as a ‘form of detention’.
b) Control of women in public – in public women are controlled by the male use of male force and violence,
by the idea of holding on to a ‘good’ reputation, and by the ‘ideology of separate spheres’.
c) Control of women at work – at work women are usually controlled by male superiors in the hierarchy,
and workers’ own organisations are also dominated by men. Women may be intimidated by various forms of
sexual harassment that discourage female employees from asserting themselves or feeing at home at work.

 Explanations for female crime:

 Women, crime and Poverty (Carlen, 1988):
 Especially among young single mothers (prostitution) and working class women. Carlen adopts control theory
as her theoretical approach arguing that humans are neither naturally wicked nor prone to crime, nor are
they naturally virtuous and prone to conformity. Instead, humans are essentially rational and will turn to
crime when the advantages seem to outweigh the disadvantages and are more appealing.
 Compensate for peer group status, due to low skilled, tedious, low paid jobs.
 Physiological causes – Lombroso compared anatomical features of female criminals and non-criminals
e.g. the brains and skulls, even the size of thighs of prostitutes and ‘normal’ women!!
 Female crime and women’s liberation – Adler (1975) suggests that women’s liberation, not biology, was
resulting in increasing levels of female criminality and creating new and more serious types of female criminal

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 i.e. changes in society have led to changes in behaviour e.g. females indulge in traditionally male dominated
crimes such as robbery and embezzlement.

ETHNICITY AND ‘RACE’ AND PATTERNS OF CRIME

 The issue of race and crime:

 In the 1990s the relationship between racism ethnicity and victimisation became a new of attention in
response to the murder of the African Caribbean teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 by a gang of white
youths having first shouted racist abuse at him.
 An inquiry was set up into the incident – the Macpherson inquiry (Macpherson, 1999) – which found serious
failings in the police and accused the metropolitan police of ‘institutional racism’.
 The report raised issues about the way the police dealt with racially motivated attacks.

 The ‘myth of black criminality’

 Gilroy (1983) argued that black criminality is a myth. He rejected the view that black criminals belong to an
alien culture or that minority ethnic groups are poorly socialised and therefore become criminals. Instead,
he sees minority ethnic groups as defending themselves against a society which treats them unjustly.

Ethnic minority men and women are likely to be in prison than ethnic majorities. Reasons include:
 Racist stereotyping by police officers.
 Resorting to illegal means because material goals are blocked. Innovation or crime is their response
(Cashmore, using Mertonian approach).
 Crime is a form of organised resistance to imperial white oppression (Gilroy, a neo Marxist).
 Ethnic minorities are part of an underclass that subscribe to antisocial attitudes and values (Murray).
 Relative deprivation (Left realists, Young and Lea) – their opportunities for jobs, housing, education,
resources etc. are more likely to be blocked because of institutional racism. They feel marginalised and react
by coming together in subcultures e.g. crime may be a subcultural response.

 Evidence of racism in the criminal justice system

 Policing and stops and searches (Philips and Bowling, 2002): the criminalisation of minority ethnic
groups starts with ‘the over policing of neighbourhoods where ethnic minorities are heavily concentrated’.
Black people are five times more likely than whites to be stopped and searched
 Arrests
 Prosecuting and sentencing

However, some ethnic minorities’ crime rate is low.

AGE AND PATTERNS OF CRIME

 Peak age for known offenders is around 18 years.
 Types of offences: OCS indicate that burglary, drug abuse, robbery, violence and criminal damage (juvenile
delinquency) are likely to be juvenile rather than adult offences.

Studies of Youth Offending

 Cohen – youth crime is a result of the formation of subcultures reflecting status frustration among
working-class boys who do poorly at school.
 Matza – denies there are cohesive subcultures, arguing young people drift in and out of delinquency.
 Lyng – offenders, young people in particular, put themselves in risky circumstances because they enjoy
being on the edge of danger and using their skill to avoid coming to harm. Lyng uses the term ‘edgework’ to
describe this and uses the theory to explain offences such as joyriding.
 Presdee – studied arson by asking sixth-formers to write about the meaning of fire for them. Based on
accounts of school-leavers ‘burning their blazers’ he argues arson can be seen to symbolically destroy the
power of adults or to mark a rite of passage from on status to another. He also observed young people on
bonfire night engaging in risky behaviour with fireworks and bonfires. He argues that in highly regulated,
rational late modern societies people need to transgress established rules to find space away from such an
organised society.

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 Neo-Marxists see youth culture as a creative response to change in class structure. E.g. Teddy boys were
seen as part of a working class attempt to recreate class loyalty where they felt it was threatened by
ethnic minorities, urban redevelopment and growing affluence.

SOCIAL CLASS AND PATTERNS OF CRIME

 Examination of the employment status of convicted offenders suggest that over 80% are from the manual
classes, 8% came from middle class backgrounds.
 Offences are also distinguishable by social class. Middle class offenders – white collar crimes e.g. fraud, tax
evasion; working class offenders – burglary and street crime.
 Consider various theories on why the working class are more prone to committing crimes than other social
classes: inadequate socialisation, subcultural theories, social structure and anomie, ecological theories etc.

o Many sociological theories have seen social class as the key to explaining criminal behaviour.
 The distribution of crime appears to be linked to one’s social class. E.g. Merton and other subcultural
theorists suggest crime is a predominantly working-class activity. However, they don’t recognise middle-
class crimes.
 While official statistics support the view that crime is concentrated in the working class, many Sociologists
believe this is a reflection of social construction and therefore does not provide a reliable picture. E.g.
studies of white collar, corporate, state and environmental crimes suggest crime is common in all social
classes.
1) Labelling theory – does not address the issue of class directly, but Becker work suggests those from
lower income backgrounds are more likely to be labelled than those from higher income backgrounds for
deviant behaviour like drug use, vandalism etc.
2) Marxists – emphasise the importance of crimes committed by the ruling class and argue that there is
class bias in the law and in the administration of justice. They acknowledge that crime is present in all
classes because capitalism encourages greed, and that the crimes of the ruling class cause more harm to
society.

3) Left Realists – accept all classes commit crime but empathise that street crime should not be ignored.
They argue that relative deprivation, marginalisation and subcultures might cause high levels of street
crime in lower social classes. They also stress the fact that the working class are more likely to be victims
of crime.
4) The Underclass and Crime – Murray and Taylor
 Some sociologists suggest there is an underclass in modern day society (lower than working class), who do
not share the same values with mainstream members of society. E.g. homeless people.

 Murray blames the underclass for a large proportion of crimes ad blames welfare benefits for the rise in
crime as it does not provide incentive for young people to find a job
 Taylor conversely believes underclass crime is a result of material deprivation rather than an acceptance
of mainstream culture and benefits. He argues that unskilled male jobs have declined in recent years
increasing poverty for this group and creating further tendency for them to commit crime.

Question:
Social class is the main influence on who commits crime in modern industrial society. Discuss.

 This conclusion cannot be justified in view of the nature of criminal statistics, which may give a misleading
impression about the relationship between class and crime. Different classes may commit different types of
crime, but it is not possible to be certain that that lower classes are significantly more prone to crime than
higher ones.
 However studies of crime that do not appear in OCS suggest that crime is widespread in all social strata.
Maguire, (2002) comments:
“Depending upon the age, sex, and other social characteristics of those questioned, as well as the wording of
the questions, self-report studies have generally found that between 40 and almost 100 percent will admit
to having committed at least one criminal offence during their lifetimes”.

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 Studies of a wide range of occupations and industries suggest that crime is normal feature of working life,
from managing directors to shop floor workers.

LOCALITY AND PATTERNS OF CRIME

 Urban areas, especially inner city council estates, have higher rates of crime than the suburbs or rural areas.
 Consider ecological theories etc. – Urban delinquency - Chicago school group.

End of topic!!!

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