Sociology · Sociology Themes and Perspectives (Haralambos and Holborn)
Chapter 6 : Crime and deviance
Table of contents136 sections
- 1.Crime and deviance
- 2.Introduction
- 3.The sociological study of deviance
- 4.The definition of deviance
- 5.Key Terms
- 6.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 7.Deviance - a functionalist perspective
- 8.The functions of deviance
- 9.Robert K. Merton - social structure and anomie
- 10.Key Terms
- 11.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 12.Structural and subcultural theories of deviance
- 13.Albert K. Cohen - the delinquent subculture
- 14.Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin - Delinquency and Opportunity
- 15.Key Terms
- 16.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 17.The underclass and crime
- 18.Charles Murray - welfare, culture and criminality
- 19.Inequality, the underclass and crime
- 20.Evaluation of underclass theories of crime
- 21.Key Terms
- 22.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 23.Crime and official statistics
- 24.Unrecorded crime
- 25.Victimisation studies
- 26.The characteristics of offenders - self-report studies
- 27.Key Terms
- 28.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 29.White-collar crime
- 30.Fraud and financial crime
- 31.Personal harm
- 32.Politicians and officials
- 33.The underestimation of white-collar and corporate crime
- 34.Statistics and theories of crime
- 35.Key Terms
- 36.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 37.Deviance - an interactionist perspective
- 38.Howard S. Becker - labelling theory
- 39.Jock Young - labelling and marijuana users
- 40.Howard Becker - the origins of 'deviant' activity
- 41.Edwin M. Lemert - societal reaction as the 'cause' of deviance
- 42.Labelling theory and social policies
- 43.Criticisms of the interactionist perspective
- 44.A defence of interactionism
- 45.Key Terms
- 46.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 47.Deviance - a phenomenological perspective
- 48.Aaron V. Cicourel - the negotiation of justice
- 49.Key Terms
- 50.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 51.Traditional Marxist perspectives on deviance
- 52.Who makes the law? Who benefits?
- 53.Who breaks the law? Who gets caught?
- 54.Why break the law? Why enforce the law?
- 55.Evaluation of conventional Marxism
- 56.Key Terms
- 57.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 58.Deviance - neo-Marxist and radical perspectives
- 59.Neo-Marxism
- 60.Ian Taylor, Paul Walton and Jock Young - The New Criminology
- 61.Left realism
- 62.Jock Young - The Exclusive Society and The Vertigo of Late Modernity
- 63.Right realist criminology
- 64.Key Terms
- 65.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 66.Globalisation, marketisation, inequality and crime
- 67.Globalisation and opportunities for crime
- 68.Ian Taylor - crime and the free market
- 69.Dick Hobbs and Colin Dunningham - entrepreneurship and 'glocal' organised crime
- 70.Key Terms
- 71.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 72.'Race', ethnicity and crime
- 73.The issue of 'race' and crime
- 74.Gangs, guns and homicide
- 75.Studies of British Asian crime
- 76.Conclusion
- 77.Patterns of criminality
- 78.Evidence of racism in the criminal justice system
- 79.Race and victimisation
- 80.'Race', ethnicity and crime - conclusion
- 81.Key Terms
- 82.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 83.Gender and crime
- 84.Gender and patterns of crime
- 85.Gender bias and criminal justice
- 86.The causes of female crime and deviance
- 87.Key Terms
- 88.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 89.Masculinities and crime
- 90.James W. Messerschmidt - Masculinities and Crime
- 91.Masculinity and postmodernity
- 92.Simon Winlow - Badfellas
- 93.Key Terms
- 94.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 95.Socio-spatial criminology
- 96.C.R. Shaw and H.D. McKay - Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas
- 97.Opportunity theory and cognitive maps
- 98.Opportunity theory
- 99.Marcus Felson: routine activities theory
- 100.Patricia and Paul Brantingham: cognitive maps
- 101.An evaluation of administrative criminology
- 102.Anthony Bottoms - combining approaches
- 103.Key Terms
- 104.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 105.Cultural criminology
- 106.David Matza - delinquency and drift
- 107.Jack Katz - Seductions of Crime
- 108.Stephen Lyng - 'Edgework'
- 109.Mike Presdee: 'Burning issues: young people and the fascination for fire'
- 110.Cultural criminology: an evaluation
- 111.Key Terms
- 112.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 113.Victims of crime
- 114.Introduction
- 115.The definition of victims
- 116.Victim, offender and criminality
- 117.Positivist victimology
- 118.Radical victimology
- 119.Critical victimology
- 120.Evaluation
- 121.Key Terms
- 122.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 123.Transgressive criminology
- 124.Green criminology
- 125.Crimes of the state
- 126.Key Terms
- 127.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 128.Postmodernism and criminology
- 129.Carol Smart - postmodern feminism and female criminality
- 130.Pat Carlen - a critique of postmodern feminist criminology
- 131.John Lea - 'Criminology and postmodernity'
- 132.Key Terms
- 133.📌 Exam Tidbits
- 134.Summary and conclusions
- 135.Quick-Recall Box
- 136.Key Statistics
Chapter preview
Crime and deviance
Introduction
- The criminal justice system is a constant presence: "the 4.2 million surveillance cameras in Britain where the average person is estimated to be caught on camera 300 times a day, it is the 2.3 million people in prison in the United States" (Young, 2011).
- Deviance is defined as acts that do not follow the norms and expectations of a particular social group.
- Deviance can be categorised by its social reaction:
- Positively sanctioned (rewarded): Acts that go above and beyond normal expectations but conform to societal values.
- Examples: Soldiers on the battlefield risking their lives above and beyond the normal call of duty (rewarded with a medal, conforming to the value of courage); physicists who break the rules of their discipline and develop a new theory (rewarded with a Nobel Prize, conforming to the value of academic progress).
- Negatively sanctioned (punished): Acts that deviate from norms, expectations, and fundamental societal values.
- Example: Murderers deviate from the value placed on human life → results in widespread disapproval and punishment.
- Accepted without reward or punishment (tolerated): Acts that depart from norms but are deemed harmless eccentricities.
- Examples: A person with a house full of cats; someone with an obsession for collecting clocks. They are defined as 'a bit odd' but are tolerated.
The sociological study of deviance
- Marshall B. Clinard (1974) suggested that the term 'deviance' should be reserved for behaviour that is so much disapproved of that the community finds it impossible to tolerate. This definition covers the area usually studied by sociologists of deviance.
- Not all deviant acts are criminal (e.g., alcoholism and attempted suicide are not illegal in Britain today).
- Not all criminal acts are typically seen as deviant, as outdated laws remain on statute books without enforcement.
- Examples of technically illegal but non-deviant acts under British law (Streeter, 1997): Making or eating mince pies on Christmas Day; shouting 'taxi' to hail a cab; a salesperson trying to sell anything to a woman on a Sunday.
The definition of deviance
- Deviance is relative: there is no…
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