Who commits crimes? -Sociology.
A mindmap of what statistics show about who commit crime and some suggested reasons why these groups of people may be most likely to commit a crime.
- Created by: Jessica Emilyy
- Created on: 21-05-13 16:10
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- Who commits crime?
- Gender
- Males: the male crime rate is over 4 times the female crime rate.
- Males act in violent, aggressive or deviant ways to fulfill the stereotype of masculinity to be tough and risk-taking.
- Boys have more opportunity than girls to commit crime as family allow boys to stay out longer and more often as boys are seen to be able to look after themselves, giving them more freedom.
- Society socializes boys to be tough and more aggressive than girls e.g. family give boys more violent toys like toy guns (canalization)
- Influence by the media: males in films are tough, rappers in music industry glamorize crime.
- Chivalry factor: studies show that females are let off by judges in court more than men because women are seen as more vulnerable.
- Males: the male crime rate is over 4 times the female crime rate.
- Age
- Young: 40% of offenders are aged between 14-20 years of age.
- Young people are more prone to peer pressure, meaning their peers are more likely to make them want to commit crime to fit in with the group.
- Young people are often part of small subcultures that may have anti-authority attitudes and beliefs e.g. gangs
- Teenagers are often labelled by the media and by elderly people as 'trouble-makers' therefore leading to self-fulfilling of this label.
- Young: 40% of offenders are aged between 14-20 years of age.
- Place
- Cities: crime rate is higher in inner cities than elsewhere.
- Cities are usually very populated therefore there are more criminals in the populated area. Also, the higher the population, the more opportunity to commit crime because there are more victims.
- There are more shops and other business buildings in cities so there is more opportunity to commit crimes such as shop lifting, robbery, theft, criminal damage etc.
- Cities: crime rate is higher in inner cities than elsewhere.
- Social class
- Working class: people with low incomes are overpopulated in prison.
- Working class people may feel as though people of higher status look down on them and become frustrated, leading to them rebelling against society by acting criminal or deviant (status frustration)..
- People with low incomes do not have as much money to buy nice things so they steal or shoplift items because they feel they should get luxuries like this too.
- Working class: people with low incomes are overpopulated in prison.
- Statistic reliabilty
- Labelling and stereotypes can result in the media portraying criminals in certain way, and therefore policemen looking for certain criminal 'types' when they report their crimes.
- Gender
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