Sociologist - Crime and Deviance

Womens behaviours is conformist

• Control at home - housework and childcare impose restrictions on women's time
• Control in public - women fear the threat of violence against them
• Control at work - kept in lpace by male supervisors and managers

Females are treated more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms e.g. gender norms - courts punish girls for premature of promiscuos sexuality activity

4/5 Convicted offenders in England are males

Males are more likely to be reoffender

Males have a protective attitudes towards women. The criminal justice system is more leninat with women.

Women are naturally better at concealing crime.

Police and courts treat females more leniently. Females do not fit the stereotype of 'suspicious' or 'criminal' this means that they are less likely to be stopped, arrested or charged.

Women domestic role could provide opportunities for commiting crimes that could be easily covered up. E.g. Child Abuse or domestic violence.

Gender roles in the traditional nuclear family cause crime. Boys are encouraged to be toguh, aggressive and risk taking so are more likelyto take advantage of criminal opportunities when they arise.

Sex - Biological Differences

Gender - Culturally Constructed Differences

Instrumental Role  - Performed in public sphere

Expressive Role - Performed in the private sphere

"Liberation thesis" as women become liberated from patriarchy their crims will become as freqent and serious as mens.

Masulunity is a social construct to which men try to live up to. This masculinity image causes men to commit crime.

Women are treated more leniently in courts due to judges being reluctant to seperate women from children. Women are less dangerous than men. Women's motives aren't violent they are simply the result of acting emotionally and irrationally; not driven by greed or wickedness.

The crime rate is increasing because of a growing underclass who are defined by their deviant behaviour and who fail to socialise thier children properly.

The welfare state allows people to depend on benefits causing a breakdown in marriage and an increase in lone-parent families.

The main cause of crime is low intelligence.

Situational crime prevention is an approach that does not rely on improving society but by simply reducing opportunities for crime.

They are directed by specfic crimes.

The involve altering the enviroment of crime.

The involve the increase in the effort and risk of the crime.

Broken Window Theory

All various signs of disorder and a lack of concern that are found in some neighbourhoods.

Their soultion is to adopt a zero tolerance policy, cracking down on small crimes to prevent and deter bigger ones.

For a crime to occur there must be a motivated offender, a suitable victim and the absence of a 'capable guardian' e.g. police or neighbour

There are four categorise of state crime:

• Political Crime
• Crimes by security and police forces
• Economic Crimes
• Social and Cultural Crimes

Distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance

Primary Deviance - deviant act that have not been publicly labelled.

Secondary Deviance - result of societal reaction of labelling

Master Status - Controlling Identity

Police Decisions to arrest a youth were mainly based on physical cues for example:

• manner
• dress gender
• class
• ethnicity
• the time and place

"Folk Devils and Moral Panics" - the study of societies reactions to the 'mods and rockers' disturbances

The negotiations of justice

Officer typifications lead them to concerntrate on certain types

Typification is a process of creating standard social construction based on standard assumptions

Corporate crime is under policies and rarely prosecuted or punished.

This encourages companies to use crime as a means of making profit often as the expense of workers or consumers.

Laws are there to protect private property that are the corner stone of the capitalist economy.

Vagrant Laws - The ruling class also have the power to prevent the introduction of laws that would threaten their interests.

White collar crime is committed in the course of legitimate employment involving the abuse of an occuaptional role. This includes fruad, accounting offences, tax evasion, insider dealing and computer crimes.

Working class are a group who react in response to their experience of capitalism and there contraints that they have.  The working class want to alter society for the better.

Crime is political as well as a deliberate and conscious action.

The ruling class recognise the power the working class have and take steps to "control the problem population".

Believe in free will. Traditional Marxism is too deterministic.

Ethnic minorty crime can be seen as a form of political resistance against a racist society.

Status Frustration -  Working Class males

Lacking legitimate means (education) the boys suffer from status frustration.

They resolve their frustration by rejecting mainstream middle class values and form subcultures.

Crime is inevitable

Crime reinforces boundaries when criminals are punished. Too much crime resorts to:

Anomie - Normless

Strain Theory

Deviance is the result of a strain between two things:

• The goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve
• What the institiuational structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately e.g. the american dream - house, money, family, high paid job or english dream - own a mortage on a house

The Five types of deviant adaptations

• Conformists - have goals and means
• Innovators - have goals but no means
• Ritualists - no goals but have means
• Retreatists - do not have either
• Rebels - can either have both or neither

Enthomenthodolgy - social reality is simply a construct of its members

Corners catergorising death

• Suicide Note
• Mode of dealth
• Location and circumstances
• Life history

Four Types of Suicide

• Submission - person is certain about themselfs e.g. know they have no future
• Thanatation - uncertain of themselfs e.g. uncertain about what other think of them - risk taking
• Sacrfice - certain about others and know they have to die
• Appeal - person is uncertiain about others

Using quantitative data from offical statstics Durkheim found:

• Suicide rates for a society remain more or less the smae
• When the rates did change it coincided with other changes
• Different societies have different rates
• Rates varied between different social groups

Four types of Suicide

• Egotisitc - too little social integration
• Altruisitc - too much social integration
• Anomic -  too little moral regulation
• Fatalistic - too much moral regulation