Crime & deviance

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Outline Durkheim's social control
Includes rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance which helps to ensure that individuals behave the way that society expects
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What do functionalists see too much crime as?
Destabilising society and as inevitable and universal as every known society as an element of crime present
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Why is crime and deviance found in every society?
Not everyone is equally effectively socialised into the shared norms and values so some individuals will be prone to deviance & especially in complex modern societies there is diversity of lifestyles and values.
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What do modern societies cause?
Conflict between what is regarded as normal by one subculture and deviant to another
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What do modern societies tend towards in Durkheim's view?
Anomie due to the fact they have a complex, specialised division of labour which leads individuals to become different from one another which weakens the shared culture or collective conscience resulting in higher levels of deviance
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What are the two important positive functions Durkheim believes crime fulfils?
Boundary maintenance & Adaptation and change
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What is boundary maintenance?
Crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in criticism of criminals & reinforcing their commitment to shared norms& values. For Durkheim this explains the function of punishment & this is not to make offender suffer or remove crime
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What is adaptation and change?
For Durkheim all change starts with an act of defiance. Individuals with new ideas, values & ways of living must not be restrained by social control. Must be some scope for them to challenge & change existing norms & values
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Outline having too much or too little crime
Too much crime threatens to tear the bonds of society apart and too little means society is repressing and controlling its members too much stopping individual freedom and preventing change
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What does Davis argue?
That prostitution acts as a safety valve for the release of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the monogamous nuclear family
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Outline criticisms of Durkheim
For Durkheim, society requires a certain amount of deviance to function successfully but he offers no way of knowing how much is the right among. Functionalists explain the existence of crime in terms of its supposed function e.g. strengthen solidari
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What do strain theories argue?
That people engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means e.g. they may become frustrated & resort to criminal means of getting what they want
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Outline Mertons explanation of crime
Deviance is the result of a strain between two things: the goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve and what the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately
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Outline the American Dream
American culture values money success which is individual material wealth & high status. Americans are expected to pursue this goal by legitimate means so ideology of American Dream tells Americans that their society is a meritocratic one
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What is the reality of the American Dream?
Thatmany disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities to achieve legitimately
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What does Merton argue in regards to an individuals position?
That their social structure affects the way they adapt or respond to the strain of anomie.
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What are the five types of adaption depending on whether an individual accepts, rejects or replaces approved cultural goals?
Conformity-accept the culturally approved goals, Innovation-accept goal of money success but use illegitimate means to achieve, Ritualism-give ip trying to achieve goals, Retreatism-reject both goals& legitimate means, Rebellion-reject existing goals
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What does Merton show?
How both normal & deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream goals as both conformists/innovators are pursuing money success.
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How does Merton explain the patterns shown in official crime statistics?
Most crime is property crime as American society values material wealth so highly & lower class crime rates are higher as they have least opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately
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Why is Merton's theory criticised?
Takes official statistics at face value which over represent working-class crime, so Merton sees crime as a mainly working-class phenomenon, Marxists argue that it ignores the power of the ruling class to make& enforce the laws which criminalise poor
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What do subcultural strain theorists see deviance as?
The product of delinquent subculture with different values from those of mainstream society & see subcultures as providing an alternative opportunity structure for those who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means
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How does Cohen agree with Merton?
That deviance is largely is a lower-class phenomenon and results from the inability of those in the lower classes to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as educational achievement
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How does Cohen disagree with Merton?
Explanation of deviance on two grounds: Merton sees deviance as an individual respond to strain and Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain
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How does Cohen focus on deviance among w/c boys?
Argues that they fact anomie in the middle-class dominated school system. They suffer from cultural deprivation and lack the skills to achieve. Their inability to succeed in this middle-class world leaves them at the bottom of the official status hie
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What do Cloward & Ohlin note?
Not everyone in this situation adapts to it by turning to innovation. Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of legitimate opportunities for example, the subculture described by Cohen resorts to violence and vandalism not economi
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What do Cloward & Ohlin attempt to explain?
Why different subcultural responses occur. In their view, the key reason is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures
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What do Cloward & Ohlin argue?
That different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers
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What are the three types of deviant subcultures the result of?
Criminal-provide youths with an apprenticeship for career in utilitarian crime, conflict-arise in areas of high population turnover, retreatists-any neighbourhood, not everyone who aspires to be professional criminal actually succeeds
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How do Cloward & Ohlin agree with Merton & Cohen?
Most crime is working-class, which ignores crime of the wealthy. Similarly, their theory over-predicts the among of working-class crime. Like Merton and Cohen, they too ignore the wider power structure, including who makes and enforces the law
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How have Cloward & Ohlin been criticised?
Draw the boundaries too sharply between these for example, South found that the drug trade is a mixture of both disorganised crime and professional madia style criminal subcultures.
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What does Rosenfield et als institutional anomie theory focus on and what does it argue?
American dream/ that is obsession with money success& its winner-takes-all mentality, exert pressures towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment in which people are encouraged to adopt an anything goes mentality
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In America, economic goals are valued above all so what does this undermine?
Other institutions e.g. schools become geared to preparing pupils for the labour market at the expense of inculcating values e.g. respect for others.
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What do Downes & Hansen offer?
Evidence for the view of free-market capitalism. In a survey of crime rates & welfares spending in 18 countries they found societies that spent more on welfare had lower rates of imprisonment
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How does Downes & Hansen claim back up Messner & Rosenfield?
Societies that protect the poor from the worst excess of the free market have less crime
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What are labelling theorists interested in?
How and why certain acts come to be defined or labelled as criminal in the first place. They argue that no act is inherently criminal or deviant in itself, in all situations and at all times
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For Becker what is a deviant?
Simply someone to whom the label has been successfully applied & deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people label. This leads labelling theorists to look at how & why rules & laws get made
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What are labelling theorists interested in?
Role of what Becker calls moral entrepreneurs
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What does Platt argue?
Idea of juvenile delinquency was originally created as a result of a campaign by upper-class Victorian entrepreneurs aimed at protecting young people at risk.
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What did this establish?
Juveniles as a separate category of offender with their own courts & it enabled the state to expand its powers beyond criminal offences involving young, into so-called status offences such as truancy
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What does whether a person is arrested, charged & convicted depend on?
Factors such as their interactions with agencies of social control & their appearance, background & personal biography. This leads labelling theorists to look at how the laws are applied & enforced
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What did Briar et al find?
That police decisions to arrest a youth when mainly based on physical cues from which they made judgements about the youths character. Officers' decisions also influenced by suspects gender, class & ethnicity as well as by time & place
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What did Cicourel find?
That officers' typifications led them to concentrate on certain types and this results in law enforcement showing a class bias, in that w/c areas & people fitted the police typifications most closely
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What did these typifications lead to?
Police to patrol w/c areas are more intensively resulting in more arrests & confirming their stereotypes
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What did Cicourel find in regards to agents?
Agents of social control within the criminal justice system reinforced this bias for example, probation officers held the common-sense theory that juvenile delinquency was caused by broken homes, poverty, poor parenting.
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However, what are the implications of Cicourel?
The use we make of official crime statistics recorded by the police & argues that these statistics do not give us a valid picture of the patterns of crime & cannot be used as a resource. Instead, should treat them as topic for sociologists to investi
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What do interactionists see the official crime statistics as?
Socially constructed as at each stage of the criminal justice system, agents of social control make decisions about whether or not to proceed to the next stage. Outcome depends on the label they attach to individual suspect or defendant
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What occurs as a result of the statistics produced by criminal justice system?
Only tells us about the activities of the police & prosecutors, rather than about the amount of crime out there in society or who commits it. Statistics are really just counts of the decisions made by control agents at the different decision gates
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What happens at each stage?
A decision is made, steadily whittling down the number of pole in the system e.g. the dark figure of crime which is the difference between the official statistics & real rate of crime
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What does Lemert distinguish between?
Primary (refers to deviant acts that have not been publicly labelled) & secondary deviance (result of societal reaction &being caught & publicly labelled as a criminal can involve being stigmatised)
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What kind of crisis can secondary deviance provoke and how can this be resovled?
Individuals self-concept /sense of identity. Resolve this crisis is for individual to accept that deviant label & see themselves as world sees them which leads to self-fulfilling prophecy in which individual lives up to deviant label
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What is the deviance amplification spiral?
Term labelling theorists use to describe a process in which the attempt to control deviant leads to an increase in the level of deviance. Leads to greater attempts to control it & in turn this produces yet higher levels of deviance
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What have labelling theorists applied the concept of deviance amplification serial to?
Various forms of group behaviour e.g. Cohen's Folk Devil & Moral Panic study of the societal reaction to the mods & rockers disturbances involving groups of youths at English seaside resorts
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How did the police respond to the press exaggeration & distorted reporting of the events?
By arresting more youths, while the courts imposed harsher penalties. This seemed to confirm the truth of the original media reaction & provoked more public concern in an upward spiral of deviance amplification
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What have studies shown to increase?
The attempt to control & punish young offenders can have the opposite effect e.g. in the USA, Triplett notes an increasing tendency to see young offenders as evil & to be less tolerant of minor deviance.
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What has Lemert's theory of secondary deviance resulted in?
Increase rather than decrease in offending e.g. De Haan notes similar outcome in Holland as a result of increasing stigmatisation of young offenders. These findings indicate that labelling theory has important policy implications
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Outline Durkheim's study of suicide?
Aim of showing that sociology is a science & using official statistics, he claimed to have discovered the causes of suicide in how effectively society integrated individuals & regulated their behaviour.
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Why do interactionists reject Durkheim?
Positivist approach & his reliance on official statistics & argue that to understand suicide we must study its meanings for those who choose to kill themselves
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Why has Douglas agree with interactionists?
Critical of use of official suicide statistics for same reasons as they distrust official crime statistics that are socially constructed & tell us about the activities of people who construct them such as police, corners
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State an example of Douglas
Whether a death comes to be officially labelled as suicide rather than say an accident or homicide depends on the interactions and negotiations between social actors such as the coroner, relatives, friends, doctors etc.
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If we want to understand the meanings what does Douglas argue?
That we must use qualitative methods instead such as the analysis of suicide notes or unstructured interviews with the deceased friends & relatives
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What does Atkinson argue?
That official statistics are merely a record of the labels coroners attach to deaths and so its impossible to know for sure what meanings that dead give to their deaths
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What does Atkinson therefore focus on?
The take-for-granted assumptions that coroners make when reaching their verdicts & found their ideas about a typical suicide were important; certain modes of death, location & circumstances of the death & life history were seen as typical of suicides
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However, why might Atkinson's approach be questioned?
If he is correct then all we can do is have interpretations of the social world, rather than real facts about it then his account is not more than an interpretation & there is no good reason to accept it
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Outline criticisms of labelling theory
Shows law is not a fixed set of rules to be taken for granted but something whose construction we need to explain. Shows that law is often enforced in discriminatory ways & that crime statistics are more a record of the activities of control agents
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Outline a second criticism of labelling theory
Tends to be deterministic, implying that once someone is labelled, a deviant career is inevitable & its emphasis on the negative effects of labelling gives the offender a kind of victim status
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What do functionalists see the law as?
Reflection of society's shared values & crime as the product of inadequate socialisation into these values. Not everyone is equally well socialised into society's shared culture
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In modern societies what is there a complex division?
Labour, different groups & classes may develop their own separate subcultures
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What does Miller argue?
That the lower class has developed an independent subculture with its own distinctive norms & values that clash with those of mainstream culture & this explains why lower class have a higher crime rate
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What does strain theory argue?
That people engaged in deviant behaviour when their opportunities to achieve in legitimate ways are blocked e.g. Merton argues that American society's class structure denies w/c people opportunity to achieve the money success American culture values
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What are the w/c more likely to be denied?
Legitimate opportunities to achieve success as more likely to seek illegitimate means of achieving it. Merton calls this innovation: the use of new, deviant means such as theft or property crime to gain wealth
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Outline Cloward & Ohlin's ideas
Concept of illegitimate opportunity structures to explain why a range of different crimes are more prevalent within the w/c. They identify a criminal subculture in stable w/c neighbourhoods that offer professionals criminal opportunities
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What have functionalists, strain & subculture theorists been called?
Problem takers as they take for granted that the official statistics are broadly accurate & that w/c crime is the problem that needs to be explained. They focus their effects on discovering the cause of the problem
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What do labelling theorists argue instead?
They reject the view that official statistics are a useful resource for sociologists & give a valid picture of which class commits the most crime &instead of seeking the supposed causes of w/c criminality
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What have labelling theorists been described as?
Problem makers as they do not see official crime statistics as valid social factors rather than something we must investigate by studying the power of control agents to label w/c people as criminal
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How do Marxists agree with labelling theorists?
That the law is enforced disproportionally against the w/c & that official crime statistics cannot be taken at face value
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How do Marxists disagree with labelling theorists?
Failing to examine the wider structure of capitalism within which law making, law enforcement and offending takes place
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How is Marxism a structural theory?
It sees society as a structure in which the economic base determines the shape of the superstructure which is made up of all other social institutions
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For Marxists what is crime?
Inevitable in capitalism as it is criminogenic - capitalism is based on exploitation of w/c so is damaging to w/c & may give rise to crime e.g. poverty may mean crime is only way w/c can survive
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However, what is crime not confined to?
The w/c as capitalism is a dog eat dog system or ruthless competition among capitalists, while the profit motive encourages a mentality of greed & self-interest. Need to win at all costs along with desire for self-enrichment
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What do Marxists see law making & law enforcement as?
Serving the interests of the capitalist class e.g. Chambliss argues that laws that protect private property are the cornerstone of the capitalist economy
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What do the ruling class have the power to prevent?
The introduction of laws that would threaten their interests e.g. there are few laws that seriously challenge the unequal distribution of wealth
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What does Snider argue?
That the capitalist state is reluctant to pass laws that regulate the activities of businesses or threaten their profitability
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How do laws perform an ideological function?
Laws are occasionally passed that appear to be for the benefit of the w/c rather than capitalism such as workplace health & safety laws.
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However, what does Pearce argue?
That such laws often benefit the ruling class e.g. by keeping workers fit for work
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How does the media and some criminologists contribute to portraying criminals?
As disturbed individuals, thereby concealing the fact that is is the nature of capitalism that makes people criminals
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Outline a strength of Marxism
Offers a useful explanation of the relationship between crime & capitalist society & shows the link between law making & enforcement & interests of the capitalist class and by doing so, it puts into a wider-structural contact the insights of labeling
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How has Marxism been criticised?
It largely ignores the relationship between crime & non-class inequalities such as ethnicity, gender, not all capitalist societies have high crime rates e.g. homicide rate in Japan & Switzerland is only about 5th of US so too deterministic of crime
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Outline neo-Marxists
Sociologists who have been influenced by many of the ideas put forward by Marxism but combine these ideas from other approaches e.g. labelling theory
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How do Taylor, Walton & Young agree with Marxists?
That society is based on exploitation & class conflict & characterised by extreme inequalities of wealth and power & that state makes & enforces laws in interests of capitalist class
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Outline Taylor et als view
Voluntarist view & sees crime as a meaningful action & a conscious choice by actor. They argue that crime often has a political motive e.g. to redistribute wealth from rich to the poor. Criminals aren't passive puppets who behaviour shaped by capital
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Outline criticisms of Taylor et als approach
Feminist criticise it for being gender blind, focusing excessively on male criminality & at expense of female criminality & critical criminology romanticises w/c criminals as 'Robin Hoods' who fighting capitalism by re-distributing wealth from rich
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What does Reinman et als, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison show?
That the more likely a crime is to be committed by higher-class people, the less likely it is to be treated as an offence. Much higher rate of prosecutions for typical street crimes that poor commit yet crimes committed by higher class tend forgiven
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Who created the term white collar?
Sutherland whose aim was to challenge the stereotypes that crime is purely a lower-class phenomenon
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What does this definition fail to distinguish?
Between two types of crime: occupational crime which is committed by employees for their own personal gain and corporate crime which is committed by employees for their organisation
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What is a further problem of white collar crime?
The fact that many of the harms caused by the powerful do not break the criminal law for example, some may be administrative offences such as a company failing to comply with codes of practice laid down by the government regulations
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What does Tombs note?
That corporate crime has enormous costs: physical, environmental and economic and concludes that corporate crime is not just the work of a few bad apples but rather it is widespread, routine and pervasive
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What does Carrabine et al note?
We entrust them with our finances, our health, our security and our personal information however, their position and status give them the opportunity to abuse this trust
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How can accountant & lawyers be employed as criminal organisations?
Launder criminal funds into legitimate businesses and can act corruptly by inflating fees, committing forgery, illegally diverting clients’ money etc
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Outline invisibility of corporate crime
the media who give very limited coverage to corporate crime therefore reinforcing the stereotype that crime is a working-class phenomenon and a lack of political will to tackle corporate crime: politicians’ rhetoric of being tough on crime is focused
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What does strain theory argue?
That deviance results from the inability of some people to achieve the goals that society’s culture prescribes by using legitimate means for example, where opportunities to achieve the goal of material wealth by legal means are blocked
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What does Box argue?
That if a company cannot achieve its goals of maximising profit by legal means, it may employ illegal ones instead
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For Marxists, what is corporate crime the result of?
The normal functioning of capitalism so due to this, capitalism's goal is to maximise profits as it inevitably causes harm such as deaths & injuries among employees & customers
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What does capitalism' control of the state mean?
That it is able to avoid making or enforcing laws that conflict with its interests. While some corporate crime is prosecuted this is only ever the tip of the iceberg
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What does Pearce argue?
This sustains the illusion that it is the exception rather than the norm & therefore avoids causing a crisis of legitimacy for capitalism
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However, what do both strain theory & Marxism seem to do?
Over-predict the amount of business crime
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What does Nelken argue?
It is unrealistic to assume that all businesses would offend were it not for the risk of punishment: for example, maintaining the goodwill of other companies that they must do business with may also prevent them resorting to crime
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What do right realists see crime as?
Street crime as real & growing problem that destroyed communities, undermines social cohesion & threatens society's work ethic
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Outline Wilson
Was a special adviser on crime to Present Reagan and provided justification for widely adopted policies such as zero tolerance of street crime and disorder
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How do right realists criticise other theories?
For failing to offer any practical solutions to the problem of rising crime & regarded theories such as labelling & critical criminology as too sympathetic to the criminal
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Outline Wilson & Hernsteins biological theory of criminal behaviour
In their view, crime is causes by a combination of biological and social factors. Argue that biological differences between individuals make some people innately more strongly predisposed to commit crime than others
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Even though biology can increase the change of an individual offending what can decrease the risk?
Socialisation as it involves learning self-control & internalising what is right and wrong. RR believe the best agency for socialisation is the nuclear family
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What does Murray argue?
That the crime rate is increasing due to the frowing underclass who are defined by their deviant behaviour & who fail to socialise their children correctly
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Outline RR practical measures
To make crime less attractive & their main focus is on control, containment & punishment of offenders rather than eliminating the underlying cause of the offence
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Outline an example of a crime prevention policy
Zero tolerance which was introduced in New York in 1994 & was widely applauded for reducing crime
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However, what does Young argue?
That its success is a myth lead by politicians & police keen to take credit for falling crime rates. E.g. the crime rate in New York had already been falling since 1985 & was falling in other US cities that didn't have zero policies
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How has zero tolerance been criticised?
Due to it being preoccupied with petty street crime & ignores corporate crim whcih is more costly & harmful & gives the police free rein to discriminate against minorities, youths, homeless
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Outline some criticises of the right realist explanation
Ignore the wider structural causes such as poverty, overstates offenders' rationality & how far they take cost-benefit calculations before committing a crime & while RR may explain some utilitarian crime it may not explain impulsive or violent crime
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Outline left realism
Developed during 1980s/90s & like Marxists see society as an unequal capitalist one however, LR are reformists rather than revolutionary
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What is the central idea of LR?
That crime is a real problem & one that affects the disadvantaged groups who are its main victims. Accuse other sociologists of not taking crime serious e.g. labelling theorists see w/c criminals as victims of discriminatory labelling
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What are the three related causes of crime according to Young et al?
Relative deprivation, subcultures & marginalisation
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Outline crime rates in 1930s/50s
Poverty was rife in the 1930s yet crime rates were low whereas since the 1950s living standards have risen but so has the crime rate
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Where does the left realist view of criminal subcultures come from?
A group reaction to the failure to achieve mainstream goals & for left realists, a subculture is a groups collective solution to the problem of relative deprivation but difference groups may produce different subcultures & solutions
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Outline marginalised groups
Lack both clear goals & ambitions to represent their interests & as some groups work towards such clear goals others resort to violence to achieve their goals
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What does Young argue about living in the state of late modern society?
Instability, insecurity & exclusion make the problem of crime worse & contrasts this society with period proceeding it, arguing that the 1950s/60s represented the Golden Age of modern capitalist society which had full employment
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Whats occurred during the 1970s?
Insecurity & exclusion have increased & de-industrialised have increased unemployment, especially for young people & ethnic minorities. Reactions to crime also changing as late modern society is more diverse
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How to LR say we should tackle crime?
Improve policing & control & deal with the deeper structural causes of crime
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What do Kinsey et al argue?
That police clear-up rates are too low to act as a deterrent to crime & that the police spend too little time actually investigating crime & argue public must become more involves in determining the police's priorities & style of policing
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However, improved policing & control aren't the main solution so what is?
Inequality of opportunity & the unfairness of rewards, tackle discrimination, provide decent jobs for everyone & improve housing & community facilities
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What is LR similar to?
The 1997-2010 New Labour government’s stance of being tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. For example, New Labour’s firmer approach to policing hate crimes, sexual assaults and domestic violence along with ASBO’s
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However, what just Young regard?
Many of these policies as doomed attempts to recreate the Golden Age of the 1950s
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What does Henry et al argue?
That LR accepts the authorities' definition of crime as being street crime committed by the poor, instead of defining the problem as being one of how powerful groups do harm to the poor
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What do Marxists and Interactionists argue?
Marxists argue that it fails to explain corporate crime, which is much more harmful & Interactionists argue that because left realists rely on quantitative data from victim surveys cannot explain offenders' motives
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What is a similarity of LR & RR?
Both see crime as a real problem & fear of crime as rational
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What is a difference of LR & RR?
Come from different ends of the political spectrum: RR are Neo-conservatives as blame lack of individual lack of self-control while LR are reinforcement socialists which is reflected in how they explain crime
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What is another difference of LR & RR?
LR prioritises justice, achieved through democratic policing & reforms to create a greater equality whereas RR prioritise social order achieved through a tough stance against offenders
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What have Heidensohn & Silvestri observed?
Gender differences are most significant feature of recorded crime & official statistics show that four out of five convicts offenders in England & Wales are male & by age of 40 9% of females have criminal conviction compared to 32% of males
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However, what do some sociologists & criminologists argue?
That the statistics underestimate the amount of female as against male offending as typically, female crimes are less likely to be reported such as shoplifting & prostitution
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What does the chivalry thesis argue?
That most criminal justice agents such as police officers are men & its said that men are socialised to act in a chivalrous way towards women
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What does Pollak argue?
That men have a protective attitude towards women & men hate to accuse women & send them to their punishment
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Outline first sight views on court statistics
Appear to give some support to the chivalry thesis e.g. females are more likely than males to be released to bail rather than remanded in custody & females are more likely than males to receive a fine or a community sentence
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Outline Farrington & Morris' study
1983 study of sentencing of 408 offences of theft in magistrates’ court found that women were not sentenced more leniently for comparable offences
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Outline Buckle et als observational study of shoplifting in a department store
Witnessed twice as many males shoplifting than females despite the fact that the numbers of male and female offenders in the official statistics are more or less equal
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What do feminists argue about criminal justice system being biased?
Heidensohn argues the courts treat females more harshly than males when they deviate from gender norms
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Outline the view of double standards
May mean that courts punish girls but not boys for premature sexual activity
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What did Sharpe find?
From her analysis of 55 youth worker records, that 7/11 girls were referred for support as they were sexually active but 0/44 boys
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What did Stewart find?
That magistrates' perceptions of female defendants' characters were based on stereotypical gender roles
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What do Lombroso & Ferrero argue?
That criminality is innate but that there were very few born female criminals
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Outline recent psychological explanations
That biological factors such as higher levels of testosterone in males can account for gender differences in violent offending
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Outline Parsons' view of crime & deviance to gender roles
Linked to conventional nuclear family as while men take instrumental breadwinner role, performed outside the home, women perform expressive role in home where take main responsibility for socialising children.
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What does Parsons view tend to mean for boys?
They reject feminine models of behaviour that express tenderness, gentleness & emotion. instead, boys seek to distance themslves from such models by engaging in compensatory compulsory masculinity through aggression & anti-social behaviour
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According to Cohen what does this relative lack of an adult male role model mean?
Boys are more likely to turn to al-male street gangs as a source of masculine identity. These subcultural groups, status is earned by acts of toughness, risk-taking & delinquency
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How does Walklate criticise sex role theory?
For its biological assumptions & Parsons assumes that because women have the biological capacity to bear children, they are best suited to the expressive role
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What does Heidensohn argue?
That the most striking thing about women's behaviour is how conformist it is. IN her view, due to patriarchal society imposing greater control over women & this reduce their opportunities to offend & this control operates at home, in public spaces
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How are women controlled in the public place?
By the threat or fear of male violence against them, especially sexual violence
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What did the Islington Crime Survey find?
That 54% of women avoided going out after dark for fear of being victims of crime as against only 14% of men
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Outline Carlen's study
Using unstructured tape-recorded interviews, Carlen conducted a study of 39 15-46 year old w/c women who had bee convicted of a range of crimes including theft, fraud, handling stolen goods, drugs, prostitution, arson.
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What does Carlen argue?
That w/c women are generally less likely to conform through the promise of two types of rewards: class deal & gender deal. If these rewards aren't available or worth the effort, crime becomes more likely
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What does Hirschi argue?
That humans act rationally & are controlled by being offered a deal of rewards in return for conforming to social norms. People will turn to crime as they dont believe the rewards will be forthcoming
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What are both control theory & feminism accused of?
Seeing women's behaviour as determined by external forces such as patriarchal controls/ class & gender deals. Critics argue that this underplays the importance of free will & choice in offending
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What does Adler argue as part of the liberation thesis?
That as women become liberated from patriarchy, their crimes will become as frequent & as serious as men's. Womens liberation has led to a new type of female criminal & a rise in the female crime rate
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What has been said in regard to changes in the structure of society?
The changes have led to changes in women's offending behaviour. As opportunities in education & work have become more equal, women have begun to adopt traditionally male roles in both legitimate activity & illegitimate activity
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What occurs as a result?
Women no longer just commit traditional female crimes such as shoplifting and prostitution. They now also commit typically male offences such as crimes of violence and assertiveness
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Outline a criticism of liberation thesis
little evidence that the illegitimate opportunity structure of professional crime has opened up to women. e.g, Hunt et al found that female gang members in the SSA were expected to conform to conventional gender roles in the same way as non-deviant
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Outline a statistic that supports Adler's liberation thesis
Increase in the female arrest and conviction statistics for violent crime. For example, according to Hand and Dodd between 2000 and 2008, police statistics show the number of females arrested for violence rose by an average of 17% each
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What did Schwartz et al find?
While female shares of arrest for violence grew from 1/5 to 1/3 between 1980 & 2003, this rise in the police statistics was not matched by findings of victim surveys. Victims didn't report any increase in attacks by females
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What did Schwartz et al conclude?
That in reality there has been no change in women’s involvement in violent crime. They argue that the rise in arrests is due to the justice system ‘widening the net’
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If female participation in violent crime is not in fact increasing, how do we account for the increase in criminalisation of females for this kind of crime?
Social construction results from a moral panic over young women's behaviour e.g. Batchelor et al point to media depictions of young women as drunk & disorderly, out of control & looking for fights
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From the Crime Survey for England & Wales what was found in regards to female victims?
More likely to know their killer and in 60% of these cases, this was a partner or ex-partner. Males are more likely to be killed by a friend or acquaintance
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What does Messerschmidt argue?
That masculinity is a social construct and men have to constantly work at constructing and presenting it to others. In doing so, some men have more resources than others to draw upon
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How do some men have subordinated masculinities?
Include gay men, who have no desire to accomplish hegemonic masculinity as well as lower-class and some ethnic minority men, who lack the resources to do so
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How does Messerschmidt see crime & deviance?
As resources that different men may use for accomplishing masculinity for example, class and ethnic differences among youths lead to different forms of rule breaking to demonstrate masculinity
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How can Messerschmidt be criticised?
Is masculinity an explanation of male crime or just a description of male offenders? Messerschmidt is in danger or a circular argument, that masculinity explains male crimes because they are crimes committed by males who have violent characters
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How else can he be criticised?
He over-works the concept of masculinity to explain virtually all male crimes, from joy riding to embezzlement
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Outline Winlow's study of bouncers in Sutherland
Working as bouncers in the pubs and clubs provided young men with both paid work and the opportunity for illegal business ventures in drugs, duty-free tobacco and alcohol and protection rackets
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How are black & Asians over-represented?
Black people take up around 35 of the population but 13.1% of the prison population & Asians make up 6.5% of the population but 7.7% of prison population
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What do statistics not tell us?
Whether members of one ethnic group are more likely than members of another group to commit crimes in the first place
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What does the Crime Survey for England & Wales ask?
Individuals to say what crimes they have been victims of usually during the past 12 months. Can gain information about ethnicity & ofending from such surveys when they ask victims to identify the ethnicity o the person who committed the crime against
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Outline limitations of victim surveys
They rely on victims’ memory of events and according to Phillips and Bowling evidence suggests that white victims may over-identify blacks and they only cover personal crimes which make up only a fifth of all crimes
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What do self-report studies ask?
Individuals to disclose their own dishonest & violent behaviour & based on a sample of 2,500 people Bowling et al found that lacks & whites had very similar rates of offending, while Indians, Pakistanis & Bangladeshis had much lower rates
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What did Sharp et al find from The Home office of nine self-report studies on drug use?
27% of males of mixed ethnicity said they had used drugs in the last year, compared with 16% of black & white males and 5% of Asian males
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Outline ethnicity and stop & searches
Members of minority ethnic groups are more likely to be stopped & searched by the police as they can use their power if they have reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. Compared with whites, black people are 7 times more likely to be stopped & searched
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Outline the Terrorism Act 2000
Police can stop and search persons or vehicles whether or not they have reasonable suspicion. Statistics show that Asians are more likely to be stopped and searched than other people under this Act
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Outline figures for England & Wales arrest rates in 2014/15
Arrest rate for blacks was 3 times the rate for whites. Once arrest, blacks & Asians less likely than whites to receive a caution
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Why might these figures exist?
Members of minority ethnic groups are more likely to deny the offence & to exercise their right to legal advice however, not admitting the offence means they cannot be let off with a caution & are more likely to be charged instead
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What is the Crown Prosecution Service?
Is the body responsible for deciding whether a case brought by the police should be prosecute in court. So CPS must decide whether there is a realistic prospect of conviction & whether prosecution is in the public interest
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What have studies suggested about the CPS?
CPS is more likely to drop cases against ethnic minorities
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What do Bowling et al argue?
That this may be because the evidence presented to the CPS by the police is often weaker & based on stereotyping of ethnic minorities as criminals
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Outline convictions & sentencing
Black & Asian defendants are less likely to be found guilty which suggests discrimination in the police & CPS may be bringing weaker /less serious cases against ethnic minorities which as a result are thrown out by the courts
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Outline imprisonment rates for Blacks & Asians
Blacks have rates 3% points higher & Asians 5% points higher than white offenders. May be due to differences in seriousness of offences or previous convictions
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What did a study of five Crown Courts by Hood find?
That even when such factors were taken into account, black men were 5% more likely to receive a custodial sentence & were given sentences on average three months longer than whites
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What do Lea & Young argue?
That ethnic differences in statistics reflect real differences in levels of offending by different ethnic groups. LR see crime as the product of relative deprivation, subculture & marginalisation
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What do LR argue about racism?
That its led to marginalisation & economic exclusion of ethnic minorities who face higher levels of unemployment, poverty & poor housing. At same time, media's emphasis on consumerism promotes sense of relative deprivation by setting materialisti goa
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What do Lea & Young recognise?
That police often act in racist ways & this results in unjustified criminalisation of some members of minority groups however, dont believe that discriminatory policing fully explains the differences in statistics
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How can Lea & Young be criticised?
For their view on the role of police racism for example, arrest rates for Asians may be lower than for blacks not because they are less likely to offend, but because police stereotype the two groups differently, seeing blacks as dangerous, Asians as
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What does Gilroy argue?
Idea of black criminality is a myth created by racist stereotypes of African Caribbean's & Asians. In reality, these groups are no more criminal than any other
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In Gilroy's view how can ethnic minority crime be seen as?
A form of political resistance against a racist society & this resistance has its roots in earlier struggles against British imperialism
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How do Lea & Young criticise Gilroy?
First-generation immigrants in the 1950s and 60s were very law-abiding, so it is unlikely that they passed down a tradition of anti-colonial struggle to their children
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What does Hall et al argue?
That the 1970s saw a moral panic over black muggers that served the interests of capitalism. So ruling class are normally able to rule the subordinate classes through consent however, in times of crisis, this becomes more difficult
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Outline the emergence of the moral panic about mugging
The myth of black muger served as a scapegoat to distract attention from the true cause of problems such s unemployment. Black mugger came to symbolise the disintegration of social order & by presenting black youth as a threat to the fabric of societ
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Why have Hall et al been criticised?
Downes and Rock argue that Hall et al are inconsistent in claiming that black street crime was not rising, but also that it was rising because of unemployment and they do not show how the capitalist crisis led to a moral panic,
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Outline extend & risk of victimisation
Police recored 54,000 racist incidents in England & Wales in 2014/15 however, most incidents go unreported. Crime statistics estimates were around 89,000 racially motivated incidents in 2014/15
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Outline victimisation by Crime Statistics for England & Wales
Shows that people from mixed ethnic backgrounds had a higher risk of becoming a victim of crime than blacks, Asians or whites
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What are ethnic groups with a high proportion of young males therefore likely to have?
Higher rates of victimisation however, some of these factors are themselves partly the result of discrimination
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What did Ericson et al find in their study of Toronto
That 45-71% of quality press & radio news was about various forms of deviance & its control
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However, while the news media show a keen interest in crime what else do they do?
Give a distorted image of crime, criminals 7 policing e.g. as compared with the pictures of crime we gain from official statistics the media over-represent violence and sexual crime
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What did Tumber et al find?
That in the 1960s the focus had been on murders and petty crime but by the 1990s murder and petty crime were of less interest to the media
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What does the distorted picture of crime by the news media reflect?
The fact that news is a social construction, the outcome of a social process in which some potential stories are selected while others are rejected
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What is the central aspect of the manufacture of news?
Notion of news values which are criteria by which journalists & editors decide whether a story is newsworthy enough to make it into the newspaper
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What are some key news values influencing the selection of crime stories?
Immediacy, dramatisation, personalisation, higher-status persons and simplification
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What does Madel estimate?
That from 1945 to 1984, over 10 billion crime thrillers were sold worldwide, while about 25% of prime-time TV and 20% of films are crime shows or movies
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Fictional representations of crime, criminals and victims follow what?
The law of opposites: they are the opposite of the official statistics and are very similar to news coverage: property crime is under-represented, while violence, drugs and sex crime are over represented
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In the 1920s and 30s, what was the cinema was blamed for?
Corrupting youth
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In the 1950s, what were horror comics held responsible for?
Moral decline
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What about more recetnly?
Rap lyrics and computer games have been criticised for encouraging violence and criminality
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Outline ways which the media might cause crime & deviance?
Imitation by proving deviant role models resulting in copycat behaviour, arousal through viewing violent or sexual imagery and desensitisation through repeated viewing of violence
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Why is there a concern that the media may be distorting the public's impression of crime and causing an unrealistic fear of crime?
Media exaggerate amount of violent & unusual crime & risks of certain groups of people becoming its victims such as young women & old people
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What does research evidence support?
The view that there is a link between media use and fear of crime. For example, in the USA, Gerbner et al found that heavy users of television had higher levels of fear of crime
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What has laboratory based research focused on?
Whether media portrayals of crime and deviant lifestyles lead viewers to commit crime themselves
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What do LR argue?
That the mass media help to increase the sense of relative deprivation among poor and marginalised social groups
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What is the result of the media presenting everyone with images of materialistic good life?
Stimulate the sense of relative deprivation & social exclusion felt by marginalised groups who cannot afford these goods
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How does relative deprivation explain how the media produce or cause crime?
By showing people lifestyles they desire but cannot afford, the media create a sense of relative deprivation that causes people to resort to crime to get the commodities they cannot obtain legitimately
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What do cultural criminologists argue?
That the media turn crime itself into the commodity that people desire. Rather than simply producing crime in their audiences, the media encourage them to consume crime, in the form of images of crime
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What do Haywood et al see late modern society as?
A media-saturated society, where we are immersed in the mediascape however, there is a blur between the image and the reality of crime
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What do crime and its thrills become?
Commodified and corporations and advertisers use media images of crime to sell products especially in the youth market for example, gangster rap and hip hop combine images of street hustler criminality with images of consumerist success
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What do Hayward et al say?
Crime is packaged and marketed to young people as romantic, exciting, cool and fashionable cultural symbol
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What is a moral panic?
an exaggerated over-reaction by society to a perceived problem where the reaction enlarges the problem out of proportion to its real seriousness
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What happens in a moral panic?
The media identify a group as a folk devil or threat to societal values, the media represent the group in a negative fashion and moral entrepreneurs condemn the group and its behaviour
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What does Cohen examine?
The media’s response to disturbances between two groups of largely working-class teenagers, the mods and the rockers which went on to create a moral panic
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Outline who was involved & the initial confrontations
Mods worse smart dress and rose scooters; rockers wore leather jackets and rode motorbikes. The initial confrontations started on an Easter weekend in 1964 at Clacton, with a few scuffles, some stone throwing, some windows being broken
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What does Cohen argue that the medias portrayal of events produced?
A deviance amplification spiral by making it seem s if the problem was spreading and getting out of hand. This led to calls for an increased control response from the police and courts which produced further marginalisatio
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By emphasising their supposed differences, what did the media form?
Two distinct identities & transformed loose-knit grouping into two tight-knit groups which encouraged polarisation & helped to create a self-fulfiling prophecy of escalating conflict
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What do McRobbie & Thornton argue?
That moral panics are now routine & have less impact & in late modern society, there is little consensus about what is deviant
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What are Wall's five categories of cybercrime?
Cyber-trespass (crossing boundaries into others’ cyber property), cyber-deception and theft, cyber-***********, cyber-violence (doing psychological harm or inciting physical harm) and global cyber-crime
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What does globalisation refer to?
Increasing interconnectedness of societies, so that what happens to one locality is shaped by distinct events
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What are the causes of globalisation?
Spread of new information and communication technologies and the influence of global mass media, cheap air travel, the deregulation of financial and other markets and their opening up to competition
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What does Castells argue?
There is now a global criminal economy worth over £1 trillion per annum
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What could the global economy not exist without?
A supply side that provides the source of the drugs, sex workers and the other goods and services demanded in the West
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What does globalisation create?
New insecurities and produces a new mentality of risk consciousness in which risk is seen as global rather than tied to particular places
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What has the increase movement of people as economic migrants seeking work given rise to?
Anxieties among populations in Western countries about the risk of crime & disorder & the nee to protect their borders
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What does Taylor argue?
That globalisation has led to changes in the pattern and extent of crime and by giving free rein to market forces, globalisation has created greater inequality and rising crime
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What do LR argue?
The increasingly materialistic culture promoted by the global media portrays success in terms of a lifestyle of consumption. Factors can create insecurity and widening inequalities that encourage people, especially the poor to turn to crime
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What does the legitimate job opportunities destroy?
Self-respect and drives the unemployed to look for illegitimate ones for example, in the lucrative drugs trade
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What have the patterns of employment due to globalisation created?
New opportunities for crime. It has led to the increased use of subcontracting to recruit flexible workers, often working illegally or employed for less than the minimum wage
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What do Routhe & Friedrich examine?
The role of international financial organisations such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in what they call crimes of globalisation. These organisations are dominated by the major capitalist states
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What do they argue these bodies impose?
Pro-capitalists, neoliberal economic structural adjustment programmes on poor countries as a condition for the loans they provide. These programmes often require governments to cut spending on health and education
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What do Routhe et al show?
How the programme imposed on Rwanda in the 1980s causes mass unemployment and created the economic basis for the 1994 genocide
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What have globalisation & de-industrialisation created?
New criminal opportunities and patterns at a local level
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What did Hobbs et al find?
The way crime is organised is linked to the economic changes brought by globalisation
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What did Hobbs et al conclude that crime works as?
A glocal system which means the form it takes will vary from place to place, according to local conditions even if its influenced by global factors
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How have the changes in patterns of crime led to?
The shift from the old rigidly hierarchical gang structure to lose networks of flexible, opportunistic, entrepreneurial criminals
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What does Glenny trace?
The origins of transnational organised crime to the break-up of the Soviet Union after 1989, which coincided with the deregulation of global markets
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What did the collapse of communist state increase?
Disorder and to protect their wealth capitalists therefore turned to the mafias that had begun to sprung up. These were often alliances between formed KGB men and ex-convicts
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What is an example of green crime?
Atmospheric pollution from industry in one country can turn into acid rain that falls in another, poisoning its watercourses and destroying its forests.
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What are most of the threats to human well-being and the eco-system?
Human-made rather than natural so unlike the natural disasters of the past, such as drought and famine, the major risks we face today are of our own making
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What does Beck argue?
In today’s late modern society we can now provide adequate resources for all however, the massive increase in productivity and the technology that sustains it have created new, manufactured risks
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What do many of these risks involve?
Harm to the environment and its consequences for humanity such as global warming causes by greenhouse gas emissions from industry
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What is traditional criminology not concerned with?
Such behaviour since its subject matter is defined by the criminal law and no law has been broken. The starting point for this approach is the national and international laws and regulations concerning the environment
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What is green criminology concerned with?
Takes a more radical approach and starts from the notion of harm rather than criminal law
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What is primary green crime?
Crime that results directly from the destruction & degradation of the earths resources
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What are the four types of primary crime identified by South?
Crimes of air pollution, crimes of deforestation, crimes of species decline and animal abuse and crimes of water pollution
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What is secondary crime?
crime that grows out of the flouting of rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters. For example, governments often break their own regulations and cause environmental harms
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What are the two types of secondary crime identified by South?
State violence against oppositional groups and hazardous waste and organised crime
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What is a strength of green criminology?
Recognises the growing importance of environmental issues and the need to address the harms and risks of environmental damage both to humans and non-human animals
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What is a limitation of green criminology?
by focusing on the much broader concept of harms rather than simply on legally defined crimes, it is hard to define the boundaries f its field of study clearly
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What do Marxists & critical criminologists argue?
The traditional criminology focused on the crimes of the streets and ignored the crimes of the suits committed by big businesses. Like corporate crime, state crime is another example of the crime of the powerful
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What do Green & Ward define state crime as?
Illegal or deviant activities perpetrated by or with the complicity of state agencies. It includes all forms of crime committed by or on behalf of states and governments in order to further their policies
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What is the states role to define?
What is criminal, uphold the law and prosecute offenders however, its power means that it can conceal its crimes, evade punishment and avoid defining its own actions as criminal in the first place
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What are the four categories of state crime by McLaughin?
Political crimes such as corruption,Crimes by security & police forces such as genocide, Economic crimes e.g. official violations of health & safety laws, Social & cultural crimes such as institutional racism
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What does Chambliss define state crime as?
By law as criminal and committed by state officials in pursuit of their jobs as representatives of the state however, using a state’s own domestic law to define state crime is inadequate
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Outline the law in regards to Germany
German Nazi state passed a law permitting it to compulsory sterilise the disabled
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What do social harms & zemiology recognise?
That much of the harm done by states is not against the law
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What does Michalowski define state crime as?
As including not just illegal acts but also legally permissible acts whose consequences are similar to those of illegal acts’ in the harm they cause
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While genocides may be ordered and organised by leaders of states, they cannot happen without?
The cooperation of ordinary soldiers, police and civilians for example, in both Rwanda and Nazi Germany, genocide needed the involvement of a large proportion of the population
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Adorno et al identified an authoritarian personality what is this?
Includes a willingness to obey the orders of superiors without question. They argue that at the time of the Second World War, many Germans had authoritarian personality types due to the punitive, disciplinarian socialisation patterns that were common
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What are state crimes?
Deviance from social norms however, state crimes are crimes of conformity since they require obedience to a higher authority for example, in a corrupt police unit
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What does research suggest about people obeying?
Many people are willing to obey authority even when this involves harming others.
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What does Clarke describe situation crime prevention as?
Pre-empttive approach that relies not on improving society but simply on reducing opportunities for crime
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What are the three features of measures aimed at situation crime prevention?
Directed at specific crimes, involve managing the immediate environment of the crime and aim at increasing the effort and risks of committing crime and reducing the rewards
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Outline target hardening measures
Such as locking doors and windows increase the effort a burglar needs to make, while increased surveillance in shops via CCTV increase the likelihood of shoplifters being caught
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What is rational choice theory?
The view that criminals act rationally, weighing up the costs and benefits of a crime opportunity before deciding whether to commit it. This contrasts with theories of crime that stress ‘root causes’ such as the criminal’s early socialisation
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Outline Felson's example of situational crime prevention
The Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York was poorly designed and provided opportunities for deviant conduct for example, the toilets were a setting for luggage thefts, rough sleeping, drug dealing and homosexual liaisons
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What did re-shping the physical environment do?
Reduced such activity that was previously found before the prevention
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What is a criticism of situational crime prevention?
They do not reduce crime; they simply displace it. After all, criminals are acting rationally presumably they will respond to target hardening simply by moving to where targets are soften
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What are the different forms of displacement?
Spatial – moving elsewhere to commit crime, temporal – committing it at a different time, target – choosing a different victim, tactical – using a different method and functional – committing a different type of crime
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An example of the success of situational measures comes from studies explain
Early 1960s, 1/2 suicides in Britain were the result of gassing. At that time Britain’s gas supply came from highly toxic coal gas. From the 1960s, coal gas was gradually replaced by less toxic natural gas & by 1997 suicides fallen to near 0
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What does Wilson & Kelling's article on Broken windows stand for?
all the various signs of disorder and lack of concern for others that are found in some neighbourhoods e.g. noise, graffiti, begging, vandalism
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What do Wilson & Kelling argue?
That leaving broken windows unrepaired, tolerating aggressive begging etc sends out a signal that no one cares
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In such neighbourhoods what is there an absence of?
Both formal social control and informal control. The police are only concerned with serious crime and turn a blind eye to petty nuisance behaviour, while respectable members of the community feel intimidated and powerless
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What is Wilson & Kelling's solution?
To crack down on any disorder using a twofold strategy: an environmental improvement strategy such as any broken window must be repaired immediately otherwise more will follow and the police must adopt a zero tolerance policing strategy
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Outline successfulness of zero tolerance policies
Great successes have been claimed especially in New York for example, a Clean Car Program was instituted on the subway, in which cars were taken out of service immediately if they had any graffiti on them, only returning once clean
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What occurred as a result?
Graffiti was largely removed from the subway
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However, why is is not clear how far zero tolerance was caused improvements?
The NYPD benefited from 7,000 extra officers and there was a general decline in the crime rates in major US cities at the time including ones where police did not adopt a zero tolerance policy
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What is the aim of social & community crime prevention?
To remove the conditions that predispose individuals to crime in the first place. These are longer-term strategies since they attempt to tackle the root causes of offending rather than simply removing opportunities for crime
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Outline the Perry pre-school project
For disadvantaged black children in Michigan. An experimental group of 3-4 year olds were offered a two-year intellectual enrichment programme, during which time the children also received weekly home visits
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What did the longitudinal study following the children's progress find?
Showed striking differences with a control group who had not undergone the programme. By age 40, they had significantly fewer lifetime arrests for violent crime, property crime and drugs, while more had graduated from high school and were in employme
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In today’s late modern society, what does surveillance often involve?
The use of sophisticated technology, including CCTV cameras, biometric scanning, electronic tagging and databases that collate information from different sources to produce profiles of groups and individuals
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What is sovereign power?
Typical of the period before the 19th century, when the monarch had absolute power over people and their bodies. Control was asserted by inflicting disfiguring, visible punishment on the body. Punishment was a brutal, emotional spectacle
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What is disciplinary power?
Becomes dominant from the 19th century. In this form of control, a new system of discipline seeks to govern not just the body but the mind or soul. It does so through surveillance.
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What does Foucault claim?
That disciplinary power replaced sovereign power simply because surveillance is a more efficient technology of power
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Why has Foucault been criticised?
The shift from sovereign power and corporal punishment to disciplinary power and imprisonment is less clear than he suggests, he is accused of wrongly assuming that the expressive aspects of punishment disappear in modern society
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What does Foucault exaggerate?
The extent of control for example, Goffman shows how some inmates of prisons and mental hospitals are able to resist controls. Foucault also overestimates the power of surveillance to change behaviour
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What does Methiesen argue?
Argues that Foucault’s account of surveillance only tells half the story when applied to today’s society. In Methiesen’s view, while the Panopticon allows the few to monitor the many, today the media also enable the many to see the few.
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What does he argue in regards to late modernity?
There is an increase in the top-down, centralised surveillance that Foucault discusses but also in surveillance from below
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What does Thompson argue?
That powerful groups such as politicians fear the media’s surveillance of them may uncover damaging information about them and this acts as a form of social control over their activities
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However, what does McCahill argue?
Occasional bottom-up scrutiny may be unable to reverse established ‘hierarchies of surveillance’. For example, under anti-terrorism laws, police have powers to confiscate the cameras and mobile phones of ‘citizen journalists’
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What does Simon et al argue?
That a new technology of power is emerging throughout the justice system
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What are the three ways this differs rom Foucault's disciplinary power?
Focuses on groups rather than individuals, Not interested in rehabilitating offences but preventing from offending, Uses calculations of risk or actuarial analysis
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Outline Simon et als example in regards to crime control and airport security
Airport security screening checks are base don known offender risk factors. Using information gathered about passengers they can be profiled and given a risk score and anyone scoring above a certain level s then stopped, questioned and searched etc
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How can punishing offenders prevent future crime?
Deterrence, Rehabilitation, Incapacitation
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What is deterrence?
Making an example of them may also serve as a deterrent to the public at large. Deterrence policies include Mrs Thatcher’s Conservative governments’ short, sharp shock regime in young offenders institutes
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What is rehabilitation?
Is the idea that punishment can be used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend. Rehabilitation policies include proving education and training for prisoners so that they are able to ‘earn an honest living’ on release
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What is incapacitation?
Is the use of punishment to remove the offenders’ capacity to offend again. Policies in different societies have included imprisonment, execution, the cutting off of hands etc
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What is retribution?
Means paying back. It is a justification for punishing crimes that have already been committed, rather than preventing future crimes. It is based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished
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What does Durkheim argue the function of punishment is?
To uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values. Punishment is primarily expressive. Through rituals of order such as public trial and punishment, society’s shared values are reaffirmed and its members come to feel a sense of moral unity
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What are the two types of justice?
Retributive & Restitutive
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What is retributive justice?
In traditional society, there is little specialisation and solidarity between individuals is based on their similarity to one another. This produces a strong collective conscience, which, when offended, responds with vengeful passion to repress crimi
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What is restitutive justice?
In modern society, there is extensive specialisation and solidarity is based on the resulting interdependence between individuals. Crime damages this interdependence so it is necessary to repair the damage, for example through compensation
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For Marxists, what is the function of punishment?
To maintain the existing social order. As part of the ‘repressive state apparatus’, it is a means of defending ruling-class property against the lower classes
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Outline Thompsons description of 18th century punishments
Such as hanging and transportation to the colonies for theft and poaching were part of a ‘rule of terror’ by the landed aristocracy over the poor
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What do Melossi et al see imprisonment as?
Reflecting capitalist relations of production for example: capitalism puts a price on the worker’s time; so too prisoners ‘do time’ to ‘pay’ for their crime and the prison and capitalist factory both have a similar strict disciplinary style
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How did the changes of roles in prisons occur after Enlightenment?
ISmprisonment began to be seen as a form of punishment in itself, where offenders would be reformed through hard labour, religious instruction and surveillance
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Since the 1980s what has there been a move towards?
Populist punitiveness’ where politicians have sought electoral popularity by calling for tougher sentences. For example, New Labour governments after 1997 took the view that prison should be used not just for serious offenders, but also as a deterren
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What occurred as a result?
Prison population has swollen to record size: between 1993 and 2016 the number of prisoners in England and Wales almost doubled to reach a total of 85,000
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Whats occurred as a consequence?
Poor sanitation, barely edible food, clothing shortages, lack of educational and work opportunities and inadequate family visits
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Outline prison populations in US
Stable at around 100-120 per 100,000. in 1972, there were about 200,000 inmates in state and federal prisons. However, from the 1970s, the numbers began to rise rapidly and there are now 1.5 million state
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What does Downes argue?
The US prison system soaks up about 3—40% of the unemployed, thereby making capitalism look more successful
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What does Garland argue?
The reason for mass incarceration is the growing politicisation of crime control. For most of the last century there was a consensus, which Garland calls ‘penal weflarism’
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What is transcarcertation?
Idea that individuals become locked into a cycle of control, shifting between different carceral agencies during their lives. For example, someone might be brought up in care, then sent to a young offenders’ institution then adult prison
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Some sociologists see transcarceration as a product of what?
Blurring of boundaries between criminal justice and welfare agencies for example, health, housing and social services are increasingly being given a crime control role and they often engage in multi-agency working with the police
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In recent years there has been a growth in range of community-based controls such as what?
Curfews, community service orders, treatment orders and electronic tagging
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What do some argue police have used community controls negatively?
Used ASBOs as a way of fast—tracking young offenders into custodial sentences
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According to Miers what are the three features of positivist victimiolgoy?
Aims to identify factors that produce patterns of victimisation Focuses on interpersonal crimes of violence, Aims to identify victims who have contributed to own victimisation
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What did Hentig identify in regards to positivist victimology?
13 characteristics of victims such as that they are likely to be females, elderly or mentally subnormal. Implication is that victims in some sense invite victimisation by being the kind of reason that they are
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What is an example of positivist victimology?
Wolfgang’s study of 588 homicides in Philadelphia. Wolfgang found that 26% involved victim precipitation – the victim triggered the events leading to the homicide, for instance by being the first to use violence
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What does Brookman note that Wolfgang shows?
Importance of the victim-offender relationship and the fact that in many homicides it is a matter of chance which partly becomes the victim
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What does positivist victimology ignore?
Situations where victims are unaware of their victimisation as with some crimes against the environment and where harm is done but no law broken
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What is critical victimology based on?
Conflict theories such as Marxism and feminism and shares the same approach as critical criminology
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What are the two elements it focuses on?
Structural factors e.g. patriarchy & poverty AND States power to apply/deny the label of victim
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What does Tombs et al show?
That safety crimes, where employers’ violations of the law led to death or injury to workers, are often explained away as the fault of accident prone workers. As with many **** cases, this both denies the victim official ‘victim status’ and blames th
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What does critical victimology disregard?
The role victims may play in bringing victimisation on themselves through their own choices or their own offending
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Outline class patterns of victimisation
The poorest groups are more likely to be victimised. For example, crime rates are typically highest in areas of high unemployment and deprivation
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How was this shown?
A survey of 300 homeless people which found that they were 12 times more likely to have experienced violence than the general population
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Outline age patterns of victimisation
Younger people are at more risk of victimisation. Those most at risk of being murdered are infants under one, while teenagers are more vulnerable than adults to offences including assault, sexual harassment etc. The old are also at risk of abuse
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Outline ethnicity patterns of victimisation
Minority ethnic groups are at greater risk than whites of being victims of crime in general, as well as of racially motivated crimes. In relation to the police, ethnic minorities, the young and the homeless are more likely to report feeling under-pro
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What did Pynoos et al find in regards to indirect victims?
That child witnesses of a sniper attack continued to have grief-related dreams and altered behaviour a year after the event
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What is secondary victimisation?
The idea that in addition to the impact of the crime itself, individuals may suffer further victimisation at the hands of the criminal justice system
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What do feminists think about secondary victimisation?
Argue that **** victims are often so poorly treated by the police and the courts, it amounts to a double violation
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Card 4

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What do modern societies cause?

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Card 5

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What do modern societies tend towards in Durkheim's view?

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