Crime and Deviance

 The cultures that societies create are built out
of norms.
 These norms represent the values of the
group.
 When individuals and groups deviate from
norms, society responds.
 Deviance can range from chewing gum in the
wrong place to capital murder and beyond.

Crime is behaviour that breaks the
formal written laws of a society. If
someone commits a crime they can
be arrested, charged and
prosecuted. Actions can be illegal
but not deviant.

Deviance is behaviour which does
not comply with the dominant
norms of a specific society. If
people are seen as deviant it can
lead to negative sanctions such
as being told off or ridiculed.

Gary, walked through his
local library whilst talking
loudly on his mobile phone.
This is legally deviant as he
is not breaking any law, he is
just acting socially
unacceptable.

Robert, punched a old lady in
the face.
This is illegally deviant as
he committed an assault, the
fact that he punched an old
lady also makes the matter
worse.

Sam, illegally downloads
thousands of songs for
her mp3 player.
Sam is a criminal as she is
breaking the copyright act.
She is not a deviant as what
she is doing is not hurting
anyone.

 Not all deviance is crime,
and not all crime is deviant.
 Deviance is in the “eye of
the beholder.”

• Deviance occurs, not only at the individual
level, but also among groups.
• Corporations, governments, organizations,
and social groups can all take part in
deviance.
• There are deviant subcultures, ranging from
the homeless to religious cults to punks.

• Biological
• Psychological
• Sociological
The biological and psychological
perspectives locate deviance in the
person, while sociological perspectives
locate deviance in the act.

Cesar Lombroso theory:-
• Criminal man:“criminal man” was
atavistic, or less evolved and closer to
apes or Neanderthals, than were non
criminals.
• Criminal female: Female “born
criminals” were, however, fewer in
number and more difficult to detect.

• Charles Goring (1972) demonstrated
that both criminals and non criminals
shared the physical features (stigmata)
identified by Lombroso.
• Earnest Hooton conclude that
criminals were “organically inferior”
and that genetic “criminal stock”
surfaced occasionally.

• William Sheldon
concluded that muscular bodies
(which he associated with aggression)
indicated a criminal type.
• Psychophysiology
The science that deals with the
interplay between psychological and
physiological processes.

–Functionalist
–Reinforcement
–Conflict
–Symbolic integrationists
–Chicago School

Durkheim Influence:
-Moral boundaries
• a shared sense of acceptable behavior that
establishes right and wrong as well as
sanctions for behaviors that fall outside
permissible bounds

Social Bonds
Durkheim argued that social bonds were stronger
in preindustrial societies than in industrial societies
Anomie
Uncomfortable and unfamiliar state of normalessness
that results when shared norms or guidelines break down.
structural-strain theory
Anomie results from inconsistencies between the culturally
approved means to achieve goals and those actual goals.

Innovation
People accept culturally approved goals
Rejection
Rejection of the culturally approved goals
Ritualism
It occurs when someone is unsuccessful at achieving the goals
Retreatism
It occurs when both culturally approved goals and means are
rejected.

Opportunity Structures
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin explained deviance as :
to achieve legitimate goals, a person also has to have access to
illegitimate opportunities.
Albert Cohen theory
Blocked opportunities lead to subcultures that value other
attributes (e.g., stealing rather than buying).
Social-control theories
This theory ask not why people deviate, but rather why they
conform.

• Deviance is seen as learned, even normalized,
behavior.
• We act based on perceived rewards and costs,
which may be economic, social, and so on.
• Differential association is one of the better
known reinforcement theories.

Differential association theory states
that individuals have a greater tendency
to deviate from societal norms when
they frequently associated with those
who are more favorably inclined towards
deviance and conformity

• It is based on early observations of
crime in capitalist society made
by Friedrich Engels.
• It became major criminological
perspective during the 1970s and
1980s,
• Laws are written to target the
lower classes.
• Cost of corporate crimes outstrips
the cost of street crimes

 Crime control is in reality class
control!
 It also focuses on the influence of
inequality beyond class.
 Hate crimes: Crimes that are
committed based on the victims’
characteristics such as race,
ethnicity, gender, sexual
orientation, disability, or religion.

• It contains three theories:
Labeling theory
Medicalization of deviance
Cultural transmission theory
• These theories focus on our definitions of
situations and the argument that our self-
concepts are based on other’s
perceptions.

It is the response of others that defines (labels) the
behavior as deviant and impacts further deviance.
Primary deviance: It is violations of social norms
that go undiscovered or are considered excusable by
others.
Secondary deviance: Deviance committed as a
result of the reactions of others to previous deviant
behavior.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: The person develops a
self-concept based on the label and acts based upon
that self-concept.

An art student told that she
had excellent talent
An art student told that she
had no talent

Negative labels can become a stigma
that is a powerful negative label that
changes a person’s social identity and how
they see themselves.

• One from upper middle class-
the saints
• They were indulged in crimes
i.e. Drinking, theft etc
• Saints were never arrested.
• Saints have cars to get away
from the situation
• Saints were labeled as good
college boys playing pranks
when caught
• Their labels impacted their
future lives.
• One is poor –the roughnecks
• They were indulged in crimes
i.e. Drinking, theft etc
• Roughnecks were arrested
more than once.
• Roughnecks have few
automobiles
• Roughnecks were labeled as
troublemakers.
• Their labels impacted their
future lives.
SAINTS ROUGHNECKS

 This means that, issues that were
formerly defined in moral or legal
terms have become redefined as medical
issues.
 Mental illness is a highly debated and
highly stigmatized disorder .
 Social psychologist D. L. Rosenhan
demonstrated how powerfully these
labels of mental illness stick.

 He sent eight volunteer pseudo patients to a
mental hospital
 Each complained only of hearing voices that
mentioned the emptiness of life
 Each pseudo-student was diagnosed as
schizophrenia
 No staff ever recognized any of these pseudo
patients as frauds.
 Other patients, however, did suspect them of
being “not crazy”
 When cured they were labeled as schizophrenia
“in remission”

• Says that deviance is learned and shared
through interaction with others.
• A widely tested theory drawing from this
perspective is the theory of differential
association.

• It says that deviance results from interacting
with deviant associates.
• Critics of differential association note that
children having weak bonds to their parents
are those most likely to engage in deviance .

Crime
Crimes are acts defined as so unacceptable they are
prohibited by a code of laws.
Criminologists
"The sociologist or other social scientists who study
the criminal justice system , criminal law, and order "

crimes are divided into felonies and misdemeanors
based on a seriousness of the crime
sociologists categorize crimes based on how they are
committed and how society views the offense
conventional or street crime is all violent crime.

Following are types of crime:
Occupational or white collar crime
Corporate crime
Organized crime
Political crime

Occupational or white-collar
"These crimes are illegal activities committed by
people in the course of their employment or
financial affairs“
White collar crimes generally generates less
concern in the public mind than other types of
crime.

Corporate crime
"It is an illegal act committed by corporate
employees on behalf of the corporation and with
its support“
• It deals with the company as a whole.

Organized crime
"It is a business operation that supplies illegal
goods and services for profit“
Such as:
• Drug trade
• Illegal gambling
• Weapons smuggling
• Money laundering

Political crime
"It refers to illegal or unethical acts involving
the usurpation of power by government officials“
• illegal unethical acts perpetrated against the
government by outsiders seeking to make a
political statement.

• UCR—Uniform Crime Reports
• NCVS—National Crime Victimization
Survey

Uniform Crime Report:
The Uniform Crime Reports
(UCR), as its name suggests, is a record of all
officially reported criminal activity. It does not
represent prosecutions, but rather represents
actual crime reported to law enforcement.
Additionally, the UCR focuses on serious, often
violent, crime.

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)
This survey compiles data based on self-
report by victims, as collected by workers from
the Bureau of the Census. As estimates of
unreported crime go as high as 50 percent, it
seems especially critical to include unreported
crime to some degree.

Official Statistics
A set of statistics generated from data
gathered by the government or other official
organizations. Often used as secondary data
in social research.

If a crime is observed and identified as a
crime, the police may be informed.
However, if the crime has not been detected
it cannot be reported to the police neither
can it be included in official statistics. This is
the reason many crimes occur but go
undetected

Reasons why not all crimes are included in the official crime
statistics:
• Victim of crime is a criminal themselves
• Victim feels crime is too personal.
• Institutional crime may be swept under carpet.
• Due to fear of bad press.
• Lack of confidence.
• Blackmailing.
• Embarrassment.

• Victim Surveys:
Surveys the public asking
them to report any crimes
committed against them and
whether or not they reported
these crimes.
Advantages Disadvantages
May uncover hidden figure of
crime
Not all crimes reported
Local geo-graphic data generated
Participants may lie
In some cases victims can not be
questioned

Self Report Surveys
Self report surveys of the population
which ask them to confess to crime they have
committed but for which they were not caught

 More crimes appear to be committed
by males
• Females more likely to be involved in
property offences or shoplifting
• Males involve in violence and sexual
offences

Why Males Commit More Crimes Than Females
Men have more social pressure to provide for a
family, and less social support when they need
it...which is why men represent between 70%
and 90% of the homeless, and men also
successfully commit suicide between 3 and 4
times more often than women.

Different Socialisation Processes:
socialisation play its part encouraging males from
a young age to take risks, to be tough and
aggressive. Whereas girls adopt qualities and
expectations which see them abide by the law.

Why Males Commit More Crimes Than
Females
 Social Control: Men may constrain
women into ‘home’ lives limiting their
freedom due to the care of the family
being imposed on them.
 The media creates expectations of
women too.

 Chivalry thesis: it means treating others
especially women with courtesy, sympathy and
respect. It states that women are treated more
leniently than men by criminal justice system. A
man may be arrested, police may let women off
with a warning.

• Chivalry thesis:It is also a fact that men on
average receive much longer and harsher
sentences for the exact same crimes as women
do. In many cases a woman gets a slap on the
wrist for committing a crime while a man will
get jail time for it. Our society is effete up and
the justice system shows a lot of favoritism
toward females.

• Inaccurate Statistics: Statistics which show
men commit more crime than women could be
representative of the labelling of men as
criminals and police going out to look for male
offenders ignoring female criminals.

• Arrest rates for crimes are highest for people
between the ages of 13 and 25, with the most
between 16 and 17.
• Rates of arrest are higher for males than
females at every age and for nearly all offences.

• An ethnic group or ethnicity is a socially-defined
category of people who identify with each
other based on common ancestral, social,
cultural or national experience.
Example:
many American citizens share certain cultural
characteristics, such as celebrating Thanksgiving
and valuing democracy, despite varying racial
origins

Institutional racism
“is a pattern of social institutions — such as
governmental organizations, schools, banks,
and courts of law — giving negative
treatment to a group of people based on
their race”

• One example of institutional racism is
the barring of African-American
students from attending certain public
schools, which limited the students'
educational opportunities and helped
prevent them from achieving a status
equal to that of others

Reasons why some ethnic groups seem to commit
more crime
Institutional Racism; Police officials belonging to
certain ethnic groups may set out to punish
members of other ethnic groups whilst protecting
their own.

more crime
Relative Deprivation; Foreign workers are usually
left with low paying manual jobs, thus meaning
they may not be able to afford material goods and
so obtain these desirables illegally.

more crime
Labelling; If a police officer labels a particular
ethnic group as criminals he will go out and
arrest more criminals belonging to that ethnic
group, whilst ignoring other crimes.

more crime
 Racism; White police officers may purposely prosecute or
dig deeper into crimes involving different ethnic groups
due to a racial hatred for such a group. This may also mean
they ignore cases where a certain ethnic minority has fallen
victim .
 Racism; White police officers may even frame Black or
Asian criminals with crimes they did not commit.

Reasons why the poor commit more crime.
 Poor Socialisation
 Relative Deprivation
 Anomie; Society does not provide enough
opportunities for people to succeed, therefore
some turn their back on society and cause
trouble
 Education; More likely to be in low sets, get low
paying job, struggle for money, so turn to illegal
ways of obtaining it.

 White Colour Crime; Involves middle class people,
who commit crimes during work hours.
 4 Main Types:
 Occupational Crime
 Professional Crime
 Corporate Crime
 Computer Crime

WHITE COLLAR CRIME
• White Colour Crime is difficult to deal with as;
• Judges Are Often From Similar Social
Backgrounds To White Collar Criminals
• Compared to Burglary and Assault it is not
dangerous to the public.
• There are usually no victims and no one person
is impaired
• The media does not show WCC as serious

• the criminal justice system includes the police,
the courts, and prisons
• the system is a collection of bureaucracies
– The system possesses considerable discretion
• the use of personal judgment regarding whether to take
action on a situation and so what kind of action to take
• the police are responsible for crime control and
maintenance of order
• the courts determine the guilt or innocence of
those accused to committing a crime

• punishment is any action designed to deprive a
person of the things of value including Liberty
because of something that the person is thought
to have done
• Disparate treatment of the poor, people of color,
and women is evident in the prison system
• the medicalization of deviance is the
transformation of deviance into a medical
problem that requires treatment by physician

• for many years capital punishment or the
death penalty has been used in the United
States
– about 4000 executions have occurred in the
U.S. since 1930, and scholars document race
and class biases in the imposition of the
death penalty in this country

• Although many people in the United States
agree that crime is one of the most important
problems facing the country, they are divided
about what to do about it
• the best approach for reducing delinquency and
crime is prevention
– work with people before they become juvenile
offenders so as to help them establish family
relationships, of self-esteem, choose a career, and
get an education which will help them pursue the
Career

• as long as racism, sexism, the class system, and
ageism exist in our society people will see
deviant and criminal behavior through selective
lenses

• global crime
– networking of powerful criminal organizations and
their associates and shared activities around the
world is relatively new phenomenon
• networking and strategic alliances between
criminal networks have been key factors in
successive criminal organizations that have
sought to expand the criminal activities over the
past two decades

• recent studies have concluded that reducing
global crime will require a global response
including the cooperation of law-enforcement
agencies prosecutors and intelligence services
across geopolitical boundaries.

INFORMAL AGENTS FORMAL AGENTS
Parents School
School Teachers Employer
Media
Legal SystemCharity Groups
Sub-cultures / peers
Religion
Police OfficersCelebrity Role
Models

The system is a collection of bureaucracies
– The system possesses considerable discretion
• the use of personal judgment regarding whether to take
action on a situation and so what kind of action to take
• The criminal justice system includes the police,
the courts, and system of punishment.
1. Police is responsible for crime control and
maintenance of order

I. The more serious situation, more likely
to make an arrest
II. Take account the victim’s wishes
III. The odds of arrest go up, the more
uncooperative the suspect is
IV. More likely to arrest someone, they
have arrested before

V. Presence of observers may increase the
chances to arrest.
VI. Police officers are more likely to arrest
people of different ethnic groups.
2. Courts determine the guilt or
innocence of those accused to committing
a crime.

Guilty plea is a legal negotiation in which a prosecutor reduces a
charge in exchange for a defendant’s guilty appeal.
3. Punishment is any action designed to
deprive a person of the things of value
including Liberty because of something that the
person is thought to have done.

There are four justifications of
punishments given as:
• Retribution.
• Deterrence.
• Rehabilitation.
• Societal protection.

• An act of moral vengeance by which
society makes the offender suffer as
much as the suffering caused by the
crime.
• It is the oldest justification to satisfy
people’s need for Retribution.

• Deterrence is the attempt to
discourage criminality through the use
of punishment.
– Specific deterrence is used to convince an
individual offender that crime doesn’t pay
– General Deterrence says that the
punishment of one person serves as an
example to others.

• A program for reforming the offender
to prevent later offenses.
• It is the third justification of
punishment and it arose in nineteenth
century.

• Societal protection is rendering an
offender incapable of further
offenses temporarily through
imprisonment or permanently by
execution.

• For many years capital punishment or the
death penalty has been used in the United
States
– about 4000 executions have occurred in the
U.S. since 1930, and scholars document race
and class biases in the imposition of the
death penalty in this country

• Although many people in the world agree that
crime is one of the most important problems
facing the country, they are divided about what
to do about it, the best approach for reducing
delinquency and crime is prevention
– work with people before they become juvenile
offenders so as to help them establish family
relationships, of self-esteem, choose a career, and
get an education which will help them pursue the
Career

• As long as racism, sexism, the class system, and
ageism exist in our society people will see
deviant and criminal behavior through selective
lenses

• Social control refers generally to
societal and political mechanisms or
processes that regulate individual
and group behavior in an attempt to
gain conformity and compliance to
the rules of a given society, state,
or social group.

Crime and Deviance

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