This document provides an overview of key topics relating to crime and deviance including: 1. Relationships between crime and factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, class, and locality. Younger people and males commit more crimes according to statistics, while some ethnic groups are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. 2. Emerging trends such as exclusively female gangs and increasing crime rates among women. 3. Issues with how police profiling may target certain groups unfairly based on characteristics like age, gender, and ethnicity rather than clear links to criminal behavior. 4. The underreporting of "white collar" and corporate crimes committed by wealthy and powerful individuals and organizations.

1. GCSE Sociology
Crime and Deviance
Looking for patterns
Age
Ethnicity
Gender
Class
Location
Essential Notes and Workbook
What is the relationship between involvement in crime and age?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

2. From your notes can you recall….
What connection between age and crime is shown in the official
statistics?
Do self-report studies agree with official statistics?
How do we explain the relationship between age and crime?
What is the relationship between gender and crime?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

3. What do the official statistics tell us about women and crime?
What is the most common offence for both men and women?
How can we explain why women are less involved in criminal activity?
How do we explain women’s increasing involvement in crime?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

4. What is the general pattern of women’s involvement in crime?
What are the explanations for this change?
Girl Gangs and Street Violence
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

5. Hundreds of girls are joining criminal gangs involved in violence and
drugs, experts warned yesterday. Alarmingly, at least three all-girl gangs
are roaming the streets of London. A report by the Metropolitan Police
Authority found 10 per cent of gang participants are women and
evidence suggests that girls as young as seven are joining up.
The deputy chairman of the Metropolitan Policy Authority said yesterday:
“The Met has long been aware of the involvement of females in criminal
activity. It has always been there. What I am worried about now are
exclusively girl gangs.”
Campaigners have warned that more must be done to find out exactly
how many girls are in gangs with some estimates suggesting that they
make up around a third of membership.
Source – Daily Mail 22nd August 2007
What aspect of females’ involvement in crime has changed recently?
Think…..
What is meant by the chivalry effect?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

6. What evidence is there to suggest that the chivalry effect is becoming
less significant?
The newspaper article identifies the emergence of exclusively girl gangs.
Why might this raise more public concern that mixed or exclusively boy
gangs?
What is the relationship between ethnicity and crime?
Look at these statistics and answer the questions.
white black asian other unknown
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

7. General 91.3 2.8 4.7 1.2 0
population
Prison 81.5 11.0 6.0 1.1 0.4
population
1. What percentage of the general population comprises “black”
ethnic groups?
2. What percentage of the population comprises white ethnic groups?
3. Members of which ethnic groups are under-represented among
those in the prison population relative to their proportion in the
general population?
4. Looking at the information in the chart write a paragraph to explain
the relationship between the general and prison population.
Explaining the patterns
What explanations can we find for the over-representation of some
ethnic groups in the prison population?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

8. Look at this chart
white black asian other Unknown
General 91.3 2.8 4.7 1.2 0
population
Stop and 72.3 15.9 8.1 1.5 2.1
search
Arrests 83.1 9.6 5.3 1.3 0.7
Cautions 81.3 6.4 4.4 1.2 6.6
Relative to the population which members of which ethnic groups are:
1. More likely to be stopped and searched?
2. Over represented among those arrested?
3. Under represented among those cautioned?
Is Policing Fair?
A view often expressed by sociologists and criminologists is that some people are
“criminalised” while other (often more serious) offenders avoid police attention.
Since catching offenders “in the act” is actually rare, police officers tend to focus their
attention on individuals they think are “likely” to be offenders. They do this by
developing a profile of a “typical” offender. These informal profiles are largely based
on two sources of information
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

9. First officers’ own views and previous encounters with offenders. However these
encounters are problematic because they are rarely systematic. Most offenders are
never caught and those who are caught are either unlucky or slow (thus not
representative of offenders in general)
Secondly, information from the public. However, accounts of offenders given by
victims or witnesses usually involve no more than descriptions of sex, age and
ethnicity – presumably because they are often the characteristics most obvious to
onlookers.
The central problem therefore, is that police have to operate with profiles that rely on
such characteristics (young, black males etc.) rather than anything that is clearly
linked with potential or undetected offending. If the criteria usually used to select
individuals for police attention are characteristics that people have little or no control
over (age, ethnicity, gender and social class) then only a narrow group of people
becomes subject to police attention, on grounds that are often not justifiable.
Source Townsley and Marshall (2006)
1. Can you think of crimes that may “avoid police attention”?
2. According to this article – what are the two main sources of
information used to base the “typical” offender on?
3. Looking at this article, write a paragraph to explain why the
policing of young, black men can seem unfair.
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

10. What is the relationship between crime and class and locality?
What does the evidence show about the number of working class people
in the prison population?
What are the explanations for this?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

11. White collar crime – a definition.
Why do these crimes go undetected?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

12. What is the link between locality and crime?
How can we explain the link between locality and crime?
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

13. Homework questions
What do sociologists mean by the terms white collar and corporate
crime?
Explain two reasons why white collar and corporate crime may be under-
represented in crime statistics.
Explain briefly why there appears to be more crime in urban areas than
in rural areas.
HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance

14. HG GCSE Sociology Crime and Deviance