RIGHT WING LEFT WING

● Functionalists, New Right, Right ● Marxist, Interactionists, Neo

realists
● Focus on individual achievement
● Equality is neither possible or
desirable
● Society is meritocratic
● State intervention is undesirable
● Poor socialisation leads to ‘wrong’
norms and values
● Blame is with the criminal and
deviant
● Solution is to be tough with penalties
and strict with social control
Marxism, Left realist
● Focus on issues of power and
inequality
● People at the bottom are victims of
their circumstances
● Equality is important
● The unequal system creates
inequality
● Blame is with the system
● C&D could be the result of
necessity, desperation, a reaction to
labelling or an act of resistance
● Solution is to get rid of inequality

NEW RIGHT
Underclass
● The underclass is the segment of the population that occupies the
lowest possible position in a class hierarchy, below the working-class
● Charles Murray – an underclass is emerging in modern western
societies
● A group whose attitudes and values are different from tose of
mainstream society
● NR approach identified the emergence (development) of the
‘underclass’
● Underclass experience long term poverty and are unable to gain a living

Charles Murray - The Underclass

● Three symptoms of the underclass:
1. Crime
2. Births outside of marriage/not within wed lock
3. Economic inactivity

● Welfare states encourage them to depend on state provision. State

provision is too generous and makes the problem of poverty worse by
creating ‘welfare dependency’ and development of the ‘underclass’
● Long term unemployed and unwilling to take jobs available
● Births outside marriage as the leading indicator of an underclass. These
births lead to lone parents families which are seen as undesirable
AO1i – Murray, 1990
● Crime is a characteristic of the underclass (high illegitimate births and
unemployment)
● Murray blames the welfare state
● He argues that the welfare state has sapped moral fibre and eroded
Christian ethics thus threatening family values.
● The welfare state has created a 'dependency culture', which results in
the weakening of the work ethic.
● The result is a social sickness, which reduces the strength of those
moral values and mechanisms of social control so essential for
preventing criminal behaviour.

Top up: Murray and Hernstein

Cognitive ability and intelligence has an impact on criminal behaviour

AO3i
Gallie (1994)
Charlesworth (1999)
Young (2003)

AO1ii – Marsland (1988)

● Crime and deviancy is linked to the breakdown in the moral fabric of
society
● Schools and religion have become less effective agencies of social
control and that the moral glue of society, which gave it its authority,
has gone
● This has led to a decline in morality and as a consequence, crime has
increased
● Durkheim advocated that institutions such as the family make society
and that without them, society breaks down
 ● Decline in religious beliefs means that people dont have the same
morals + some religions forbid sex before marriage so a decline in
religious beliefs means that there is a rise in illegitimate births

● Marsland supports Murray in his view that the Welfare State is

responsible for the emergence of this underclass because welfare
dependency has undermined people’s sense of commitment and
obligation to support each other.
● People belonging to the underclass allegedly are workshy, i.e. they
choose not to work despite work being available to them because they
prefer to live off state benefits.

AO3ii
● Gallie (1994)
● Charlesworth (1999)
● Young (2003)

AO1iii – Dennis and Erdos, 1993 (page 82 in book 1)

● New Right thinkers see the family as the cornerstone of society. They
also see a ‘normal’ and ‘ideal’ family as the heterosexual nuclear family
unit. They see the family structure changes as a concern about the state
of the family

● The rise in the number of children brought up without fathers is seen as

a worrying development - the lack of a paternal figure means that youth
may seek for one in gang subcultures
● These children were invariably associated with antisocial behaviour,
criminality, delinquency, educational under-achievement and related
social problems in greater proportions than their equivalent peers
brought up in two-parent households
 ● This shows that family diversity has a negative impact on society as it
has led to children that act out against society, whereas before there
was family diversity this wouldn't happen

AO3iii
● Neale states that rising diversity leads to a less judgmental society as
we become more accepting of all sorts of family structures and
relationships and this reduces morality based judgements.
● Chester maintains that the dominant ideology which stresses the
nuclear family ideal leads to negative labelling of one parent families by
social agencies such as teachers, social workers, housing departments,
police and courts which may result in a self fulfilling prophecy. He
rejects the New Right assertion that inferior parenting is the cause of
problems with children.
● Young (2003)

AO1iv – Hirschi
● Hirschi looks at way the majority of people do not commit crime
● Social bonds of attachment
● Another key sociologist to be influenced by Emile Durkheim and the
concept of anomie is Travis Hirschi . Influenced by Functionalists but
comes under New Right.
● Instead of asking why people commit deviance he asks why most
people do not
● To answer this, he argues, we need to understand what forces maintain
conformity for most people in society.
● Rather than the factors that drive a minority into deviant behaviour.

AO3iv
● Sometimes social bonds can be used to explain deviance
● For example, attachment can actually lead people into crime because of
loyalty to their peer group or subculture
● The need to support a family in financial trouble can cause, say,
shoplifting while attachment to a subculture can encourage drug-taking
for example
 ● Like all functionalist theorists, Hirschi assumes a set of shared values in
society – other perspectives such as Marxism would disagree with this
view

● Limitations of statistics
● Contrasting theory

General evaluation
● Under-emphasises the causes of crime; it is reacting to the
phenomenon of crime and seeking to prevent it without a large enough
body of empirical evidence as to whether patterns of crime are related
to age, gender or ethnicity
● They do not provide any research into metrics of success or failure for
proactive policing and education as a system for imparting values
● They are not interested in corporate crime, white-collar crime, political
crime, or state crime
● They focus on young males and street crime, but are they really the
most dangerous and harmful to society? Or should corporate crime and
domestic crime be given more prevalence?

Outline the New Right view of crime and deviance in society. [10]

New Right sociologists developed the idea of an emerging ‘underclass’ which is the lowest
possible position in the hierarchy and is when an individual experiences prolonged poverty and
low standards of living. Charles Murray stated that the characteristics of the underclass were
illegitimate births, high crime rates and economic inactivity. Murray suggested that the welfare
state created dependency and that there were contradictory incentives in the welfare system
which could encourage single parenthood and discourage working for a living. Births outside
marriage are the leading indicator of an underclass as these illegitimate births lead to lone
parents families which are seen as undesirable. Murray stated that the welfare state has created
a 'dependency culture', which results in the weakening of the work ethic. The result is a social
sickness, which reduces the strength of society’s moral values and mechanisms of social control
which are essential for preventing criminal behaviour.

New Right sociologists also believe that crime and deviance is linked to the breakdown of
society. Marsland states that schools and religion have become less effective as agencies of
social control in contemporary society, as previously these agents were what maintained
authority. This ultimately led to a decline in morality and crime increased. A decline in religious
beliefs meant that people do not have the same morals, and as some religions forbid sex before
marriage, a decline in religious beliefs meant that there was a rise in illegitimate births. Durkheim
advocated that institutions such as the family make society and that without them, society
breaks down. School plays an effective role in secondary socialisation, and so a decline in
education use meant that youth seeked for other ways of gaining an income, and this was done
through various criminal activities. This also may lead to less people in employment, and so
increasing the reliance on the state, eventually forming an underclass. Marsland supports Murray
in his view that the Welfare State is responsible for the emergence of this underclass because
welfare dependency has undermined people’s sense of commitment and obligation to support
each other.