Usefulness of labelling theory in crime and deviance (30 marks)
P: labelling theory sheds light on the labelling process
that deems someone as criminal or deviant.
Becker:
Argues that someone only becomes deviant because moral
entrepreneurs with power and resources declare someone
to be.
E.G: homosexuality was deemed deviant and criminal in the
past because religion was the largest moral entrepreneur.
However, now it’s no longer considered deviant or criminal
because homosexuality pro groups have pressured
governments to change.
- The act itself is not deviant, but the labelling creates
devance.
AO3:
Ignores the fact that there are many actions that are
universally considered criminal. For example murder and
sexual violence. Doesn’t acknowledge that some actions are
just wrong, doesn’t need a label to be considered deviant or
criminal.
P: labelling theory highlights the process of how labels Showed how people who recreationally used cannabis were
are attached.
Lemert:
Distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance and who remotely fit this stereotype. Furthermore, led to the
how behaviour moves from being an act to becoming
deviant or criminal. Secondary deviance manifests itself in
the self-concept of the deviant, meaning the person
becomes their labels and everyone treats them as that label.
E.G: if a peadophile who only downloads child pornography AO3:
in their free time, they aren’t labelled as deviant as it doesn’t Labelling theory is deterministic. It assumes that once
affect their self-concept. This is primary deviance. However, someone has been labelled they will become deviant.
as soon as that deviance becomes public, the person is
labelled as a peadophile and this becomes secondary
deviance.
- Highlights details of the labelling process that
structuralist theories simply cannot.
AO3:
This theory ages that deviance becomes deviant when
people label it as such. However it could be alleged that
people know they’re being deviant before it’s labelled as
such.
P: labelling theory can aid understanding of why there
are big differences in crime rates.
Cicourel:
The police attach harmful stereotypes, also known as
typifications to the working class youth that leads to wrongful
convictions. Cicourel found that middle-class youth were
often allowed to negotiate justice whereas working-class
were immediately convicted.
- Shows the importances of stereotyping and police
typifications in understanding deviance and law
enforcement.
AO3:
Labelling theory ignores the importance of wider structural
factors like poverty in crime, those who’re poor might be
more likely to commit crime. Therefore, labelling or
stereotypes may be justified.
P: Labelling theory is useful in explaining how deviance
can be amplified by the media’s reaction to it.
Young:
acknowledged by the media. Consequently, they were
labelled as hippies and led to the marginalisation of anyone
‘hippies’ banding together and acting according to the label
in response (Self fulfilling prophecy).
- Shows how labelling theory can lead to self fulfilling
prophecy.
However, this is not the case.
P: labelling and criminal justice policy
Studies have shown how increases in the attempt to control
and punish young offenders can have the opposite effect.
For example, Triplett notes an increasing tendency to see
young offenders as evil and to be less tolerant of minor
deviance. The criminal justice system has re-labelled status
offences such as truancy as more serious offences, resulting
in much harsher sentences. As predicted by Lermert’s
theory of secondary deviance, this has resulted in an
increase rather than a decrease in offending.
- De Haan notes a similar outcome in Holland as a
result of the increasing stigmatisation of young
offenders. This indicates that labelling theory has
important policy implications. They add weight to the
argument that negative labelling pushes offenders
towards a deviant career. Therefore logically, to
reduce deviance, we should make and enforce fewer
rules for people to break. For example,
decriminalising soft drugs has been suggested as a
way to reduce criminal convictions and therefore the
risk of secondary deviance.
 Functionalist perspective on Crime and Deviance (30 marks)
P: Crime is an inevitable part of society.
Durkheim: Not everyone is effectively socialised and
therefore some people are likely to deviate from the norm
and can be seen as criminals. Furthermore, crime unites
members of society in condemnation and reinforces
commitment to norms and values.
Done through rituals of courtrooms where the wrongdoing of
people are dramatised and made a spectacle of. As a result
this reaffirms values of law-abiding and creates a
consensus.
Change in society starts with an act of deviance. There
must be scope to challenge and change existing norms and
values, and in the first instance this will appear as deviance.
If all ideas were suppressed, society would be stagnant and
unable to make necessary adaptive changes.
AO3:
Maxists argue that Durkehim fails to consider where the
consensus comes from and in whose interests it exists.
Laws that are made by the state, usually work in the
interests of the ruling class. Instead of there being a value
consensus in the interests of society, tere is ideology in the
interests of capitalism.
P: Durkeihm’s ideas have been further developed by
other sociologists who described criminal behaviour as
a safety valve for society.
Davis: commented on the positive social function
performed by prostitution, an act which typically would’ve
been regarded as deviant and criminal, as it allows men
sexual release without threatening the social institutions of
marriage and monogamy since men will not form emotional
attachments to sex workers in the way they might if they
had an affair.
- Portrays a positive view of crime and deviance.
AO3:
Feminists theorists are highly critical of this notion as it fails
to recognise the high levels of exploitation and patriarchal
controls that exist in society. Particularly within the sex-work
industry.
P: Crime and deviance functions as a signifier for when
an institution is not functioning properly.
Cohen states that high levels of truancy indicates issues
within social institutions such as education.
- This showcases how deviant behaviour can allude to
issues within institutions and lead to improvement of
said institutions.
P: Marxists argue that the economic system of
capitalism itself causes crime.
The whole system is based on the exploitation of the
working class by the ruling class, leading to the
ever-increasing wealth of one class and ever-increasing
poverty of the other. As a result, those who cannot afford
the basic necessities of life might turn to crime to provide
what their employers do not.
Gordon argues that crime is a rational response to the
capitalist system and as a result it’s found in all social
classes - even though the official statistics make it appear
to be largely a working-class phenomenon.
- The values of capitalism are criminal values: the aim
of capitalist society is to get society to get as much
money and wealth as possible, irrespective of those
that might harm other people. This encourages
crimes of the rich, and of less fortunate others who
are persuaded this is an appropriate way to behave.
AO3:
These theories seem to present working-class criminals as
passive. They're people who cannot help but commit crime
because of their economic circumstances. Neo-Marxists
challenge this idea, arguing that crime is a conscious
choice.
P: Functionalists fail to consider why crime and
deviance exists in the first place.
Strain theorists argue that one of the key reasons for
criminality is that members of society have unequal access
to achieve socially approved goals. As a result, they
experience status frustration and develop criminal or
deviant subcultures in which they can achieve success
through illegitimate means (Cloward and Ohlin).
E.G: A violent gang in which its members gain acceptance
through violent initiation acts and then continue to climb the
hierarchy based upon the levels of violence they are willing
to carry out.
- Criticise functionalists perspectives of crime for
being too positive. Makes the assumption of a
meritocratic society which many theories believe to
be a myth.
AO3:
Similar to functionalists, Cloward and Ohlin’s research is
predominantly male, working-class based. Consequently
they ignore issues relating to gender.
Conclusion:
Functionalists' theories focus on the positive social
functions performed by crime and deviance. However, they
could be considered too simplistic as they don’t give
enough attention to the root causes of crime and the social
systems of inequality that bring them about.
- For example Functionalism fails to comment on
the difference between men and women in terms
of their opportunity to commit crime or link
between levels of crime and media
representations.
 Evaluate the view that a lack of opportunity in society is the main cause of criminality (30 marks)
P: Merton’s strain theory
The strain theory argues that people engage in deviant
behaviour when they’re unable to achieve socially approved
goals by legitimate means.
E.g: frustration at position in society (social class) and their
lack of resources. Therefore, they lash out and turn to
criminal acts to get what they want or find comfort in drugs
(deviant behaviour).
- Based on the American dream, He argued that
American culture places value on money success
and that in order to achieve this they have to pursue
the “american dream”. This entails self-discipline in
studying and working hard in a career.
AO3:
Merton’s theory fails to explain why some people who don’t
meet the American Dream standard don’t resort to criminal
or deviant behaviour.
P: Cloward and Ohlin - illegitimate opportunity
structures
They argue that the working-class youths are denied
legitimate opportunities to achieve money success, and
that their deviance stems from the way they respond to
this situation.
It is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity
structure, but also unequal access to illegitimate opportunity
structures that leads to criminal activity. For example, not
everyone who fails by legitimate means, such as schooling,
then has an equal chance of becoming a safecracker. Just
like the apprentice plumber, the would-be safecracker
needs the opportunity to learn their trade and the chance to
practise it.
- Different neighbourhoods provide different
illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn
criminal skills and develop criminal careers.
AO3:
Miller argues that the lower class has its own independent
subculture separate from mainstream culture, with its own
values. Thai subculture does not value success in the first
place, so its members are not frustrated by failure
P: Marxists - crimonogenic capitalism
The whole system is based on the exploitation of the
working class by the ruling class, leading to the
ever-increasing wealth of one class and ever-increasing
poverty of the other. As a result, those who cannot afford
the basic necessities of life might turn to crime to provide
what their employers do not.
Gordon argues that crime is a rational response to the
capitalist system and as a result it’s found in all social
classes - even though the official statistics make it appear to
be largely a working-class phenomenon.
- The values of capitalism are criminal values: the aim
of capitalist society is to get society to get as much
money and wealth as possible, irrespective of those
that might harm other people. This encourages
crimes of the rich, and of less fortunate others who
are persuaded this is an appropriate way to behave.
P: Labelling theory
Lemert:
Distinguishes between primary and secondary deviance
and how behaviour moves from being an act to becoming
deviant or criminal. Secondary deviance manifests itself in
the self-concept of the deviant, meaning the person
becomes their labels and everyone treats them as that
label.
E.G: if a peadophile who only downloads child pornography
in their free time, they aren’t labelled as deviant as it doesn’t
affect their self-concept. This is primary deviance. However,
as soon as that deviance becomes public, the person is
labelled as a peadophile and this becomes secondary
deviance.
- Highlights details of the labelling process that
structuralist theories simply cannot.
AO3:
This theory ages that deviance becomes deviant when
people label it as such. However it could be alleged that
people know they’re being deviant before it’s labelled as
such.
P: Media as a cause of crime
There are a number of ways in which the media might
possibly cause crime and deviance.
E.G: the media exaggerates the amount of criminal activity
occurring and creates a ‘moral panic’ which leads to more
criminal behaviour.
Cohen argues that the media’s portrayal of two social
groups known as the ‘Mods’ and ‘rockers’ produced a
deviance amplification spiral by making it seem as if the
problem was spreading and getting out of hand. This
produced further marginalisation and stigmatisation of the
mods and rockers as deviants, and less and less tolerance
of them, and so in an upward spiral.
- The media further amplified the deviance by defining
the 2 groups and their subcultural styles. This led to
more youths adopting these styles and drew in more
participants for future clashes. By emphasising their
supposed differences, the media crystallised two
distinct identities and transformed loose-knit
groupings into two tight-knit gangs. This encouraged
polarisation and helped to create a self-fulfilling
prophecy of escalating conflict as youths acted out
the roles the media had assigned to them.
AO3:
It assumes that the societal reaction is a disproportionate
over-reaction. This relates to the left realist view that
people’s fear of crime is rational.
AO3:
These theories seem to present working-class criminals as
passive. They're people who cannot help but commit crime
because of their economic circumstances. Neo-Marxists
challenge this idea, arguing that crime is a conscious
choice.
Evaluate the relationship between ethnicity and crime (30 marks)
P: Official statistics
Lea and Young argue that ethnic differences in official
statistics reflect real differences in the levels of offending by
different ethnic groups. Left realists see crime as the
product of relative deprivation, subculture and
marginalisation. They argue that racism has led to the
marginalisation and economic exclusion of ethnic minorities,
who face higher levels of unemployment, poverty and poor
housing.
- Lea and Young acknowledge the police act in racist
ways and this results in unjustified criminalisation of
some members of minority groups. However, they
don’t believe that discriminatory policing fully
explains the difference in stats. 90% of crimes are
reported, and therefore the police bias cannot factor
into official statistics.
Under these circumstances, even if the police do act in
discriminatory ways, it’s unlikely that this can adequately
account for the ethnic differences in the stats.
AO3:
criticised for their views 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 passive.
P: right realists views of crime
Willson and Herrnstein put forward a biosocial theory of
crime. They believe that crime is caused by a combination
of biological and social factors. They believe that some
people are more predisposed to crime through personality
traits such as aggressiveness, extraversion and risk taking
along with low impulse control. This mixed with poor
socialisation or lack of role models leads to criminal
behaviour.
- This level of socialisation and lack of role-models is
heavily associated with working-class, specifically
young black males. (Black people in London are 4
times more likely to get stopped and searched.)
AO3:
An issue with the right realists view of crime is that they
ignore corporate or white collar crimes. Normally conducted
by middle-class individuals.
P: Moral Panic of Black Muggers
Hall et al adopted a neo-Marxists perspective of crime.
The 1970s saw the emergence of a media driven moral
panic about the supposed growth of a ‘new’ crime -
mugging. In reality, mugging was just a new name for street
robbery with violence, and Hall et al notes that there was no
evidence of a significant increase in this crime at the time.
P: Police racism
Phillips and Bowling point out that many officers hold
negative stereotypes about ethnic minorities as criminals,
leading to deliberate targeting for stop and search.
The Crown Prosecution Service is the body responsible for
deciding whether a case brought by the police should be
prosecuted in court.
Studies suggest that the CPS is more likely to drop cases
against ethnic minorities. Bowling and Phillips argue that
this may be because the evidence presented to the police
is often weaker and based on stereotyping of ethnic
minorities as criminals.
- Therefore, police bias may play a role in offending
statistics.
AO3:
Supportingly, The Macpherson Report on the police
investigation of the racist murder of the black teenager
Stephen Larence concluded that there was institutional
racism within the Metropolitan Police.
P: Black criminality is a myth
Gilory argues that Black criminality is a myth created by
racist stereotypes of African Carriabeans and Asians.In
reality these groups are no more criminal than others.
However, as a result of the police and criminal justice
system acting on these racist stereotypes, ethnic minorities
come to be criminalised and therefore appear in greater
numbers in official statistics
- Ethnic minority crime can be seen as a form of
political resistance against a racist society, and this
resistance has its roots in earlier British imperialism.
Sociologists like Gilroy argue that working class crime is a
form of resistance against capitalism. For many ethnic
minorities, originating from British colonies, riots and such
demonstrations were common practice against this racism,
however once they adopted the same strategies in the UK
their actions were criminalised by the state.
AO3:
Gilroy romanticises the crimes of ethnic minorities as
revolutionary, when it’s nothing of the sort. For example,
most crimes are intra ethnic, so ethnic minires couldn’t
possibly be fighting for an anti-racism struggle.
Conclusion:
Neo Marxists argue that the official statistics do not
represent the true picture of crime. Gilroy focuses on the
notion that most ethnic minorities are fighting against
society’s colonialism. In comparison, Left realism argues
that relative deprivation, enhanced by the media and
consumerism, causes ethnic minorities to innovate more in
Mugging was soon to be associated by the media, police
and politicians with black youth.
- They argue that the emergence of the moral panic
about mugging as specifically ‘black’ crime at the
same time as the crisis of capitalism was no
coincidence - in their view, the moral panic crisis
was linked. The myth of the black mugger served as
a scapegoat to distract attention from the true cause
of problems such as unemployment - namely the
capitalist crisis. By presenting black youth as a
threat to the fabric of society, the moral panic served
to divide the working class on racial grounds and
weaken opposition to capitalism, as well as winning
popular consent for more authoritarian forms of rule
that could be used to suppress opposition.
AO3:
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.
Evaluate the view that men commit more crime than women (30 marks)
P: Women are more likely to be let off.
Pollak puts forward the chivalry theory as an explanation
for why women appear to commit less crime than men. The
theory argues that men have a protective attitude towards
women and that ‘men hate to accuse women and thus send
them to their punishment’. The criminal justice system is
therefore more lenient with women and so their crimes are
less likely to end up in the official statistics. This gives an
invalid picture that exaggerates the extent of gender
differences in rates of offending.
- Evidence from self-report studies suggests that
female offenders are treated more leniently. For
example, Graham and Bowling’s research on a
sample of 1721 14-25 year olds found that although
males were more likely to offend, the difference was
smaller than that recorded in the official statistics.
They found that males were 2.33 times more likely
to admit to having committed an offence in the
previous 12 months - whereas the official stats show
males as 4 times more likely to offend.
AO3:
Evidence that shows that women may be more likely to be
prosecuted than male counterparts. An observational study
found that females were more likely to be convicted for
shoplifting than males.
P: Parson’s sex role theory
Parson traces differences in crime and deviance to the
gender roles in the conventional nuclear family. While men
take the instrumental, breadwinner role, performed largely
outside the home, women perform the expressive role in the
home,where they take the main responsibility for socialising
the children. While this gives girls access to an adult role
model, it tends to mean that boys reject feminine models of
behaviour that express tenderness, gentleness and
emotion. Instead, boys seek to distance themselves from
such models by engaging in ‘compensatory compulsory
order to gain wealth, or act out in fits of frustration, leading
to crimes like assault.
P: Liberation thesis
Adler argued that, as women become liberated from
patriarchy , their crimes will become as frequent and as
serious as men’s. Women’s liberation has led to a new type
of female criminal and a rise in the female crime rate. The
changes in the structure of society have led to changes in
women's offending behaviour. As patriarchal controls and
discrimination have lessened, and opportunities in
education and work have become more equal, women have
begun to adopt traditionally ‘male’ roles in both legitimate
activity and illegitimate activity.
- 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 white-collar crimes. This is
because of women’s greater self-confidence and
assertiveness, and the fact that they now have
greater opportunities in the legitimate structure.
AO3:
Most female criminals are working-class - the group least
likely to be influenced by women’s liberation, which has
benefited middle-class women much more. In the USA
poor and marginalised women are more likely than liberated
women to be criminals.
P: Moral panic about girls
Reports featuring binge drinking, girl gangs and so on may
be affecting the criminal justice system. For example,
Sharpe found that professionals such as judges, probation
officers and police were influenced by media stereotypes of
violent ‘ladettes’ and many believed that girls' behaviour
was rapidly getting worse. Similarly, in the USA,
Steffensmeier et al found that media-driven moral panics
about girls were affecting sentencing decisions.
- The overall effect is a self-fulfilling prophecy and an
amplification spiral: reports of girls’ misbehaviour
sensitise police and courts, who take a tougher
masculinity’ through aggressive and anti-social behaviour,
which can slop over into acts of delinquency.
- Because men have less of a socialising role than
women in the conventional nuclear family,
socialisation can be more difficult for boys than girls.
According to Cohen boys are more likely to turn to
all-male street gangs as a source of masculine
identity. In these subcultural groups, status is earned
by acts of toughness, risk-taking and delinquency.
AO3:
Walklate criticises the sex role theory for its biological
assumptions. According to Walklate, Parsons assumes that
because women have the biological capacity to bear
children, they are best suited to the expressive role.
P: Masculinity and crime
Messerschmidt argues that masculinity is a social
construct or ‘accomplishment’ and men have to constantly
work at constructing and presenting it to others. As a result,
some men have more resources than others to draw upon.
Messerchmidt argues that different masculinities co-exist
within society but hegemonic masculinity is the dominant,
prestigious form that most men wish to accomplish.
- Hegemonic masculinity defined through: work in
the paid-labour marker, the subordination of women,
heterosexism.
However, some men have subordinate masculinity. These
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.
White middle-class youths: Outside school, their
masculinity takes an oppositional form, for example through
drinking, pranks and vandalism.
White working-class youths: their masculinity is
oppositional both in and out of school. It’s constructed
around sexist attitudes, being tough and opposing teachers’
authority.
Black lower working-class youths: may have few
expectations of a reasonable job and may use gang
membership and violence to express their masculinity, or
turn to serious property crime to achieve material success.
AO3:
It’s argued that Messerschmidt’s explanation of male crime
determines their behaviour and as a result blames their
crimes - violent offences for example - on their
characteristics. Ignores their choice.
Evaluate sociological views of the effect of globalisation on crime (30 marks)
P: Globalisation of crime is the growing
interconnectedness of crime across national borders
and has resulted in new forms of crime.
E.G: drug trades. Hobbs and Dunningham found that the
global drug trade is now worth over $300 billion per year.
Drugs are often cultivated in third world countries such as
Colombia, Peru and Afghanistan which have large
impoverished populations.Therefore, drugs are an attractive
trade as it require little investment but command high prices
especially in the Western world.
Other examples are human trafficking, financial crimes,
stance, resulting in more convictions, which
produces further negative media coverage and so
on.
AO3:
Supportingly, Burnman and Batchelor point to media
depictions of young women as ‘drunk and disorderly, out of
control and looking for fights’.
Conclusion:
Heidensohn argues that women’s behaviour is conformist
and therefore commit fewer and less serious crimes than
men. In her view, this is because patriarchal society
imposes greater control over women and this reduces their
opportunities to offend.
- Control at home: women’s domestic role, with its
constant round of housework and childcare,
imposes severe restrictions on their time and
movement and confines them to the house for long
periods, reducing their opportunities to offend.
Women who try to reject their domestic role may find
that their partners seek to impose it by force,
through domestic violence.
Dobash and Dobash show that many violent attacks result
from men’s dissatisfaction with their wives’ performance of
domestic duties. Men also exercise control through their
financial power, for example by denying women sufficient
funds for leisure activities, thereby restricting their time
outside the home.
P: Marxists argue that crime results from capitalism.
The whole system is based on the exploitation of the
working class by the ruling class, leading to the
ever-increasing wealth of one class and ever-increasing
poverty of the other. As a result, those who cannot afford
the basic necessities of life might turn to crime to provide
what their employers do not.
Gordon argues that crime is a rational response to the
capitalist system and as a result it’s found in all social
classes - even though the official statistics make it appear to
be largely a working-class phenomenon.
Cyber crime, Transnational organised crime, Terrosim.
- Globalisation has made these trades significantly
easier.
AO3:
Many of these crimes pre-existed for centuries;
Traditionalists argue that terrorism existed for centuries due
to imperialism.
P: Forms of crime due to globalisation have changed.
Green or environmental crime can be defined as crime
against the environment. Much green crime can be linked to challenge this idea, arguing that crime is a conscious
globalisation and the increasing interconnectedness of
societies. Regardless of the division of the world into
separate nation-states, the planet is a single ecosystem,
and threats to the ecosystem are increasingly global rather frustration.
than merely local in nature.
E.G: Accidents in the nuclear industry such as the one at
Chernobyl in Ukraine in 1986. This spread radioactive
material over thousands of miles, showing how a problem
caused in one locality can have world wide effects.
AO3:
Green crime is hard to categorise. Focusing simply on
‘harmful’ activities that come under criminologists'
investigation is almost infinite.
P: Globalisation has created crimes at both ends of the
spectrum.
Taylor argues that globalisation has allowed transnational
corporations to switch manufacturing to low-wage countries,
producing job insecurity, unemployment and poverty.
- This has created inequality, leading to an increase in Similar to functionalists, Cloward and Ohlin’s research is
crime due to resentment and material deprivation.
Left realists agree with this and state that relative
deprivation is a significant cause of crime.
AO3:
Relative deprivation existed before globalisation.
Evaluate the usefulness of victimology in our understanding of crime and deviance (30 marks)
P: Positive victimology
Mires argues that there are certain factors that lead to
some individuals or groups being a more likely victim of
crime.
E.G: the homeless are statistically the most vulnerable
victims of crime, due to their lack of resources and power.
- Some victims provoke behaviour that would lead to
their own victimisation. This can be applied to both
ends of the spectrum: middle-class victims of crime
have contributed to their own victimisations by
ostentatiously displaying their wealth, therefore
encouraging crimes such as theft, and the working
class are more likely to provoke threats leading to
violent crimes against them.
AO3:
Ignores wider structural factors influencing victimisation,
such as poverty and patriarchy.
P: characteristics of victims
Hans Von Hentig identified 13 characteristics of victims,
such as that they are likely to be females, elderly , or
- The values of capitalism are criminal values: the aim
of capitalist society is to get society to get as much
money and wealth as possible, irrespective of those
that might harm other people. This encourages
crimes of the rich, and of less fortunate others who
are persuaded this is an appropriate way to behave.
AO3:
These theories seem to present working-class criminals as
passive. They're people who cannot help but commit crime
because of their economic circumstances. Neo-Marxists
choice.
P: Strain theorists argue that the main cause of crime is
one of the key reasons for criminality is that members of
society have unequal access to achieve socially approved
goals. As a result, they experience status frustration and
develop criminal or deviant subcultures in which they can
achieve success through illegitimate means (Cloward and
Ohlin).
E.G: A violent gang in which its members gain acceptance
through violent initiation acts and then continue to climb the
hierarchy based upon the levels of violence they are willing
to carry out.
- Criticise functionalists perspectives of crime for
being too positive. Makes the assumption of a
meritocratic society which many theories believe to
be a myth.
AO3:
predominantly male, working-class based. Consequently
they ignore issues relating to gender.
P: Critical victimology
Mawby and Walklate suggest victimisation is a form of
structural powerlessness, thereby structural factors such as
patriarchy and poverty place powerless groups such as
women and the poor at greater risk of victimisation.
E.G: The poorest groups are more likely to be victimised.
Crime rates are typically highest in areas of high
unemployment and deprivation.
AO3:
Official statistics show that males are actually at greater risk
than females of becoming victims of violent attacks. 70% of
homicide victims are male.
P: victims are a social construct.
The term victim is a social construct in the same way as
crime and criminal. Through the criminal justice process, the
state applies the label of victim to some but withholds it from
others - for example when police decide to not press
charges against a man for assaulting his wife, thereby
denying her victim status.
AO3:
‘mentally subnormal’. The implication is that the victims in
some sense ‘invite’ victimisation by being the kind of person
that they are. This can also include lifestyle factors such as
victims who ostentatiously display their wealth.
- 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. For example, this was often the
case where the victim was male and the perpetrator
female.
Fiona notes that Wolfgang shows the importance of the
victim-offender relationship and the fact that in many
homicides, it’s a matter of chance which party becomes the
victim
AO3:
It can easily top over into victim blaming. For example,
Amir’s claim that one in five rapes are victim precipitated is
not very different from saying that victims ‘asked for it’.
This is valuable in drawing attention the way that victim
status is constructed by power.
Conclusion:
Tombs and Whyte show that ‘safety crimes’, where
employers’ violations of the law lead to death or injury to
workers, are often explained away as the fault of ‘accident
prone’ workers. As with many rape cases, this both denies
the victim official ‘victim status’ and blames them for their
fate. They note the ideological function of this ‘failure to
label’ or ‘de-labelling’. By concealing the true extent of
victimisation and its real causes, it hides the crimes of the
powerful and denies the powerless victims any redress. In
the hierarchy of victimisation, therefore, the powerless are
most likely to be victimised, yet least likely to have this
acknowledged by the state.

Evaluate realists explanation of causes and solutions to crime (30 marks)

P: Right realists see street crime as a real and growing
problem that destroys communities and undermines
social cohesion.
Wilson and Herrnstein - Biosocial theory
Believe crime is caused by a combination of biological and
social factors. Some people have a predisposition to crime
through personality traits such as aggressiveness,
extraversion and risk taking along with low impulse control.
This mixed with poor socialisation and lack of role models
lead to criminal behaviour.
AO3:
An issue with the right realists view of crime is that they
ignore corporate or white collar crimes. Normally conducted
by middle-class individuals.
P:Right realists have looked to offer political solutions
to the problems of crime.
Wilson and Kelling - Environmental crime prevention
(ECP)
Argued that if neighbourhoods are allowed to get into a
disorderly state then they’re more likely to be targeted for
crimes against property and vandalism. Therefore, ECP
aims to improve the state of neighbourhoods and crack
down on disorderly behaviour.
AO3:
Supporting research: ECP was implemented in New York
CIty under the direction of police. Crime right fell
significantly.
P: The right favour harsh punitive sentences as a form
of punishing criminality.
Shaming and stigmatising criminal behaviour acts as a A combination of right and left realists solutions could be
deterrent.
Linked tio functionalist ideas of degradation ceremonies and
their role in reinforcing the collective conscience and the
acceptable boundaries of behaviour. Murray believes that
P: Left realists see that society as unequal and this is
what causes criminal behaviour.
Lea and young - relative deprivation
Deprivation is the root cause of criminality, not poverty.
They argue that as living standards have risen, so have
peoples feelings of being deprived compared to others.
Leads to resentment and people turning to crime to achieve
if they feel they're entitled to.
AO3:
Relative deprivation cannot explain all crimes as not all
those that experience it go on to commit crime.
P: In order to reduce crime the state needs to tackle
discrimination, inequality of opportunities and
unfairness of rewards.
Merton strain theory
Crime occurs due to strain between what people want and
the reality of obtaining it. Left realists suggest that
marginalisation which is the process of being pushed to the
fringes of society results in individuals more likely to partake
in criminal activities.
Emphasis raising living standards and quality of life through
building more affordable housing and improving leisure
facilities in deprived areas.
AO3:
Gordon criticises left realism suggesting that individuals turn
to crime as a rational response to inequalities proposed by
capitalism. In order to improve, capitalism needs to be
deconstructed.
Conclusion:
sufficient in combating crime.
incarcerating large sections of the population is inevitable if
crime rates are to be reduced.
AO3:
Left realists argue that rehabilitation is important and favour
restorative justice. This recognised the impact of offending
on the victim, the community and offender themselves.
Evaluate feminists contributions to our understanding of society today (20 marks)
P: Liberal fem
Liberal feminists are the most optimistic of the three
approaches as although women are still unequal in
comparison to men, they believe progress has been made in
terms of equality in the family and workplace.
Willmott and Young take a ‘march of progress’ view of the
family. They believe that the feminist movement has
contributed to the move towards equality within the family.
They see family life as gradually improving for all its
members to become more equal and democratic. They
argue that there has been a long term trend away from
segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles
and their symmetrical family.
- Somerville goes on to further state that our society is
moving in a more egalitarian direction, where there’s
greater equality within marriages and the workplace
and even households where men and women now
share domestic work, instead of having expressive
and instrumental roles.
AO3:
Not all feminists agree with liberal feminists as they fail to
challenge the underlying causes of women’s oppression and
for believing that changes in the law or in people’s attitudes
will be enough to bring about equality.
P: Radical fem
They argue that society is structured to serve the needs of
men at the expense of women. In today's society men
oppress women mainly through the family where they
benefit from women’s unpaid labour and sexual services.
Dobash and Dobash argue that in patriarchal societies
there is still cultural support for the view that men have a
‘right’ to ‘discipline’ their wives or partners. Furthermore,
there has been little institutional support offered by society to
the battered wife. Dobash and Dobash found that one of the
major factors precipitating assaults was the husband’s
perception that the wife is not performing her domestic
duties to his satisfaction. Society still accepts a domestic
division of labour which allocates the majority of domestic
duties to women, this leaves them vulnerable to this sort of
criticism, and possible subsequent assault.
AO3:
Elliot rejects the radical feminist claim that all men benefit
from domestic violence. Not all men are aggressive and
most are opposed to domestic violence. Radicals ignore
other key factors like age and class. Furthermore, they also
wrongly assume that all women are equally at risk of
patriarchal violence, but fail to explain which women are
more likely to be victims.
P: Marxist fem
They see women’s subordination as rooted in capitalism.
Although individual men may benefit from women’s
subordination, the main beneficiary is capitalism. Marxists
feminists emphasise the way in which women are doubly
exploited, both as employers and as women.
Ansley argues that they also absorb their husband’s
frustration from a ‘hard’ day at work and reserve the army
for cheap labour. Marxist feminists believe women are like
this because they’ve been influenced by the ideology of
familism conjured up by capitalists and as a result are
submissive and unable to challenge this ideology.
AO3:
Unpaid domestic labour may benefit capitalism, as Marxist
feminists claim, but this doesn’t explain why it’s women and
not men who perform it. Hartmann argues that this is
because Marxism is ‘sex-blind.’
P: difference fem / conclusion
In conclusion, all the approaches play a fundamental role in
explaining women’s place in society, giving us a better
understanding of society. However, all feminist perspectives
assume that all women share a similar situation and similar
experience of oppression. In contrast, ‘difference
feminists’ do not see women as a single homogeneous
group. They argue that middle-class women and
working-class women have very different experiences of
patriarchy, capitalism, racism, homophobia etc. Difference
feminism argues that feminist theory has claimed a ‘false
universality’ for itself - it claimed to be about all women, but
in reality was only about the experiences of White, Western,
Heteroseuxal, middle-class women. For example, by seeing
the family only as a source of oppression, White feminists
have neglected Black women’s experience of racial
oppression. By contrast, many black feminists view the
Black family positively as a source of resistance against
racism.
 Evaluate the contribution of different Marxist theorists to an understanding of society (20 Marks)
P: marx’s seven ideas (ideology)
Evidence: Bowles and Gintis how schools indoctrinate children to
capitalism
Explanation:Ideology fosters a false consciousness in the
subordinate classes and helps to sustain class inequality. However,
as capitalism impoverishes the workers, they develop a class
consciousness.
AO3:
according to Weber, marx ignores other structures such as power
and status that influence society instead of just focusing on society
P: class society and exploitation (Marx)
Explanation: everyone worked and there were no classes and no
private ownership also known as primitive communism. In class
societies, it helps to exploit the labourers for their own benefit.
Therefore, this controls the society’s surplus products, showing
the difference between what the labourers actually produce and
what they do in order to keep them alive and working.
Synoptic link (evidence): engels the role of the nuclear family and
the role of the monogamous marriage is to sexually regulate and
provide the means for paternal inheritance.
AO3:
sociologists criticise marxism for economic determines and
specifically weber says that the the role of calvinism helped create
capitalism
Evaluate the contribution of action approaches to our understanding of social behaviour (20 marks)
P: Weber argues that our actions are not determined by society.
Rather, we are free agents, creating and shaping society through
our choices, meanings and actions.
attempts to classify actions into four types, based on the meaning
for the actor.
- Instrumentally rational actions are where the actor
calculates the most efficient means of achieving a given
goal. For example, a capitalist may calculate that the most
efficient way of maximising profit is to pay low wages.
Value-rational action involves action towards a goal that
the actor regards as described for its own sake. For
example, a believer worshipping their god in order to get
to heaven. Traditional action: involves customary, routine
or habitual actions. The actor does it because ‘we have
always done it.’ Affectual action is action that expresses
emotion. For example, weeping out of grief , or violence
sparked by anger.
AO3:
a criticism of this theory is that these classifications may overlap,
for example within religion. The Yugoslavian ethnic cleansing in
the early 1990s can be argued to have used instrumentally rational
action and calculated their most efficient means of achieving their
P: humanistic marxism for example gramsci’s hegemony and
the influence of the moral entrepreneurs and their counter
hegemony
Explanation: in religion gramsci argued that religion serves to
maintain the ruling class hegemony and also provide moral
entrepreneurs which can combat this
AO3:
gramsci over emphasises the role of ideology and under
emphasises the role of coercion and the state
P: according to structuralist marxists such as Althuser there is
a repressive and ideological state apparatus which both serve
to legitimate the capitalist society
Synoptic link: according to Melossi and Pivirani, prisons and
punishment act as part of the repressive state apparatus and serve
to socialise deviants back into the ruling class’ ideology. In
addition it corresponds with the economy of today’s society
AO3:
according to humanistic marxists this discourages political
activism.
P: Interactionists argue that Weber focuses too much on the
structural aspect of social behaviour and therefore aims to focus
more on action theories; they refer to this as symbolic
interactionism.
Mead argues that unlike animals, we don’t simply respond to a
stimulus in an automatic, predetermined way. Instead, an
interpretive phase comes between the stimulus and our response
to it - we interpret a stimulus's meaning. Once interpreted, we
choose an accurate response. In order to interpret other people’s
meanings, we take the role of the other person. Our ability to take
on other roles develops through social interaction. We first do this
as young children: through imitative play when we take on the
role of significant others such as parents, and learn to see
ourselves as they see us.
E.G: within the family functionalists argue that the mothers in the
family act as a role model for the daughters and so they begin to
imitate their behaviour, such as playing with baby dolls because
their mothers are looking after them.
- To function as members of society, we need the ability to
see ourselves as others see us. Through shared symbols,
especially language, we become conscious of the ways of
acting that others require of us.
goal - pure race. However, it could also be argued that this may
also be an affectional reaction to others bringing their own
religion into their country.
P: Labelling theory describes how the self is shaped through
interaction. It often sees the individual as the passive victim of
other people’s labels.
Thomas argued that if people define a situation as real, then it
will have real consequences. That is, if we believe something to
be true, then this belief will affect how we act, and this in turn
may have consequences for those involved.
E.G: in education, if a teacher labels a boy as ‘troublesome’ the
teacher will be likely to act differently towards him - for example
punishing him more harshly.
Cooley uses the idea of ‘The looking glass self’ to describe how
we develop our self-concept. He argues that our self-concept
arises out of our ability to take the role of others. In interactions,
by taking the role of the other, we come to see ourselves as they
see us. Through this process, a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs.
Labelling theories use the definition of the situation and the
looking glass self to understand the effects of labelling. Through
the looking glass self, the label becomes a part of the individual’s
self-concept.
Sociology as a science (20 marks)
P: Positivists argue that reality is not random or chaotic but
patterned and we can observe these empirical patterns or
regularities. Sociologists believe that they can discover laws that
determine how society works and they do this truth inductive
reasoning.
- Within education sociologists wanted to investigate the
effect of labelling on pupils. Charkin et al conducted
research with a sample of 48 university students who each
taught a lesson to a 10 year old boy. One third of the
university students were told the boy was highly motivated
and intelligent. One third were told he was poorly
motivated with a low IQ and one third were given no
information. Charkin et al observed the lessons and found
that those in the high expectancy group made more eye
contact and used more encouraging body language than
the low expectancy group. Therefore, they concluded that
it was the label they’d attached to the pupil that led to the
way in which they perceived the individual as smart or
not.
They used structured methods and inductive reasoning to gather
insight on labelling in order to try and establish laws to prevent
this.​​Sociology is scientific.
AO3:
- Interpretivists criticise structured methods like this as
inadequate. Furthermore, interpretivists would criticise
Charkin et al and suggest that their study lacks validity.
AO3:
Mead's theory can be criticised for not being easily applicable to
society.
P: Goffman criticises the labelling theory for being deterministic
as it suggests that once an individual has been labelled, they have
no choice but to accept it and internalise it. However, this is not
always the case
We actively construct our ‘self’ by manipulating other people's
impressions of us. Goffman’s approach is often described as
dramaturgical because he uses analogies with drama as a
framework for analysing social behaviour. According to him, we
are all actors, acting out scripts, using props, resting backstage
between performances we present to our audiences. Our aim is to
carry off a convincing performance of the role we have adopted -
just as the actor aims to persuade the audience.
E.g: The classroom is a front region where students must put on a
convincing role-performance for the teacher, while the common
room is a back region where they can ‘drop the act.’
P: Interpretivists argue that sociology is meaningful social action
that can only be understood by successfully interpreting the
meanings and motives of the actors involved.
In their view, sociology is not a science, because science only
ideals with the laws of cause and effect, and not human meanings.
Interpretivists therefore reject the logic and methods of natural
science.
They argue that to discover the meaning people give to their
actions, we need to see the world from their view point and have
verstehen understanding to grasp their meanings. For
interpretivists this involves abandoning the detachment and
objectivity favoured by positivists. interpretivists favour the use
of qualitative methods and data such as participant observation,
unstructured interviews and personal documents.
- Feminists favour this method as they argue that some
research is socially sensitive and needs to establish a
relationship with women in order to gather insight into
their situation. For example, Dobash and Dobash
conducted unstructured interviews with women. This
helped to build a rapport with interviewees and allowed
them to gather in depth valid data on pregnancy and
childbirth.
These methods produce richer, more personal data high in
validity and give the sociologist a subjective understanding of the
actor’s meanings and life-world.
AO3:
 According to them counting frequency, duration or events
do not tell us about their meaning.
P:Durkheim chose to study suicide to show that sociology was a
science with its own distinct subject matter. Using quantitative
data from official statistics.
- Durkheim observed that there were patterns in the suicide
rate. For example, rates for Protestants were higher than
for Catholics. He concluded that these patterns could not
be the product of the motives of individuals, but were
social facts - forces acting upon members of society to
determine their behaviour. According to Durkheim, to
social facts responsible for determining the suicide rate
were the levels of integration and regulation. Therefore,
for example, Catholics were less likely than Protestants to
commit suicide because Catholicims was more successful
in integrating individuals.
Durkeihm claimed to have discovered a ‘real law’: that different
levels of integration and regulation produce different rates of
suicide. He claimed to have demonstrated that sociology had its
own unique subject matter - social facts - and that these could be
explained scientifically.
AO3:
Douglas also rejects Durkheim’s use of quantitative data from
official statistics. These are not objective facts, but simply social
constructions resulting from the way coroners label certain deaths
as suicides.
Positivists believe that researchers should be detached from an
objective. They criticise these methods as they produce bias that
may affect the result of these studies. For example, Willi’s study
of working-class boys focused on the ‘lads’ - a group of
working-class boys who were disruptive, misbehaved and had a
very negative attitude to education. Some sociologists argued that
due to the longevity of the study, Willis developed a strong
relationship towards the children and as a result it’s argued he
developed a bias towards them. Therefore, the results were
affected by that bias.
P: Kuhn, in order for something to be considered scientific it has
to have a paradigm.
This is shared by members of a given scientific community and
defines what their science is. It provides a basic framework of
assumptions, principles, methods and techniques within which
members of that community work.
The paradigm is thus a set of norms, or a kind of culture, because
it tells scientists how they ought to think and behave. In Kunh’s
view, science cannot exist without a shared paradigm. Until there
is general consensus on a single paradigm, there will only be rival
schools of thought, not science as such. As a result, currently
sociology is pre-paradigmatic and there pre-scientific, divided
into competing perspectives and schools of thought. There is no
shared paradigm - no agreement on the fundamentals of what to
study, what method to use, what we should expect to find.