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Name:________________________ Sociology of Crime and Deviance Unit Four: SCLY4 Miss Sakine Koc Advance A Level Miss Sakine Koc Published 2015 © Course Outline 1 Different theories of crime, deviance, social order and social control o Different definitions of crime, deviance, social order and social control o The distinction between sociological theories of crime and other theories (eg biological, psychological); crime and deviance as socially constructed o Functionalist theories of crime: Durkheim, anomie, collective conscience; Merton’s strain theory; manifest and latent functions; functionalist subcultural theories o Marxist and neo-Marxist theories of crime: classical Marxism, laws reflecting class interests; Neo-Marxism, hegemony, the CCCS studies, critical and new criminology o Interactionist theories of crime: labelling theory, the self-fulfilling prophecy o Feminist theories of crime: patriarchy, male control of women’s lives o Control theory and other contemporary approaches to crime: social bonds, communitarianism, situational prevention; postmodern theories; Foucault on individualisation and surveillance o Realist theories: New Left Realism and Right Realism o The relevance of the various theories to understanding different types of crime, and their implications for social policy. 2 The social distribution of crime and deviance by age, ethnicity, gender, locality and social class, including recent patterns and trends in crime o Study of statistics and other evidence on the social distribution of crime by age, ethnicity, gender, locality and social class, including recent patterns and trends o Issues related to and explanations of the social distribution of crime and deviance by age: juvenile delinquency and youth crime o Issues related to and explanations of the social distribution of crime and deviance and ethnicity: explanations from different theories, racism in the criminal justice system o Issues related to and explanations of the social distribution of crime and deviance and gender: explanations of the rates of male and female crime, the gendering of crime, chivalry thesis, the gender deal o Issues related to and explanations of the social distribution of crime and deviance and locality: rural and urban crime o Issues related to and explanations of the social distribution of crime and deviance and social class: explanations from different theories; white collar crime; occupational crime. 3 Globalisation and crime in contemporary society; the mass media and crime; green crime; human rights and state crimes o Globalisation and crime: examples and explanations of globalised crimes such as web- based crimes, global trades in drugs, weapons and people; global corporate crime o Mass media and crime: media’s role in social construction of crime including moral panics and amplification; crime and news values and agenda setting; representations of crime (both fact and fiction) o Green crime: definitions, criminalisation of environmental offences; extent, enforcement of green crimes: environmental laws, corporate and state environmental crimes, crimes 1 Advance A Level Miss Sakine Koc Published 2015 © against non-human species o Human rights and state crimes: international rules and norms and examples of violations of them; human rights violations; state crimes. 4 Crime control, prevention and punishment, victims, and the role of the criminal justice system and other agencies o Crime control, prevention and punishment: contemporary policies, linked to the theories studied under point 1; surveillance, zero tolerance, anti-social behaviour orders, expansion of imprisonment o Victims of crime: statistics and other evidence on victims of crime; ethnicity, age and gender; different theoretical accounts, e.g. positivist and radical victimology o Role of the criminal justice system and other agencies. 5 The sociological study of suicide and its theoretical and methodological implications o Durkheim’s classic study of suicide, including typologies o Interpretivist responses to Durkheim, e.g. Atkinson, Douglas o Realist approaches, e.g. Taylor’s ‘people under trains’ o The theoretical and methodological implications of the different approaches of the study of suicide. 2 Advance A Level Miss Sakine Koc Published 2015 © Functionalism on Crime and Deviance o Functionalism was one of the first theories of crime that sought to explain deviance by the nature of society rather than the biology and psychology of the individual. Durkheim – positive view of crime - thinks crime is functional for society! o Durkheim believed modern societies are made up of collective conscience based on moral individualism since ‘uniformity so universal and absolute’ was impossible. Thus, unlike Marxism, he believed crime can never be eradicated since it’s normal and appears in all societies but in different forms. o Crime is an ‘integral part of all healthy societies’. This is because individuals are exposed to different influences and will all not be committed to the shared values/beliefs of society. Thus, crime acts as a moral dichotomy providing us with what is good/bad behaviour and in effects binds together society. o Crime can be functional since all societies need to progress and social change begins with some form of deviance. E.g. homosexuality was once illegal, but today its normal. Thus, yesterday’s deviance must become tomorrow’s normality for change to occur according to Durkheim. Moreover, this suggests crime doesn’t disappear but change it form. o However, Societies need both crime and punishment because without punishment the rate of criminality would become dysfunctional. Thus, laws must be stricter than before and must be experienced throughout society to justify the need for control. o Durkheim noted that too much and too little crime reflected social pathology (dysfunctional). Thus balance is needed: Too much crime - not enough collective conscience, society in a state of anomie (normlessness) Too little crime – too strong collective conscience, totalitarian state. o Lastly, the criminal was not an unsociable being but one that ‘plays a definite role in social life’. Evaluation of Durkheim’s theory: 3
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