Crime and Deviance:Assignment 2- Official Statistics and Theories

Outcomes for this lesson Last lesson Today’s Lesson Next Lesson • Definitions of

crime and deviance

• Social constructionism

• Presentation

Must:Outline the assessment for this assignmentShould: Discuss ways which crime is reported Outline main trends in official statistics Could:Analyse the drawbacks of official statistics

Must:List problems of official statistics

ShouldOutline the main explanations of crime and deviance from structural and social action theories

Evaluate these explanations of crime

Activity one:

• Getting you thinking- 20 minutes group discussion

• Outcomes of task: • Why might we report crime and why we might not• Stereotypes and crime• Why is crime a crime? Does this change based on

people’s interpretation, experience, knowledge? • Mind map building task

In order to understand- why people commit crime, we first need to know:

• Who commits crime?• What sorts of crime are committed?

Methods used:

• Sociological methods of collecting crime information are by using:

• Police-recorded statistics

• Victim surveys• Self report studies

Maguire (2002) since 1970s- Huge explosion in how

crime has been investigated. We now use other methods

to investigate crime

Police recorded statistics:

• Date back to 1805- general info on court proceedings and convictions

• 1857: data about crimes reported to and recorded by the police were added.

• This gave an oversight at government level• Today- published every 6 months by the Home Office

• 1. what is good about having an oversight of crime?• 2. what is good about having data from such a long

time ago?

What is ‘ police recorded statistics’

• The police recorded crime statistics are a measure of the amount of crime which is reported to and recorded by the 43 Home Office forces and the British Transport Police. The recorded crime statistics do not include crimes that have not been reported to the police or that the police decide not to record. Police recording practice is governed by Home Office Counting Rules for Recorded Crime and the National Crime Recording Standard (Secretary of State, 2006)

• Q: Anything worrying about the above? Take 5 minutes to chat to your neighbour about this.

The statistics

• Page 24-26 Q: What are the main findings?

• The national crime recording standard (NCRS) is a standard for recording crime in accordance with the law – Hand-out • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Z

vLYcEqvk

The main findings

• 14% decrease in overall crime compared to previous year (includes violence, theft and criminal damage )

• 3.7 million crimes reported (lowest numbers since introduction of crime recording

• increase of 20% in all sexual offences for the year ending March 2014 compared with the previous year (up from 53,620 to 64,200

However…

• 57% of crime is not reported• Police only uncover 10% of crime themselves• 11% of crime is reported but not recorded• Only 32% of crime is reported and recorded Nicholas et al (2005)

This means that a high proportion of crime is not reported to the police!

What affects statistics

• What kinds of things could affect reporting of crime?

• Group mind map• Handout : page 268 figure 5.6

Things that will affect statistics:it seems the police are filtering crime based on factors important to

them!

• Seriousness : how the offence is perceived

• Reporting of the crime: 57% not reported!

• Discretion: stereotyping of the possible offender

Anderson et al (1994)

Promotion: not too keen!

• Victim may not be able to tell anyone (child abuse)

• Possible offender is family

• Embarrassment (male rape)

• Fear reprisals

• Handout figure 5.4

Other ways to analyse crime

• BCS: British crime survey

• Page 267 task • How it works: • Random sampling using

the post code address file (post office)

• Positives of the BCS are:

• This is why the BCS has a better representation of crime in comparison to the police statistics

Negatives of the BCS

To sum up: Handout page 270

Theories of crime and deviance

Last lesson This lesson Next lesson

Finished off:Official statisticsLooked at BCS

Must:List the approaches under the structural theory of crime and devianceShould:Explain how each one views crime and deviance

Could: compare and contrast these approaches

Finish off Structural theories

Move onto Left and right realism

Hand-out : overview of perspectives

Criteria 2.1 of unit • Structural- Functionalism and Marxism • Social Action • Left and right realist

• The assessment

Structural theories: Functionalism

Tend to concentrate on Official statistics ‘Makes the assumption that societies exist because they are based on fundamental agreement about basic values. We all share beliefs about what constitutes good and bad behaviour’ (Moore et al, 2003)

Handout : figure 2.1

Functionalism: Durkheim (1895)

• Supporting hand-out• Society consists of common

expectations of behaviour• two sides of crime and

deviance:• 1. Positive aspect: helped

society to change and remain dynamic . 3 aspects

• 2. negative aspect: too much crime leading to social disruption

Task: Can we think of support for these two aspects?

Positive aspects of crime:1 Reaffirming the boundaries

• Basis of society was a set of shared beliefs: collective conscience

• This sets boundaries : actions that are acceptable and those that are not

• Sometimes boundaries are unclear and they change over time

• Confusion over boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behaviour

• Its in the Clarifying of boundaries which is where limited amount of crime takes place!

• The law/ police make it clear to society what the current boundaries are : publicity and drama needs to be generated , hence public courts.

2. Changing values

• The publicity reaffirms social values of right or wrong

• Sometimes the law is unjust and there is a public outcry

• This leads to changing laws which leads to changing values

Task: Can you think of any cases to support this?

3. Social Cohesion

• Horrific crime : entire community draws together in shared outrage,

• Increases the sense of belonging to a community

• Can you think of any other cases?

Negative Aspects: Too much crime has negative consequences

Collective conscience (people sharing common values) may be weakened in times of great social changePeople may be freed from social control imposed by the CC, they then might start to look after their own needs and wants rather then adhering to social values

Anomie Led to research by • Merton• Hirschi

Anomie

• Later adapted by Merton (1938)

• Original idea was too vague

• Strain Theory

• Hand-out p247• 1. summarise this

theory

• What is wrong with this theory

Hirschi (1969)• Asked the question• ‘ Why DON’T people

commit crime?’ • Crime occurs when

people’s attachment to society is weakened

• Depends on social bonds that hold people in check

• Four crucial bonds

• Attachment – care about other peoples’ opinions and wishes

• Commitment- personal investments we make and what we have to lose

• Involvement-how busy are we? Time

• Belief- strength of sense to obey

Conclusion: greater the person’s attachment to society, the lower their level of crime

The family

• Agency of socialisation• The bonds Hirschi talks

about• The collective

conscience what Durkheim talks about

• Cambridge study in delinquent behaviour

• Handout: By Farrington and West 1990

The study

• Longitutional study 411 ‘working class’ males• Born in 1953 until their late 30s• Findings are: • Extent of offending: by 25, 1/3 recorded

offenders• Concentration of offending: less then 6% of

total sample for over 50% of all convictions

Conclusion

• Consistent correlation between family traits and offending

• Offenders come from homes with poor parenting- especially when father had convictions

• Come from poorer, single parent families • Thus crime is in families not partaking in

society norms and values…

For example

• Society is driven towards Meritocracy• If you cannot fail to be a part of this social value

and norm, then you become frowned upon (unemployment= benefit fraud)

• Then you stop sharing in the collective conscience

• Turn to crime to improve own circumstance (Anomie)

• Hence also why crime runs in families…

Conclusion of functionalist explanations of crime and deviance

• Its necessary• Both positive and negative• Weakening of collective conscience• Confusion of boundaries• Attachment and Social bonds to the society• How family affects these bonds

Breadth and depth advice

• There is lots of research into crime and deviance from a functionalist perspective

• This is just a snippet!

• For example:• Etzioni (famous in USA)• Erikson : developed

Durkheim's ideas on the positive aspect of crime

• More depth into Merton (he said alot!)

Marxist theory of crime and deviance

Traditional Marxist approach focussed on four areas:1. The manipulation of

the basic values and morality of a society

2. The process of law creation

3. The enforcement of law4. Individual motivation

1. Manipulation of basic values and morals of society

• Through socialisation: • Persuaded as children

and onwards to accept the demands of the capitalist society

• These demands become the values and morals

• Definition of what is criminal reflects the dominant social values (those of the ruling class)

• Task: any support for this recently?

• Article handout:• Next read Handout

page 70

But this story also supports Functionalism…. How? Tip: Public outrage

Reasons for this manipulation

• Law is only applied to the less powerful people but who are many… Why is this?

• The sanctions are harsher… Why?• criminals are more likely be drawn from the

working class, ethnic groups, young, and those in inner city areas….

• Therefore crime is because of shared beliefs, standards, values and morals of these groups: resulting in scapegoating…

Have a look at ‘the process of Law creation

• What kind of examples can we use to support Marxism?

An example..Are there any more?

• The powerfulTax evasion

• The rest of us…• Sanctions for not paying

council tax

3. Law enforcement: handout P73

• Different ways law is enforced

• Street crime is more pursued then white collar (high social class crimes)

• WCC less likely to be reported as it is dealt with privately compared to lower social class crimes

• Different sentencing depending on types of crime

• Financial crimes have lower sentences (if they are even reported to police!) compared to burglary and property theft.

• Example: Herold of the free

Examples

Corporate crime White collar crime Handout

Burglary handout

Evaluation of Marxism

• The good• Identifies the society as

triggers for crime

• The bad• No individual

motivation • Biased policing?• High levels of crime

seen in Marxist societies yet there should be no crime