Crime and Deviance

Definition Crime and Deviance

Deviance- is defined as variation

from the norm and society’s reaction to it.

Labels

• To label someone deviant is related to our notions of social convention….the normal society…entrenched with laws,rules and norms.

Crime and Deviance

A major area in sociological research:

• We are all interested in the deviant : - Crime TV….Law and Order, Cops etc.. - Hero mystique-Robin Hood - PEOPLE -OUTSIDE THE NORM

The Social Self

The `deviant’ are reflections of ourselves and our sense of “otherness”

• Self and society –connected but not the same. We are not automatons.

Comparative differences between Canada and the US

• Illustration of differences in political culture, levels of racism etc..

• Canada is more conservative, elitist, less individualistic…than US…

• Our law: Burkean • American Law: Lockean…

Frontier thesis,

• US 50% of all homicide involved handguns whereas in Canada this figure was only 10%

• Frontier thesis, Canadian have firmer control in monarchial system than in the American Republic..

• Our policing is more peaceful.

Canada vs. US

• US=Overt Racism-American are blatantly racist whereas Canadians are polite racists.

• Canada= Covert Racism (Kallen, 1974; McCauley, 1990)

• This evident in the culture of American vs.

Canadian cities, hiring practices, social segregation etc.

Policing-Cops vs To serve and protect

• Canadians have firmer control in monarchial system than in the American Republic, policing is more peaceful

• Canadian system is Burkean in nature as opposed to Lockean

• Burke-social control • Locke –individual rights and freedoms

. Burke

• . Burke maintained the crime control model which held that personal freedom can only be achieved through social control

John Locke

Locke, on the other hand, advocated the due-process model-due process seeks to ensure useful safeguard in favour of the individual over the system

• Although both systems reflect classic liberalism, there are qualitative differences in the perception and treatment of deviance.

Qualitative Deviance Concepts

• Measures of Deviance Include:

1. SEVERITY 2. PERCEPTION 3. DEGREE OF AGREEMENT 4. LABELLING

Qualitative Deviance Concepts

• Measures of Deviance Include: • 1. Severity- capital punishment-the more

serious the crime the more we take freedom away…

Perception-

• 2. While society speaks with a collective conscience on certain matters of crime such as murder.

• On other matters there may be a continuum of responses from extremely harmful to inconsequential…

3. Degree of agreement-

• . Degree of agreement- across nations there are some behaviours that are agreed upon as seriously, deviant and against the codes of social order-collective conscience extends to all human life.

Examples..

1. Armed robbery, 2. Sexual assault, 3. Incest, 4. Murder- • Anthropologists tell us that the incest

taboo is almost universal as is aversion to cannibalism.

Severity and Degree of Agreement

• Conflict crimes- are those crimes in which there exists conflicting opinions about their nature. (severity and degree of agreement do not match)

• 1. Ie. drug use and sexual activity- we know that these things are bad for us…but are they deviant? or simply immoral? Streaking?

•

4. Labelling

• Labeling theory (or social reaction theory) is concerned with how the self-identity and behavior of an individual is influenced (or created) by how that individual is categorized and described by others in their society.

Negative Labels

• The theory focuses on the linguistic tendency of majorities to negatively label minorities or those seen as deviant from norms, and is associated with the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy and stereotyping

Labelling

• Labeling theory (or social reaction theory) is concerned with how self-identity is influenced

Self Fulfilling Prophecy?

• (or created) by how that individual is categorized and described by others in their society.

• Labels can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.

Sanity Insanity: A Social Construct

• E. Goffman Asylums, for which he gathered information at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, D.C

Rosenthan (1973)

• Rosenthan (1973) and his team had themselves committed…they complained of hearing voices and they were labeled schizophrenic….

• .

Sociological Approaches

Theorization follows other empirical topics and draws upon paradigms

1. Conflict, 2. Symbolic Interactionist 3. Structural functional

Paradigms

Theories of Deviance I. Structural Functionalism

• Structural Functionalism- structural

strain, dysfunction-the school, family, religion and the polity are supposed to produce order,

• DEVIANCE=dis-equilibrium and non-conformity.

Function and Dysfunction

• There is some suggestion that deviance is not dysfunctional but functional…

Functionalist solution: Individualistic

• a. Change Values- Commitment and control…the system teaches us control; some do not buy into it;

Delinquent Subculture

• Subcultural Theories-delinquent subculture-socialization theories…

• Also a functionalist approach-socialization paradigm

• Culture of poverty –O. Lewis..

Ie. Merton (1957)-structural strain

• Anomie-absence of social regulation, normlessness- deviance results from problem of strain or disequalibrium…

Merton (1957)-

• …between culturally defined goals (money, power, success) and the socially accepted means of achieving them…(education)

Functional/Disfunctional Adjustment

Four way individuals adjust to a conflicting society include:

1. innovation, 2. ritualism, 3. retreatism 4. and rebellion

II. Symbolic Interactionism

• SI is less concerned with values, attitudes

and behaviours (Anomie) than with the meanings that people attached to situation…

• Definitions of context….

Edward Sutherland (1924)

• Edward Sutherland (1924) one of the fathers of criminology developed the concept differential association to refer to not only association between individuals but also between ideas.

• Sutherland = Learning Theory and symbolic interactionism.

Sutherland –crime in context

• Deviance and criminal behaviour develops among those who define the behaviour favourably.

• In any given situation or context, an individual if the weight of the favourable definition of crime exceeds the unfavourable definition, then criminal activity will result.

Street vs Suite Crime

• White collar crime, for example, is rationalized along these lines…

• Sutherland proves this through a study of 100 imprisoned embezzlers…. Each felt they were helping `the company’ and its operation.

Ethnicity, Class and Addiction

1. IRISH: `Paddy Wagon’- 2. ITALIAN `MOBSTER’

3.. BLACK `DRUG DEALER’

SI CONCEPTS

• SELF IDENTITY

• LABEL

• SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY

To Symbolic Interactionists

• IDENTITY IS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTED

• MEANINGS ARE DEVELOPED THROUGH RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHERS

• INTERACTION-LOOKING GLASS SELF

Symbolic Interactionists

• Symbolic Interactionists-G. H Mead, C. Cooley

• We all can identify with criminals. • See Chicago School studies: 1. Street Corner Society 2. Social Order of the Slum 3. The Professional Thief

Self-fulfilling prophecy

• A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that directly or indirectly causes itself to become true.

Sutherland –crime in context

• Deviance and criminal behaviour develops among those who define the behaviour favourably.

• .

Criminal as `Professional/ crime as work’

• . Another interesting aspect of symbolic interactionist approach is the notion of crime as work.

Crime School highly skilled

Prisons are like schools,,. 1. Mechanical skills-burglary, safe

cracking explosive

2. Social skills- fraud embezzlement

III. Conflict Theory/

• Focus on dominant societal groups…..

• These groups impose labels upon members of subordinate societal groups.

Conflict theorist and Crime

• Conflict theorists evaluate sub-culture on the level of class analysis. I.e. Labels

• Subcultures form in reaction to class consciousness and ideology.

• Crime is about scarcity!!!!

Spitzer (1975)

• Criminals challenge the social relations of production….

• The oppressed threaten existing

social relations and therefore must be controlled.

Class and Deviance

• Schmidt, Smart and Moss (1968) found that lower class alcoholics were more likely to receive drug intervention therapy whereas upper class alcoholic were more likely to receive talk therapies.

Crime and Political Economy

• Conflict Theory • Commitment to a psychiatric ward is often

not much different from jail. • Jail is more likely in neo-liberal societies • Today’s emphasis on capitalism vs. state

intervention.

Criminals challenge capitalism

• Criminals challenge bourgeois ideology a. Notions of production, b. Social conditions of production c. Patterns of distribution and consumption d. Socialization processes e. Dominant ideologies.

Conflict Theory and Crime

• a. When the poor steals from the rich he/she challenges are notion of appropriate human labour

• b. When the poor person collect welfare or refuses to work in the way we feel is best-the system is undermined?

Conflict Theory and Crime

• c. When the drug user escapes or transcends culture rather than uses drugs for sociability, he/she de-legitimizes our notions of adequate social adjustment

• d. When juvenile delinquents fail to attend school they challenge our notions of adequate socialization into our on-going legitimate social order

• e. When organizations (underworld) develop they undermine the ideology that supports capitalistic society

Summary

• Crime is a societal indicator of the relationship of individuals to the larger social system

• Crime is relativistic • Crime is related to factors such as race,

class and gender • Understanding crime helps understand

other aspects of society and socialization

Learning to Labour: Paul Willis

• : How working class kids get working class jobs.

• Willis combines Marxist and symbolic interactionist forms of analysis

• Looks at education and youth, deviance

• British school system vs. `The Lads’