Crime and Deviance

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Crime and Deviance
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DefinitionCrime and Deviance 

• Deviance- is defined as variation from the
  norm and societys reaction to it.

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Labels

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

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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

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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.

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Symbolic Interactionists

• Symbolic Interactionists-G. H Mead, C. Cooley
• We all can identify with criminals.
• See Chicago School studies
• Street Corner Society
• Social Order of the Slum
• The Professional Thief

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  Sociological Approaches

•     Theorization follows other empirical topics
  and draws upon paradigms
• Conflict,
• Symbolic Interactionist
• Structural functional

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Comparative differences between Canada and the US

• Illustration of differences in political culture,
  levels of racism etc..
• Canada is more conservative, elitist, less
  individualisticthan US
• Our law Burkean
• American Law Lockean

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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.

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Canada vs. US

• USOvert 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.

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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

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. Burke

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

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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

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

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Qualitative Deviance Concepts

• Measures of Deviance Include 
• SEVERITY
• PERCEPTION
• DEGREE OF AGREEMENT
• LABELLING

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Qualitative Deviance Concepts

• Measures of Deviance Include 
• 1. Severity- capital punishment-the more serious
  the crime the more we take freedom away

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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

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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.

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Examples..

• Armed robbery,
• Sexual assault,
• Incest,
• Murder-
• Anthropologists tell us that the incest taboo is
  almost universal as is aversion to cannibalism.

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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)

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

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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.

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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

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Labelling

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

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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.

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Sanity Insanity A Social Construct

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

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Rosenthan (1973)

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

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Theories of DevianceI. Structural Functionalism
 

• Structural Functionalism- structural strain,
  dysfunction-the school, family, religion and the
  polity are supposed to produce order,
• DEVIANCEdis-equilibrium and non-conformity.

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Function and Dysfunction

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

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Functionalist solutionIndividualistic

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

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Delinquent Subculture

• Subcultural Theories-delinquent
  subculture-socialization theories
• Also a functionalist approach-socialization
  paradigm
• Culture of poverty O. Lewis..

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Ie. Merton (1957)-structural strain

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

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Merton (1957)-

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

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Functional/Disfunctional Adjustment

• Four way individuals adjust to a conflicting
  society include
• innovation,
• ritualism,
• retreatism
• and rebellion

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Ethnicity, Class and Addiction

• IRISH Paddy Wagon-
• 2. ITALIAN MOBSTER
• 3.. BLACK DRUG DEALER

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SI CONCEPTS

• SELF IDENTITY
• LABEL
• SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY

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To Symbolic Interactionists

• IDENTITY IS SOCIAL CONSTRUCTED
• MEANINGS ARE DEVELOPED THROUGH RELATIONSHIP WITH
  OTHERS
• INTERACTION-LOOKING GLASS SELF

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Self-fulfilling prophecy

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

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Sutherland crime in context

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

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Criminal as Professional/ crime as work

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

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Crime School highly skilled

• Prisons are like schools,,.
•  Mechanical skills-burglary, safe cracking
  explosive
•  Social skills- fraud embezzlement 

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III. Conflict Theory/

• Focus on dominant societal groups..
• These groups impose labels upon members of
  subordinate societal groups.

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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!!!!

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Spitzer (1975)

• Criminals challenge the social relations of
  production.
• The oppressed threaten existing social relations
  and therefore must be controlled.
•  

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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.

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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
• Todays emphasis on capitalism vs. state
  intervention.

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Criminals challenge capitalism

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

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Conflict Theory and Crime

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

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

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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

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

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

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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

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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