defining crime and deviance
Post on 24-May-2015
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Defining Crime and Deviance
Definitions
Crime• Behaviour which breaks
laws and is punished by the legal system
Deviance• Behaviour which goes
against the norms, values and expectations of a social group or society
• Can you think of some examples of criminal and deviant behaviour?
Crime and Deviance are Socially Constructed
• Both crime and deviance are culturally determined.
• Foucault wrote about how definitions of criminal deviance, sexual deviance and madness have changed over time. 100 years ago, it was deviant for women to wear trousers!
• Subcultures can have different norms• Plummer (1979) the same act can
be seen as deviant or non-deviant depending upon the situation
Societal Deviance
• Swearing at an authority figure
• Random acts of violence
• Child abuse
Situational Deviance
• Being naked
• Wearing outrageous clothes!
• Killing someone
Social order and social control create a consensus of how to behave
• By definition _____in society isn’t ______ or _____. Social order and _____ ______ maintain the _____ ___ and create a ______ _________ of how to behave. People are ______ to follow social norms.
Most behaviour criminal deviant social controlstatus quo value consensus socialised
Positive/negative sanctions and informal/formal sanctions
Positive Sanctions – Rewarding people for conforming
Negative Sanctions- Punishing people for deviating
Formal sanctions – carried out by an official agency
A certificateA medalA cup
A finePoints on a licenseA yellow card
Informal sanctions – carried out by the public
A pat on the backSaying “well done”
Deliberately ignoring someoneTelling-off
Non-sociological theories of crime
• Lombroso (1876) genetic differences
A large jaw, extra fingers and toes• Moir and Jessel (1995) hormonal
Imbalances
Psychological Theories
• Bowlby (1946) Individuals deprived of maternal love are likely to develop personality traits which leads to them committing crime
• Eysenck (1964) Inherited psychological characteristics predisposes people to crime
For the non-sociological theories the cause of crime lies within the individual.
For sociology, the cause of crime lies in society
Practice Questions
• Give an example of a behaviour which is deviant but not criminal
• What is situational deviance?• Give an example of an informal positive
sanction and a formal negative sanction• Give an example of a psychological theory
of crime• Give one difference between physiological
and psychological theories of crime
• ‘The cause of crime lies within the individual’ To what extent do sociological arguments and evidence support this view?
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