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True Crime or Moral Panic? Evaluate and apply sociological theories relating to crime and deviance Explanations of Crime and Deviancy Crime - an action or omission which constitutes an offence and is punishable by law. Deviance-the fact or state of diverging from usual or accepted standards, especially in social or sexual behavior. Crime and deviance are seemingly effortlessly defined by the Oxford dictionary. However sociological prospectives have differing views on crime and the explanations for it. Starting post modernist who are criticised for their denial to the existence of crime. This is because Post modernist tend to reject all ‘meta narratives’ given by other prospectives. Post modernism argues that these explanations of crimes are outdated, Instead it tends to argue that society has changed. There are new crimes which are not explained by other prospectives. Crimes such as Cyber theft, terrorism and racism e.t.c. Post modernists prefer to focus on the individual, crime is a one-off event expressing whatever identity an individual choses. Whereas Functionalism mainly focuses on society as a whole. Crime is seen as inevitable, as well as expected. In addition functionalist Durkheim argued that crime is an element of a healthy society. He said, (crime is an) “Integral part of all healthy societies.” cited by Harman, 1995.p.38. Consequently this might explain why Many Functionalists like Durkheim, believe that the existence of crime indicates that society is not excessively controlling its citizens. Moreover Functionalism recognises that everyday crime (e.g. shoplifting) is not a threat to the social order. In fact Society needs criminal behavior (and legal reactions to it) to function properly, Reason being the ... ... middle of paper ... ...ict theory does not allow for a positive outcome. Conflict will always be present because society canon function without it. Works Cited Cohen, S (2011),Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance, Routledge, Oxon, UK Goode and Ben-Yehuda( 2009), Moral Panics: The Social Construction of Deviance. Second edition, Blackwell publishing, Chichester, UK Padhy, P (2006) Crime and Criminology, Isha Books, India Walsh and Hemmens (2011) Introduction to Criminology: A Text/Reader. Second Edition, SAGE Publications, California USA Harman, (1995), Deviance: A Symbolic Interactionist Approach, Genral hall, division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Boston, USA Freeman, C The Guardian newspaper (feb 2014) [online] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10649851/Ukraine-protests-a-timeline-of-the-crisis.html last accessed on (23/02/2014)
Adler, Patricia A., and Adler Peter. Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction. 6th ed. Belmont: Thomas/Wadsworth, 2009.
Goode, E. (2011). Constructionist Perspectives of Deviance. Deviant Behavior (Ninth Edition ed., ). Upper Saddle River, NJ : Prentice Hall, Inc..
Before the 1950’s theorists focused on what the difference was between deviants and criminals from “normal” citizens. In the 1950’s researchers were more involved exploring meaning and reasons behind deviant acts. This led to the most dominant question in the field of deviance, “what is the structural and culture factors that lead to deviant behavior?” This question is important when studying deviance because there is no clear answer, everyone sees deviance in different ways, and how deviance is created. Short and Meier states that in the 1960’s there was another shift in focus on the subject of deviance. The focus was what causes deviance, the study of reactions to deviance, and the study of rule breaking and rule making. In the 1960’s society was starting to speak out on what they believed should be a rule and what should not; this movement create chaos in the streets. However, it gave us a glimpse into what makes people become deviant, in the case it was the Vietnam War and the government. Short and Meier also write about the three levels that might help us understand were deviance comes from and how people interact to deviance. The first is the micro level, which emphasizes individual characteristics by biological, psychological, and social sciences. The second level is macrosociological that explains culture and
We live today in the societies which are shaped by rules and norms that must be follow. At the same time, people establish their own way to do things or not and when these people break or not respect the established rules, that’s is called deviance. According to Henslin “Deviance is the violation of norms (rules or expectations)”. I will define deviance as set of behaviors that are beyond the rules accepted by society or a group of people.
Maguire, M., Morgan, R., and Reiner, R. (2012) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 5th ed. United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
During the 1970’s to the early 1990’s there had emerged two new approaches to the study of crime and deviance. The discipline of criminology had expanded further introducing right and left realism, both believe in different areas and came together in order to try and get a better understanding on crime and prevention. There were many theorists that had influenced the realism approaches such as; Jock Young (Left Wing) and James Wilson (Right Wing).
First, we must examine the definitions of deviance and norms. Henry defines deviance as a person who goes against the standards, expectations, and norms of their society (lecture). Further, deviancy is thought of as a personal
"Sociological Theories To Explain Deviance." Sociological Theories To Explain Deviance. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013. .
Crime is an irrelevant concept as it is tied to the formal social control mechanism of the State; deviance is a concept that is owned by sociology thus our study should be the sociology of deviance, rather than criminology
History shows people in ancient times committed crimes which violated social norms and acceptable conduct despite threats of harsh punishment. There are theories regarding causes of crime but that by Emile Durkheim is quite prominent in that anomie arises as result of mismatch between individual or group standards when compared to the acceptable standards of wider society; this mismatch leads to deviance which in turn came from loss of social identity and self-regulation.
Deviance is defined as being conduct that is not segment of the averages in specific civilization. This can be distinctive throughout the places because certain societies have very dissimilar standards. Conduct condition is a psychological syndrome acknowledged in juvenile that gives itself through a recurring and obstinate display of conduct in which the simple privileges of others and main age-appropriate standards are disrupted. Conduct disorder gives as destructive and discourteous conduct. These psychosomatic indications of conduct disarray, support to explicate the instructive connects among psychology and crime. Furthermore, they establish the progressively unsolidified frontier among psychosomatic and biological theories of deviance.
Morgan, R., Maguire, M. And Reiner, R. (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
In this questionnaire, researchers try to compare societies in the past and and present. When dealing with crime sociologist might ask “Why are the crimes rates higher now than what they were 50 years ago?” In this study to help focus sociological imagination, we might try to gain insight to explain why the crime rates have risen. To see the world in a more sociological perspective we are then required to look at the the difference in crime between past and present society. Researchers might consider that there is more deviance now than before, which could result in a higher crime rate. The society in the present could’ve developed subcultural groups who adopted norms, that encouraged or rewarded criminal-like behavior. This is one way a sociologist can look at this situation as a developmental
Different schools of thought propose varying theoretical models of criminality. It is agreeable that criminal behaviour is deep rooted in societies and screams for attention. Biological, Social ecological and psychological model theories are key to helping researchers gain deeper comprehension of criminal behaviour and ways to avert them before they become a menace to society. All these theories put forward a multitude of factors on the outlooks on crime. All these theories have valid relevancy to continuous research on criminal behaviour.
Theorist Lemert (1972), believes we have two sections of deviance, thus being primary and secondary. Primary deviance is the common acts within a society. An example of primary deviance is where a small child steals from a store, this would be recalled as ‘childish behaviour’ by the store assistant, the child is now aware of it being a deviance towards the society he lives within, as no action was taken. Because of its common occurrence Lemert believes it is futile research.