Social Approaches to Crime - Essay Example

Social Approaches to Crime Sociological theories claim that the individual is a result of his environment. They stress the fact that social structure, inequality, and socialization play a major role in triggering criminality. While it is true that in the process of socialization the roles and actions of individuals are shaped, the different sociological approaches attempt to explain which social factor or factors induce individuals to actually commit crimes. The Structural Approach The most essential aspect of this approach is that, behind the fluctuating appearances of social reality lie its organizational structures. It concerns the political and economic conditions of society.Structuralists believe that arbitrary laws create criminal activity.Therefore, equal distribution of power and wealth can curb crime and deviance. According to structural theory, a society requires an external force, the state to create cohesiveness. Personal desires are highly encouraged in the society and unrestrained ambition is encouraged. Crime is more probable in such a society of imbalance because of the lack of constraint and the unrestrained appetites of individuals who "want more" and will go to any lengths to acquire more and more. Functionalist approach The modern origin of the functionalist perspective is credited to French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1857-1917). Durkheim believed that every society needed deviance to remain healthy and was therefore inevitable in every society (Haralambos & Holborn, 1995). While Durkheim introduced the idea of anomie: a situation in which social norms lose their hold over individual behaviour (Giddens, 1997), Merton expanded on this by combining anomie with cultural goals. He used this in relation to American society and the goals included: success, achievement, and material gain. Only some people can achieve these goals - others resort to deviant behaviour in order to achieve them because they feel inadequate in comparison to those who have succeeded (Giddens, 1997).He thought that deviance is a result of the structure of society. All members of society have the same goals - he termed this value consensus. However, people are placed in very different positions in the social structure (i.e. class, money, gender, etc) - and thus do not have the same opportunity to reach these shared value. Merton identified five responses to cultural goals (Fulcher & Scott, 1999; Giddens, 1997; Haralambos & Holborn, 1995): conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. Conformity is when an individual conforms to the norms of the society. Innovation is where the person even resorts to deviance to achieve the goals. Ritualism is when the individual abides by the norms of the society even though he abandons the hope of achieving the goals.Retreatism is when the person rejects the social values and thereby stops being competitive. Finally rebels become completely deviant trying to reconstruct social structure by subscribing to new values and norms. Merton suggested that it is not individual personalities but the conditions of society that generated crime. Even though Merton's anomie theory of criminality has stood the test of time and still one of the most credible of all theories, it fails to answer a number of pertinent questions (Siegel 2004). A number of questions are left unanswered by anomie theory. Merton does not explain why people chose to commit certain types of crime. For example, why does one anomic person become a mugger while another deals drugs Anomie may explain differences in crime rates, but it cannot explain why most young criminals desist from crime as adults. Does this mean that perceptions of anomie dwindle with age Is anomie short-lived (Siegel 2004) Marxist Approach. Marxists (obviously) took a different approach to crime than functionalist. They are concerned with who makes the law (i.e. the ruling class) and who benefits from these laws (i.e. the ruling class). Marxists argue that the real criminals are not the ones currently making up the nations jail population, but the ones that have "stolen the wealth from the nation". Marxists argue that crime is a natural reaction to capitalism. Capitalism encourages the maximization of profits and wealth. It creates poverty and thereby leaves no choice for some to turn to criminality to survive. Capitalism is by its nature very competitive. Competition breeds aggression, hostility, and especially for the losers - frustration. This naturally leads to proletarian revenge, which is a way of hitting back at the capitalist system. Traditional Marxist approach is considered to be too deterministic as it does not give sufficient explanation about the choices that individuals make. Its explanations to crime are oversimplified. If capitalism is the sole reason behind crime, then why is there still crime in a communist society Jock Young along with Taylor and Walton started the neo-Marxist approach. They offered a more 'holistic' approach that recognized individual choices, societal responses and constraints of the society. This approach is seen to be more far-reaching and complex than the narrow views of Marxism. Subculture Theories A subculture is defined as a subdivision within the dominant culture that has its own norms, values and belief system. These subcultures emerge when individuals in similar circumstances find themselves virtually isolated or neglected by mainstream society. Thus they group together for mutual support. Subcultures exist within the larger society, not apart from it. The members of the subculture are different from the dominant culture. Cohen's theory Cohen thought that working class boys hold similar success goals to rest of society, but due to poor educational attainment and poor jobs, they have little opportunity to achieve this. This is all due to their disadvantaged position in the social structure. Stuck at the bottom of the stratification system, the boys suffer from status frustration- i.e. they are frustrated with their low status in society. They reject the goals of the mainstream culture, replacing them instead with an alternative set of goals, in which they can achieve success and gain prestige - the result is a delinquent subculture. This doesn't simply reject the norms and values of the rest of society - it turns it upside down. Thus everything that is seen as bad to the rest of society is now seen as acceptable- i.e. stealing, swearing, etc. But it's not just about an act of defiance and a finger up at society. These actions also offer rewards - those who perform successfully in the eyes of the peers gain prestige and respect. Thus stealing isn't about achieving success in mainstream goals, but about achieving it in their own delinquent subculture. Labelling Theory Labelling theory or social reaction theory is concerned with how the self-identity and behaviour of an individual is influenced (or created) by how that individual is categorized and described by others in their society(Wikipedia).This theory focusses on the actions of society to deviant individuals and the resultant reaction of the individuals themselves. Edwin Lemert is widely considered the producer and founder of the original version of labeling theory. A group of labeling theorists began exploring how and why only certain acts were defined as criminal and others were not. Such theorists viewed criminals not as evil persons who engaged in wrong acts but as individuals who had a criminal status placed upon them by both the criminal justice system and the society at large. From this point of view, criminal acts thus themselves are not significant; it is the social reaction to them that are. Therefore when more and more people begin to think of these individuals as deviants, they respond to them as such; thus the deviant reacts to such a response by continuing to engage in the behaviour society now expects from them(Becker1966). Labeling gives only a partial explanation of the complex aspects of deviance. Its main drawback is that it fails to include the structural features of deviance and does not answer the significant questions posed by other theorists. Right Realism The 1980's saw a return to ways of thinking about crime that although packaged in a different language, revitalized the idea that the sources of lawlessness reside in individuals not within the social fabric. James Q. Wilson and Ron Clarke were the main proponents of Right Realism. Right realists advocate for law and order policies. Laws should be unambiguous and rigidly enforced. The consequences of transgression should not be an attempt at treatment or reform of the offender. These approaches are considered ineffectual. Instead, harsh punishments should be enforced as a means of getting offenders off the streets, as deterrence to future crime, as social retribution. The major emphasis is on order and discipline as crime flourishes where social discipline is lax. Right realism does not include an analysis of power relationships and ideology. It ignores social class, gender and ethnicity and also ignores the fact that crime is not simply a "lower class phenomenon". The crimes of the powerful may not be as visible as those of the powerless, but it is clearly arguable that they are just as significant. Informal control measures (such as Neighbourhood Watch schemes, video camera surveillance and so forth) tend to simply displace crime rather than deter it. It is deterministic as it takes a very politically conservative stance, which assumes that everyone is a potential criminal. Left Realism Left Realism emerged in the mid -1980s. In Britain, the "New Left Realism" started to develop through the work of writers such as Lea and Young (1984). Left realism advocated taking crime seriously, but without the moral hysteria. It is a reaction against both left's tendency to neglect victimization among working class people and the conservatives' extremely harsh social strategies. It is a perspective that attempts to explain and measure street crime and propose short term policies to control it. It is an attack on left idealists who offer simplistic analyses based heavily on instrumental Marxist and feminist views of the state and law, but who ignore street crime and offer no practical proposal for change. Critics argue that we cannot under-estimate levels of working-class crime simply because police practices, the collection of Official statistics and so forth under-estimate the extent of middle and upper class crime. Lea and Young's theory is too ambitious - it tries to encompass all kinds of criminal behaviour. Different forms of crime may have different causes. Finally, self-report studies tend to suggest that female involvement in crime is far higher than is suggested in Official Statistics - yet according to Lea and Young's form of analysis Official Statistics tend to portray a relatively accurate picture of the extent of female crime . References Books Becker H.S., 1966, Outsiders, The Free Press. Durkheim E,'On the Normality of Crime,'in Theories of Society, edited by Talcott Fulcher, J., Scott, J., 1999, Sociology, Oxford University Press Giddens, A., 1997, Sociology 3rd Ed, Polity Press Haralambos, M., Holborn, M., 1995, Sociology: Themes & Perspectives 4th Ed, Collins Educational Parsons, Edward Shils, Kaspar D. Naegele, and Jesse R. Pitts. New York: Free Press. pp. 872-75 Siegel, L.J., 2004, Criminology: The Core, Thomson Wadsworth Read More