Chapter 22:

Crime and Deviance

CONTENTS

• The basic concepts

• Theories of crime and deviance (till page 1814)
The PredPol
• Since 2012, a US private company called PredPol (Predictive Policing) has offered a
‘machine-learning algorithm’ which uses historical data and is updated daily with
new crime events in order to calculate what type of crime is likely to be
committed, where and at (roughly) what time period.
• This helps police forces to schedule their officers’ patrols more effectively
• The algorithm may not be able to predict potential murders, but the firm claims
that PredPol can ‘predict where and when specific crimes are most likely to occur’
• However, PredPol’s system does not include socio-economic, ethnic or gender
information which causes some discriminatory profiling. For example, it seems
clear that the current focus is on common types of property and street crime
rather than white-collar offences, corporate crimes orcrimes committed by the
police themselves.
The Basic Concepts
• Deviance: May be defined as non-conformity to a given set of norms
that are accepted by a significant number of people in a community
or society.
• sociologists distinguish between these initial acts of primary deviance
and secondary deviance, which involves the development of a deviant
or criminal identity and, potentially, a criminal “career”
• Sanctions: any reaction from others to the behaviour of an individual
or group that is meant to ensure compliance with a given norm.
• Informal Sanctions less organized and so we have more spontaneous
reactions to non-conformity.
• Formal Sanctions applied by a specific body of people or an agency to
ensure that a particular set of norms is followed. They are presented
by the police, courts and prisons
• Crime: The concept conventionally refers only to actions or omissions
that break the law and are punishable by the state.
• Criminalization: explains why some activities become the subject of
criminal justice while others do not
• Sociologists studying deviance seek to understand why certain
actions are regarded as deviant in the first place and how the
concepts of deviance and normality are socially constructed.
• The study of deviance directs our attention to issues of power,
the influence of social class, and divisions between rich and
poor and always raises the question ‘who makes the rules?’
Crime
• Deviance and crime are not synonymous, though in many cases they overlap. The
concept of crime conventionally refers only to actions or omissions that break the law
and are punishable by the state
• However, crime is an ‘essentially contested concept’. This is because there are normative
judgements of what should and should not be considered crimes, but also because we
all break the law on occasion and yet do not believe we should be punished
• For example, many people break speed limits or use their phones while driving without
perceiving themselves as ‘criminals’
• When a social group or certain activities are targeted for intensified monitoring,
redefinition and, ultimately, prosecution, this process is known as criminalization
• Criminology is defined as ‘the study of the making of laws, the breaking of laws, and of
society’s reaction to the breaking of laws’
Theories of crime and deviance
Cesare Lombroso
• Italian scientist Cesare Lombroso
• Wrote the book L’uomo delinquente (1876) (‘Criminal man’)
• Argued that criminal types could be identified by their anatomical features
• He investigated the physical characteristics of convicted criminals in prison
(the shape of the skull and forehead, jaw size and arm length, skin markings
such as tattoos…)
• He concluded that criminals displayed clear signs of atavism – traits from
earlier stages of human evolution – which ‘civilized’ human beings did not.
Criminals were essentially uncivilized, evolutionary throwbacks and, as their
criminality was inherited, they could not be held responsible for their
actions.
Functions and Dysfunctions of
Crime
• Functionalist theories see crime and deviance resulting from structural tensions
and a lack of moral regulation within society. If the aspirations of individuals and
groups do not coincide with society’s stock of available rewards, then a disparity
between desires and their fulfillment will be expressed in the deviant
motivations of some social groups.
• The concept of anomie was first used by Emile Durkheim to describe the erosion
of traditional norms in modern societies
• Anomie occurs when there are no clear standards to guide behaviour, leading to
deep feelings of disorientation and anxiety.
• In the modern world people are less constrained than in previous times and,
because there is more room for individual choice, it is inevitable there will be
non-conformity or deviance.
Robert Merton
• Robert conducted his research to answer the following questions:
• Why have crime rates remained relatively high in the developed
societies?
• Does increasing affluence lead to less criminality?
• To answer these questions, the American sociologist Robert K. Merton
(1957) used Durkheim’s concept of anomie to construct an influential
theory which located the sources of crime within the social structure of
American society
• Merton used the concept of ‘anomie’ to describe the strain which occurs
when widely accepted cultural values conflict with people’s lived reality
 Labelling Theory
• Sociologists working from an interactionist perspective focus on the
social construction of crime and deviance, rejecting the notion that
there are types of conduct that are inherently or objectively ‘deviant’.
• Labelling theorists interpret deviance as the product of interaction
processes between deviants and non-deviants
• Therefore, if we are to understand the nature of deviance, we must
discover why some people come to be tagged with a ‘deviant’ label
• Labelling not only affects how others perceive an individual, it also
influences that individual’s self-identity.
• Edwin Lemert (1972) devised a model for understanding how
deviance can coexist with or actually become central to one’s identity
• Lemert called these initial acts of transgression primary deviance. In
most cases, these acts remain ‘marginal’ to the person’s self-identity
and the deviant act becomes normalized
• Lemert used the term secondary deviance to describe the cases
where individuals come to accept the deviant label for themselves.
The new label can then become a master status, overriding all other
indicators of status, leading to a continuation or intensification of
their primary deviant behavior.
 White collar crime
• The term white-collar crime was first introduced by Edwin Sutherland. It refers
to a crime that is carried out by those in the more wealthy sectors of society
often against the interests of the companies for which they work.
• White-collar crime covers many types of activity, including tax fraud, illegal sales
practices, securities and land frauds, embezzlement, and the manufacture or
sale of dangerous products, as well as straightforward theft.
• The distribution of white-collar crime is even harder to measure than other
types of crime, and many white-collar offenses are not part of official statistics
at all.
• Although some white-collar crime is tolerated by companies and police forces
do not routinely patrol sites where these offenses may be committed, the cost
of such crime is enormous.