Paper 3: Crime and deviance

1. Paper 3: Crime and deviance L.O: to investigate neo-Marxist explanation for crime and deviance

2. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Neo-Marxism and radical criminology Marxists focus on the reasons behind the inequality and in whose interests the criminal justice system operates. • Draw this Venn diagram. • Do any of their ideas about crime overlap? Starter: Interactionists focus on the process by which an individual becomes labelled as deviant and its effect on their subsequent behaviour. • Criminality occurs throughout the social structure • Those from lower classes, with less power, are more likely to be identified as criminals and arrested, charged and convicted.

4. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Key assumptions of the neo-Marxist perspective

5. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Key assumptions • Radical criminologists (a form of neo-Marxist) combine Marxist and interactionist ideas of crime. • Consider the process in which they become labelled deviant (interactionism). • Consider the reasons behind inequality and how the criminal justice system operates (Marxism).

6. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Theorist 1Chambliss

7. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Chambliss (1973) Explanation of crime The Saints and the roughnecks • Chambliss is generally seen as a Marxist • Observed two high school gangs for 2 years in Seattle (Saints and roughnecks) • Identified differences in public perception of the two gangs • Identified how social class impacts on labelling and self-concept (radical criminology)

8. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. The Saints The roughnecks • Why? • Utilised status and ‘good reputation’ • Negotiated their way out of classes, cheating on homework and tests • Chose sites for weekend delinquency carefully, so not to be recognised. • Why? • They were perceived as ‘typical gang members’ • Subject to more community vigilance • Police looked for opportunities to arrest them • 8 young men • White upper-middle class • Constantly involved in deviant behaviour • Truancy, drinking and vandalism • None were officially arrested during the 2 year study • 6 boys • Lower-class backgrounds • Constantly involved in deviant behaviour • Constantly in trouble with the police and community

9. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. What similarities can you see between this study and Cicourel’s (interactionism)? Chambliss (1973) What do you think he concluded? Selective perception and labelling means that visible, poor, non-mobile, outspoken, undiplomatic ‘tough’ kids will be noticed whether their actions are seriously delinquent or not. Other kids, such as those with reputations for being bright, disciplined and involved in respectable activities who are mobile and monied, will be invisible when they deviate.

10. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Evaluating Chambliss

11. A03- Chamblis Strengths • Combines both interactionist and Marxist ideology, e.g. considers how the Saints and roughnecks experienced social class inequality but also how their labelling influenced their involvement in criminal activities. More holistic explanation of crime. • Brings into question the reliability of police data, e.g. how they are perhaps biased in their approach to individuals from different social class. Is the image of the ‘typical criminal’ so because the police simply approach these individuals more due to labelling? Limitations: • The study may not be relevant to all cultures and times, e.g. it was carried out in a Seattle suburb in the 1970s. This may be outdated as some may argue that we are more aware of middle-class crimes nowadays.

12. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Theorist 2Hall et al

13. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Hall et al (1978) Rather than explain the mugging, Hall et al explored why British society reacted to mugging in such an extreme way at that time. Explanation of crime Policing the crisis • Looked back at the moral panic about mugging in the 1970s. • The term ‘mugging’ was first used by British media in 1972 but does not actually exist as a crime. • Media coverage quoted statistical increases which are impossible to verify given the lack of clarity about what constituted ‘mugging’. • Nevertheless, the term was used nationally and became associated with black males.

14. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Their explanations: • Britain was experiencing economic crisis (high unemployment and a squeeze on wages) . • Strikes, student protests and widespread discontent. • The ruling class were unable to govern by consent • Instead, they had to use force to control the crisis, clamping down hard on dissenters. • Crime became the focus in order to justify tougher policing. • Some politicians linked unemployment problems to immigration • Coupled with sensationalist media reporting about mugging… Moral panic was created with a link between race and crime

15. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Hall et al (1978) Scapegoat: a person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency. • The ‘black mugger’ served as a scapegoat for the social problems of that time. • Distracted people from economic worries • Justified tougher policing and control Can you think of any more recent examples of moral panics which may have distracted attention from wider social problems?

16. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Evaluating Hall et al

17. Hall – A03 Strenghts • Provides an alternative to other perspectives that blindly accept the image of the typical criminal without questioning underlying procedures and statistics, e.g. it is part of capitalist ideology to control and scare. Combining Marxist and interactionist ideology. • Highlights issues with the validity of police recorded data, e.g. using the term ‘mugging’ in statistics when it is not a quantifiable crime. • Practical applications to modern day, e.g. Islamaphobia, or refugee crisis with Muslims and refugees being labelled and scapegoated to justify tougher control. • Limitations: • Too extreme, e.g. far-fetched that the ruling class are involved in a deliberate conspiracy to control and criminalise lower classes using scapegoats to distract. However, Marxists argue that this need not be deliberate, they do still control the powerless for their benefit. • Takes the blame away from any black individuals who did ‘mug’ people at the time, e.g. referring to them as simply a scapegoat.

18. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Theorists 3Taylor, Walton and Young

19. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Taylor, Walton and Young (1972) Explanation of crime The New Criminology They say crime is a choice ( free will) The main aim of the “New Criminology” was to move the sociology of crime on from the idea that society should be trying to remove deviant behaviour to a need to understand and accept it They argue that criminals are not passive ind. Unable to control their economic situation such as traditional Marxist has stated. Instead crime was a conscious meaningful and deliberate choice ind. made to try and change society. Much crime is a deliberate fight against capitalism. Taylor, Walton and Young poit to political action groups such as the Black Panther movement, who use criminal means to agitate the system. Robbery is also seen by the new criminologists as a potential means of redistributing wealth. Sociology needs a “fully social theory of deviance”. Deviance needs to be explained from different viewpoints.

20. Taylor, Walton and Young (1972) They analyse deviant acts in term of 1/ how wealth and power are distributed 2/ the unique circumstances of each deviant act 3/ the nature of deviant act itself 4/ reactions of the rest of society to the deviant act 5/ who has the power to make rules about the treatment of deviance or response to deviance 6/ the effect of being labelled deviant has on an ind. 7/ how all those factors interlink = this approach is know as critical criminology

21. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Taylor, Walton and Young (1972) Explanation of crime The New Criminology They suggest that crime can be explained by: An individual’s class position. Feelings of frustration that this creates. Desire to resist and fight back against the capitalist system.

22. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Evaluating Taylor, Walton and Young

23. Taylor, Walton and Young – A03 Strengths: • Holistic view of crime, e.g. social theory accounting for both Marxist and interactionist ideologies. • Does accept the view of the ‘typical criminal’ but explains that this is caused by the ruling class and their oppression of young, male, black, working class individuals. They are simply responding to their situation. Limitations: • Left realists call this a ‘Robin Hood’ thesis. For example, most working class criminals commit crimes against other working class people, not as an act of rebellion against the capitalist state. However, radical criminologists would argue that resistance need not be a conscious act, rather a result of anger and frustration that may end up being channelled into violence and other crime. • Feminists would argue that this anger is channelled towards females, e.g. rates of domestic violence and child sex abuse in the family. • Takes the blame away from criminals, e.g. they are simply rebelling against the ruling class. Can this justify crimes of murder and rape?

24. Theorists 4Gilroy

25. Gilroy – why black youth commits crime Gilroy sees crimes committed by black youth in a similar way to Taylor, Walton and Young. Young Black boys feel alienated by their everyday experience of a racist white society and angered when they learn about slavery and colonialism. They commit crime as a form of protest against a racist capitalist society. Streets disorders such as London riots in 2011 are political uprisings rather than riots, while other crimes committed by young blacks are revolutionary acts aimed at overthrowing White domination. The police is seen as White military force occupying Black areas ( like an invading power).

26. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Time to summarise

27. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Worksheet

28. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Planning a 40 marker

29. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. 40 marker question Plan 40 mark question on neo-Marxism.

30. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Extension: glossary cards • CSEW • Islington Survey • Dark figure of crime • Global organised crime • Green crime • Value consensus • Collective conscience • Anomie • Agencies of social control • Public degradation ceremonies • Strain • Modes of adaptation • Status frustration • Focal concerns • Master status • Techniques of neutralisation • Moral panic Include which perspective and theorist the key words relate to!

31. LO: Explain crime using the neo-Marxist perspective and evaluate given explanations. Plenary Test your partner’s recall using your glossary cards! Now swap and let them test you!