Crime and Deviance
This domain tests explanations of crime, the reliability of crime statistics and the effectiveness of social control. Questions often ask you to compare theories or explain why official figures may mislead.
Core rules and concepts
- Crime and deviance: crime is behaviour breaking legal rules; deviance breaks social norms and may not be illegal. Formal control is exercised by police and courts; informal control by family, peers and community.
- Functionalism: Durkheim argues crime is normal and boundary-maintaining; Merton's strain theory links crime to blocked goals; Cohen explains status frustration; Cloward and Ohlin distinguish criminal, conflict and retreatist subcultures.
- Interactionism: Becker's labelling theory shows how labels create deviance; Lemert separates primary and secondary deviance. Becker's study of marijuana users illustrates labelling.
- Marxism: Chambliss and Box argue law protects ruling-class interests; white-collar crime is under-policed.
- Realism: left realism focuses on relative deprivation and victimisation; right realism on rational choice, broken windows and situational prevention.
Worked example
Question: Why may official crime statistics not show the true extent of crime? A strong answer explains the dark figure, differences in reporting and recording, police discretion, victimless crimes and class bias in policing. It should mention victim surveys and self-report studies as correctives, while noting their own limitations.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating official statistics as objective facts.
- Conflating crime with deviance.
- Ignoring white-collar and corporate crime.
- Describing a theory without linking it to a mechanism.
- Assuming more police always means more crime.