As explained in item a, the labelling theory explains how actions become labelled as criminal or deviant. The labelling theory explains how crime and deviance is a social construct as the laws and norms are constructed by society. The theory can be seen as useful in explaining crime and deviance yet this can be disputed. First of all, the labelling theory aims to answer the question, why and how people get labelled. One researcher found that police made decisions on whether to arrest youth based on their physical cues.
Some of these criminals are in trouble with crime because of their social standings in their communities. “Social structure theory has three schools of thought--social disorganization, strain, and cultural deviance theories” (Seigel, 2000). The social disorganization theory states that a person resorts to crime because of the location and economic standing that the person is in. If a person is poor it is thought of that the person will more likely commit a crime. The social strain theory states that the person commits the crime because they are angry because they are not able to succeed economically as he/she would like to.
‘Outline and explain ways in which data about crime is collected’ Crime can be defined as deviant activities that break the law in any particular society. Finding out how much crime takes place isn’t easy, and attempts to measure crime can prove misleading. This doesn’t mean that crime statistics aren’t affective, but it does mean that no single measure can be fully relied upon. Many sociologists see crime statistics as a social construction, as collecting crime data is a result of the cultural expectations of society, and by understanding who commits crime and what sorts of crimes are committed, we can get a clearer picture of why people commit crime in the first place. Different sociologists have presented different theories and concepts to explain what drives a person to commit a crime, and research and statistics give us an idea of the type of crimes committed and the places that they’re most likely to occur.
According to this theory, there are “institutional arrangements that provide for success”, and they include family, religion, economy, education and politics (notes). This theory viewed America as a highly competitive society in which the less fortunate are left behind. Strain is felt because they lack equal opportunity and so they adapt to this reality in illegal ways, such as drug dealing, stealing and gangs. These individuals felt pressure from their society to conform to certain ideals and that is what drove them to become criminals. Stress stems from the world trying to reach the “American Dream”.
Inevitable which is in modern society we have complex specialised divisions of labour which leads to individuals becoming less integrated and more individualistic. Universal is that crime exists everywhere, relative is that different crimes vary in society e.g in countries such as Dubai there laws are different to the U.K and lastly functional is that a limited amount of crime can benefit society e.g terrorism. Durkheims theory is useful as it still can be related to today’s society it also explains crime however doesn’t show a solution to crime. Durkeheim also argues that all social change begins with an act of deviance for example the suffragette movement broke the law in order to highlight gender inequalities along with Martin Luther King who had to break the law in order to fight for black rights. This is useful in today’s society as we still see wars in places like Gaza fighting for rights and change.
To understand how useful certain theories and methods are when studying crime and deviance you need to know what crime and deviance is. A criminal act is something which breaks the law for example murder or rape. A deviant act however is different from a criminal act as a deviant act is something which is frowned upon in society for example being naked in public, however it is very hard to define a deviant act, as what some people see as deviant others may not. Marxists such as Karl Marx believe that society is ideologically manipulated through the law only being applied to less powerful groups such as the young, the working class and blacks. These groups of people are more likely to be arrested, convicted and sent to prison than members of more powerful groups, even if they are causing less damage to society.
Poverty may mean that crime is the only way that the working class can survive, as crime may e the only way that they can obtain the consumer goods encouraged by the capitalist advertising, resulting in utilitarian crimes such as theft. However, it isn’t always utilitarian crime that the working class commit as sometimes the alienation and lack of control over their lives may lead to frustration and aggression which results in non-utilitarian crimes such as vandalism and violence. Marxist’s sometimes argue the state and law-making are a cause of crime because they believe that all laws serve the ruling class, most law is based on protecting private property. The crimes of the working class and ethnic minorities are punished harshly while crimes of the powerful go unnoticed. The ruling class also have the power to prevent the introduction of laws that would threaten their interests.
Examine the role of access to opportunity structures in causing crime and deviance. Opportunity structures are seen to be one of the biggest factors that can lead to deviant behaviour or criminal activity such as stealing and selling drugs, an example of this would be a person not being successful in their education and unable to achieve socially approved goals by opportunity structures, this may result them to illegitimate opportunities such as crime so that they get what they want such as materialists things. Mertons strain theory helps explain this, he argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when they may become frustrated and stressed this often leads to criminal means of getting what they want by taking their anger out on someone else or also taking drugs to comfort them from their failure. Merton explains that there are two elements to this theory; Structural factors, which is society’s unequal opportunity structure and cultural factors, which is the strong emphasis on success goals and the weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve them. Merton argues that deviant behaviour starts from the structure of society and because they are unable to gain something from socially approved goals by legitimate means.
the American Dream. This theory is very useful in highlighting certain points that are not explained within other theories. Albert Cohen, describes the idea of status frustration. By which he argues that deviance and crime result from the inability of those in lower classes to achieve mainstream goals. It is useful for highlighting why, in the working class, those who cannot achieve in education, they then therefore suffer from status frustration and in this process turn to other people who also cannot achieve in this institution.
In fact, illegal immigrants are not allow to claim civil rights because they are already criminals by crossing the border illegally. They also hurt the U.S economy by increasing unemployment and lowering job demand. Furthermore, they commit crimes leaving a life of fear and mocking justice by changing their names. Illegal immigrants are criminals and represent a threat to American