Durkheim introduced the concept of anomie in his book The Division of Labour in Society, published in 1893. He used anomie to describe a condition of deregulation that was occurring in society. This meant that rules on how people ought to behave with each other were breaking down and thus people did not know what to expect from one another. Anomie, simply defined, is a state where norms (expectations on behaviours) are confused, unclear or not present. It is normlessness, Durkheim felt, which led to deviant behaviour.
In The Division of Labour in Society, Durkheim proposed two concepts. First, that societies evolved from a simple, non-specialised form, called mechanical, toward a highly complex, specialised form, called organic. In the former society people behave and think alike and more or less perform the same work tasks and have the same group-oriented goals. When societies become more complex, or organic, work also becomes more complex. In this society, people are no longer tied to one another and social bonds are impersonal.
Anomie thus refers to a breakdown of social norms and it a condition where norms no longer control the activities of members in society. Individuals cannot find their place in society without clear rules to help guide them. Changing conditions as well as adjustment of life leads to dissatisfaction, conflict, and deviance. He observed that social periods of disruption (economic depression, for instance) brought about greater anomie and higher rates of crime, suicide, and deviance.
Durkheim felt that sudden change caused a state of anomie. The system breaks down, either during a great prosperity or a great depression; anomie is the same result.
In the 1960s David Matza, and his associate Gresham Sykes, developed a different perspective on social control, which explained why some delinquents drift in and out of delinquency. Neutralisation Theory, or Drift theory as it is often called, proposed that juveniles sense a moral obligation to be bound by the law. Such a bind between a person and the law remains in place most of the time, they argue. When it is not in place, delinquents will drift.
According to Sykes and Matza, delinquents hold values, beliefs, and attitudes very similar to those of law-abiding citizens. In fact, they feel obligated to be bound by law. They justify their delinquent activities by learning techniques that enable them to neutralise such values and attitudes temporarily and thus drift back and forth between legitimate and illegitimate behaviours. They maintain that at times delinquents participate in conventional activities and shun such activity while engaging in criminal acts. Such a theory proposes that delinquents disregard controlling influences of rules and values and use these techniques of neutralisation to weaken the hold society places over them. In other words, these techniques act as defence mechanisms that release the delinquent from the constraints associated with moral order.
Howard Becker makes the point that deviance is not a quality inherent in an act but rather society’s label or reaction to the act defines it. No action is criminal or deviant in itself, it only becomes so if society defines it as such. Therefore labelling is where certain groups or individuals categorise particular behaviour or individuals. A deviant or deviant act is one that has been labelled as such. This raises the issue of who has the power to impose their norms and values (their definitions of right and wrong) on others.
Giddens states that the labels applied express the power structure of society – they tend to applied by the wealthy for the poor, men for women, and ethnic majorities for minorities.
The labelling of an individual as a criminal or a deviant tends to reinforce that view on themselves and they act accordingly. This has a snowball effect as the more they act out the label, the more fixed it becomes and the more they accept it. Interactionists argue that this process of labelling actually increases the criminality of the individual.
In 1939 Criminologist Edwin H. Sutherland proposed his theory of Differential Association in his Principles of Criminology textbook. His final version of the theory was revised in 1947. Differential Association theory states that criminal behaviour is learned behaviour and learned via social interaction with others. Sutherland relied heavily upon the work of Shaw and McKay, Chicago school theorists, in high rates of juvenile delinquency. Sutherland's theory of differential association still remains very popular among criminologists due to its less complex and more coherent approach to crime causation.
Sutherland drew upon three major theories from the Chicago School in order to better formulate his theory. These included the ecological and cultural transmission theory, symbolic interactionism, and culture conflict. Varying crime rates were explained by the culture conflict approach and the process by which individuals became criminal was expressed by the symbolic interactionism approach. Thus, he formulated his theory with an attempt to explain not only individual criminal behaviour but also those of societal groups.
Sutherland did not mean that mere association with criminals would lead to criminal behaviour. What he meant was that the contents of patterns in association would differ from individual to individual. He viewed crime as a consequence of conflicting values. Differential association is a theory based on the social environment and its surrounding individuals and the values those individuals gain from significant others in their social environment.
According to Sutherland, criminal behaviour is learned based on the interactions we have with others and the values that we receive during that interaction. We learn values from family, friends, co-workers, etc. Those values either support or oppose criminal behaviour. Sutherland also noted that individuals with an excess of criminal definitions will be more open to new criminal definitions and that individual will be less receptive to anticriminal definitions. The theory does not emphasise who one's associates are but rather upon the definitions provided by those associations. Once techniques are learned, values (or definitions) supporting that criminal behaviour may be learned from just about anyone.
Sutherland's theory has received both praise and criticism, mainly upon how it is interpreted. For instance, it doesn't specifically answer why everyone in contact with an excess of criminal behaviour patterns doesn't become criminal. Differential association also fails to tell us HOW the first criminal became a criminal. Despite some criticisms, the theory has had an important impact on criminology.
Edwin Sutherland, the first mainstream criminologists to focus on crime among the affluent, pointed to two critically important things about white-collar and corporate crime (or what he called “analogous social injury”). White-collar crime really is crime, amounting to hundreds of billions of pounds in theft, fraud, and destruction, and accounts for much injury and loss of life. In contrast to street crime, affluent crime is far more costly to society in both financial and human terms. White-collar criminals, because of the segmented application of criminal and civil law, are administratively segregated from conventional criminals.
Maximising profit and minimising production costs motivate capitalists to endanger the public in several ways e.g. environmental destruction, dangerous working conditions, and widespread fraud and dishonesty. As with street crime, these crimes result from capitalist accumulation. The development of crime under capitalism is intimately related to all the levels of capitalist activity. Many, if not most, occupational offenders are found among the professional-managerial ranks. Occupational structure and the distribution of power within this structure dictate the degree and level of involvement. Those who handle large sums of money more than likely enjoy a greater level of trust in the organisation and are in a better position to steal from their employers. The bulk of occupational fraud lies beyond the ability of lower-level employees and contractors. Such crimes are typically the domain of the petty bourgeoisie, such as physicians, or the professional, such as traders. While members of the working class are involved in occupational crime, corporate criminality and misconduct are clearly beyond the reach of the ordinary working person.
The first scientist to inquire into female criminality was the French mathematician and astronomer, Quetelet, in the early 19th century. Lombroso also claimed that criminal women had certain physical abnormalities. In the early 20th century, researchers continued to measure physical characteristics to make the connection between the basic motivations of female offenders and biological disorders or peculiarities. Freud suggested that women commit crimes out of a sense of deficiency, e.g. penis envy. Bonger, a Dutchman influenced by Marx, introduced arguments for the social and economic determination of female crime.
There are two schools of thought on how women are viewed: women who commit crimes as poor, benighted creatures who are victims of male oppression; women as being more cunning and craftier than men.
The influence of the women’s movement in the 1960s changed many attitudes towards female crime. The major focus of their research and criticism involved men’s oppression of women. As a result, many laws were introduced and changed to allow for the role of women’s victimisation. However, there are different schools of thought amongst feminists today. Some continue to focus on women’s oppression and victimisation. However, feminist criminologists like Hilary Allen and Patricia Pearson claim that women’s crimes have been medicalised. They claim that women’s crimes should be taken as seriously as men’s crimes. Defenses given for male and female crime should be equal, if possible and that females should be held responsible for their crimes and punished appropriately.
Feminist critiques note that women are usually absent from crime theories, which are normally based on studies conducted by men. These theories have been offered as a generalisation, which, as only one sex is taken into account simply cannot be taken as a sound view. Feminists working within criminology are also keen to expose women’s experiences of victimisation in such situations as domestic abuse and in doing so have also exposed the extent of such hidden crimes.
Bibliography
Haralambos and Holborn, 2000, Sociology Themes and Perspectives, HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Harrower, Julie, Applying Psychology to Crime, Hodder & Stoughton, 1998
McLaughlin, Eugene and Muncie, John, Controlling Crime, Sage Publications Inc, 1996
Walklate, Sandra, Understanding Criminology Current Theoretical Debates, Open University Press, 2001
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