CRIME AND SKILLS-BASED SOCIOLOGY Series Editors: Tim Heaton and Tony Lawson The Skills-Based Sociology series is designed to cover the Core Skills for Sociology A level (and equivalent courses) and to bring students up to date with recent sociological thought in all the key areas. Students are given the opportunity to develop their skills through exercises which they can carry out themselves or in groups, as well as given practice in answering exam questions. The series also emphasises contemporary developments in sociological knowledge, with a focus on recent social theories such as post• modernism and the New Right. Published THEORY AND METHOD Mel Churton AND TRAINING Tim Heaton and Tony Lawson MASS MEDIA Marsha Jones and Emma Jones STRATIFICATION AND DIFFERENTIATION Mark Kirby AND DEVIANCE Tony Lawson and Tim Heaton HEALTH AND ILLNESS Michael Senior with Bruce Viveash Forthcoming POLITICS Shaun Best RELIGION Joan Garrod WEALTH, POVERTY AND WELFARE Sharon Kane AND IDENTITY Warren Kidd Liz Steele and Warren Kidd

Skills-Based Sociology Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-333-69350-6 (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in the case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS, England CRIME AND DEVIANCE

Tony Lawson and Tim Heaton

MACMILLAN © Tony Lawson and Tim Heaton 1999 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP OLP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 1999 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world

ISBN 978-0-333-65816-1 ISBN 978-1-349-14035-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-14035-0 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 In memory of Jarrod Potter PGCE Social Science School of Education University of Leicester 1998 Contents

Acknowledgements x

Chapter 1: Introducing the Sociology of Crime and Deviance 1 • The philosophy behind the book 1 • What is deviance? 3 • What is crime? 5 • The relationship between crime and deviance 5 • Is there such a thing as the sociology of deviance? 7 • Is there such a thing as ? 8 • Subject content 11

Chapter 2: Crime Statistics 12 • Official statistics on crime 12 • The underreporting of known 18 • The invisibility of crime 20 • Police practices 22 • Problems interpreting trends in crime 25 • A summary of the social construction of crime statistics 26 • Alternative measures of crime: self-report studies and victim surveys 28 • Exam questions and student answer 44

Chapter 3: Socio-Cultural Explanations of Crime and Deviance 47 • The Chicago School 51 • theory 54 • Strain theory 55 • The cultural tradition emerging from the Chicago School and strain theory 60 • Control theories 72 • The city, the underclass and postmodernism 83 • Exam questions and student answer 86

Chapter 4: Interactionist Explanations of Crime and Deviance 90 • Labelling theory 91 • Deviancy amplification and the mass media 99

Contents vii • Phenomenology and deviance 104 • Ethnomethodologists and deviance 105 • Postmodem developments in interactionist theory 106 • Exam questions and student answer 109

Chapter 5: Conflict Explanations of Crime and Deviance 114 • Structural causes and the social construction of crime 115 • Crime and 119 • Crime and the law 121 • 124 • Anarchist theory of crime 129 • Post-structuralist criticisms of 130 • White-collar and 130 • Exam questions 136

Chapter 6: Realist Explanations of Crime and Deviance 138 • Right realism 140 • 147 • Postmodem developments from realism 151 • Other realist approaches 158 • Exam questions 160

Chapter 7: Crime, Deviance and Ethnicity 162 • Statistics and commonsense 166 • Explanations of black criminality 170 • Combined approaches 179 • Postmodem approaches to ethnicity and crime 186 • 187 • Exam question and student answer 189

Chapter 8: Crime, Deviance and Gender 192 • Statistics, gender and crime 196 • Theories that propose that women are less criminally inclined 201 • Women commit different types of crime from men 209 • Postmodemism, masculinities and crime 210 • Female criminal activity is underestimated or focuses on particular crimes 211 • Women as the victims of crime 216 • Exam questions and student answer 222

viii Contents Chapter 9: Criminal and the Victims of Crime 225 • Policing 225 • The law 232 • The courts and the system 234 • , incarceration and decarceration 236 • Justice and 239 • Victimisation and victimology 244 • Exam question 247

References 249 Author Index 274 Subject Index 279

Contents ix Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Catherine Gray and Keith Povey for their editorial help on this book and others in the series. Thanks, too, to Tara Young and Robin Prime for their help in proof-reading the book.

The authors and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material in the form of extracts, figures and tables: Blackwell Publishers; Guardian Media Group pIc; Home Office; McGraw-Hill Ryerson; Labour Party; Law ; New Statesman; Office for National Statistics; Pearson Education Ltd; Stanley Thomes; The General Council of the Bar; Thomas Nelson & Sons Ltd. They are also grateful to the Associated Examining Board (AEB) for allowing the use of questions from past A Level examination papers. All answers and hints on answers are the sole responsibility of the authors and have not been provided or approved by the AEB. Every effort has been made to trace all the copyright-holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangement at the first opportunity.

x Acknowledgements