SC104.

Introduction to Crime, Law and Society

1. Interactionism & ‘labelling’
2. Social control theory
3. Radical criminology
4. Realist criminology
 “Deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits,
but rather a consequence of the application by others of
rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’. The deviant is one to
whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant
behaviour is behaviour that people so label”
(Howard Becker, 1963)

 “This is a large turn away from older sociology which

tended to rest heavily upon the idea that deviance leads
to social control. I have come to believe that the reverse
idea, i.e., social control leads to deviance, is equally
tenable and the potentially richer premise for studying
deviance in modern society” (Edwin Lemert, 1967)
 Behaviour only becomes deviant when
labelled AND treated as such
 → ‘deviant careers’

 CERTAIN PEOPLE BECOME DEVIANT

THROUGH SOCIAL JUDGEMENTS ON THEIR
BEHAVIOUR
 THEY ACTUALLY BECOME THE ESSENCE OF
THE THING THAT IS BEING COMPLAINED
ABOUT
 Primary deviance – unwitnessed,
insubstantial, fleeting reactions
to deviant acts

 Secondary deviance – formal reactions of

others/ deviance itself becomes a ‘response’
to responses
 Doesn’t explain the motivation behind primary deviance
 Can underestimate the ‘fundamental deviance’ of crimes
such as murder, rape etc.
 Does the deviant identity start not in ‘social reactions’ but in
social environments such as local neighbourhoods? (e.g.
Chicago School)
 Merely replaces external factors with a new determinism –
social reaction?
 Needs analysis of social and political structures and
inequalities that uphold labels.
 Over-humanises deviance – can it address cases (such as
domestic violence) wherein the LACK of social reaction
perpetuates the deviance.
 Lacks any substantial empirical evidence.
Idea of social bonds which keep us in a state of
conformity.
1. Attachment - affection and sensitivity to others
2. Commitment - investment in society or stake in conformity
3. Involvement - being busy, restricted opportunities for delinquency
4. Beliefs - degree to which person thinks they should obey the law

The deviant is often free from these bonds/

controls etc.
 Also draws on interactionalist approach to escape
Marxist theories of economic determinism.

 Marxist social theory including the idea of human

action: people act and think for themselves… &
create the social world
 Crime as a political act, free-will against society

 “a criminology which is not normatively

committed to the abolition of the inequalities of
wealth and power, and in particular, inequalities
in property and life changes, it is inevitably
bound to fall into correction” (Taylor, Walton and
Young)
 Left Realism: reacting to the ‘great denial’ of left idealism

 Multiple aetiologies: the ‘square of crime’”

 ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’

 'nothing works' (Martinson , 1974)

 New emphases on ‘the underclass’

(Charles Murray, 1984, 1988, 1990)

 The ‘Broken Windows’ thesis (Wilson and

Kelling, 1982)
“a piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a
window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children;
the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families
move out, unmarried adults move in. Teenagers gather in
front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to
move, they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates.
People start drinking in front of the grocery, in time, an
inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it
off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers” (Wilson
and Kelling, 1982: 32).

Assumption that order and crime are inextricably linked

 police intervention in even
the most minor ‘incivilities’,
(even if not criminal acts at
all).
i.e. bans of public drinking,
moving on homeless people
and stationing a police officer
‘on every street corner’ to
enforce this mandate.
 E.g. lower Manhattan
scheme.
'I believe the erosion of the quality of life in
our town began when our 'system'
demonstrated its inability to cope - not with
murders ... but with petty violators. Once the
word was out that the 'system' could not
effectively deal with the graffiti artist, the
drunk in the hallway, the aggressive
panhandler, the neighbor with the blasting
radio, the petty thief, the late-night
noisemakers, vandals, desecrators, public
urinators, litterers, careless dog owners, and
on and on the seed was planted that has
since grown into a full-grown disrespect for
our laws’ (Rudolph Giuliani cited in Bowling,
1999: 544-545).
Source: Bowling (1999)
Source: Bowling (1999)
Homicide reduction in NYC attributable to:
 The crime had already ‘peaked’
 Changing drug markets

 Size of the market

 Shape of the market

 Limited availability of firearms

 Greater decreases in homicide in Detroit, Washington,
Atlanta, Miami and New Orleans (no ZTP)
 Homicide increased by 14% during previous NYC ZTP
campaign in 1980s
 Addressing underlying social problems which
exacerbate crime?
 can inflame situations c.f. Brixton riots (Scarman, 1981).
 tool of coercion and exclusion used against the least
powerful members of society: the ‘underclass’?
 What distinguishes primary and secondary
deviance?
 Was Travis Hirschi right to ask ‘why don’t we
all commit crime’?
 Radical criminology presented a challenge to
positivism. How? (clue: early positivism took
the category of ‘criminal’ for granted)
 What’s ‘real’ about realist criminology?
 ‘Compare and contrast any two
criminological approaches to understanding
the commission of crimes’ (i.e. the ‘act of committing a
crime’)

 Not more than 1000 words

 To be handed in during class.