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AS and A Level: Crime & Deviance

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Top five crime and deviance theoretical viewpoints

  1. 1 Functionalism – small amounts of crime are inevitable and in fact crime has some functions for society (Durkheim); higher amounts of crime and deviance may be the result of anomie (Durkheim) or strain (Merton).
  2. 2 Marxism – the working class DO NOT necessarily commit more crime than the ruling class; corporate crime and white collar crime are underrepresented in crime figures (Croall); the crimes the working class carry out can be justified as part of a political struggle against capitalism (Box).
  3. 3 Left Realism – crime in working class areas should be considered carefully as the working class are over represented as victims; crime occurs if people suffer relative deprivation, marginalization (social, political and economic) and live in areas with deviant subcultures (Lea and Young).
  4. 4 Right Realism – People carry out crimes when the benefits outweigh the costs (Clarke); Single parent families often produce criminal or deviant offspring (Murray); zero tolerance policing would improve crime rates (Wilson).
  5. 5 Feminism – women are often excluded and ignored in discussions about crime (Heidensohn); women are often victims of crime and that issue needs consideration (Smart); women are increasingly committing crime.

  • Marked by Teachers essays 4
  1. Using sociological evidence and examples, explain why some people from ethnic minority backgrounds are thought to commit more crime than others.

    5% black and 3% Asian, however when looking at report studies, graham and bowling found that black and white people had almost identical rates of offending (44% white and 43% black) . other self-report studies show similar patterns, discrediting the stereotype of black people as being more likely to offend than white people. Further evidence supports this imbalance of ethnicities and races in the CJS. Philips and Bowling note that there have been many allegations of oppressive policing of minority communities, such as mass stop and search operations, armed raids, and a failure to respond effectively to r****t violence.

    • Word count: 928
  2. Evaluate the strengths and limitations of using self-completion written questionnaires to investigate unauthorised absences from school.

    This method of research can be distributed easily and inexpensively to a large number of pupils in a short space of time. However, response rates are often very low, especially when dealing with sensitive topics. Children who are bullied are less likely to attend school, this leads to them missing important lessons and inevitably underachieving in their academic subjects. Furthermore, if the sociologist is investigating unauthorized absences, they must acquire a way of distributing the questionnaires.

    • Word count: 480

Conclusion analysis


  2. Do they answer the question directly?






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