Explain the different sociological explanations for crime and deviance Sociologists argue that there are many different sociological explanations for crime and deviance present. In this essay I will be discussing the different sociological explanations for crime and deviance. Firstly‚ a sociological explanation named inadequate socialization is based on young people’s involvement in criminal and deviant behaviour‚ which has been explained in terms of the negative influence of family background
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Assess the contribution of the Marxist theory to the sociological understanding of crime and deviance. (21 marks) Marxism is a macro/structural approach to society‚ meaning that it looks at the large-scale societal structure for answers about how society works and operates and explores crime and deviance in relation to classes within a capitalist society. Marxists claim that laws do not reflect a value consensus‚ instead laws and law enforcement benefits the rich (protection of private property)
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Lemaire March 16‚ 2013 Intro: Accord to Cliffs notes Deviance is any behavior that violates social norms‚ and is usually of sufficient severity to warrant disapproval from the majority of society. Cliffsnotes.com says that “Deviance can be criminal or non-criminal.”[1CliffsNotes.com. Theories of Deviance. 16 Mar 2013 <http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/topicArticleId-26957‚articleId-26873.html>. Many different Countries have deviance behaviors and some them in society do fail to conform
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Deviance Deviance: Behavior that violates the standards of conduct or expectations of a group or society. However‚ different culture defines deviance differently. Same behavior can be defined as conformity for some culture but in contrast defined as obedience for other culture. * Example: Alcoholism (some society look it as an acceptable behavior but some society (Islamic) look it as deviance. Deviance involves the violation of group norms‚ which may or may not be formalized into law.
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Outline and assess Functionalist explanations of crime and deviance. This question includes assessment of your understanding of the connections between crime and deviance and sociological theory. Functionalist explanations of deviance begin with society as a whole looking for the origins of deviance in the nature of society‚ not the biological or psychological make up of an individual. Functionalists favour quantative methods to look at society‚ using statistics to see society as a whole‚ rather
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There are many different factors that have to be considered when examining the role of access to opportunity structures in causing crime and deviance. Merton’s ‘Strain theory and anomie’ argues that deviance arises from the structure of society and that unequal access to legitimate opportunity structures is the cause of deviant behaviour. The main point that Merton’s theory outlines is the fact that people engage in deviant behaviour because they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate
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corruption 1. The crime that’s not going down Crime levels seem to be going down in majority of the areas. In spite of this fact‚ the brutality of the police and the manner in which they handle the civilians is something that has brought a lot of concern to many people. Unfortunately‚ people tend to
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Assess the usefulness of consensus theories for an understanding of crime and deviance in society. Consensus theories are the theories that believe that every society share the same views‚ norms and values. The main consensus theories are Functionalism and Subcultural. Functionalism is the theory of how or why society functions and how it remains in a state of stability. It tries to explain the role that all people within society have‚ from children to criminals‚ in order to maintain stability
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All Structuralist theories of crime and deviance seem to suggest that crime is socially constructed rather than focused on the individual. Albert Cohen‚ combining Structuralist and sub cultural theories drew on Merton’s idea of strain but criticized Merton’s ideas of crime being an individual response and believed that he ignored non-utilitarian crimes such as vandalism and joy-riding. Cohen was particularly interested in deviance which was not economically motivated but done simply for the thrill
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Deviance involves‚ to an extent‚ a degree of stigmatization of a sub-population. These social stigmas are positioned and sanctioned by the majority population on the basis of certain‚ and sometimes subtle‚ differences. As societies expand‚ various behaviours may be removed from abnormal categories‚ therefore altering the depiction of deviance in a society. For example‚ prior to 1972‚ it was considered a crime and socially deviant to be a homosexual. Eventually human rights became more relevant and
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