The Chivalry Thesis states that women are let of relatively lightly by predominately male police and judges. It is one explanation for why official statistics report so few female crimes compared to male crimes. It could also explain why there are so few female prisoners than male prisoners.
The key idea of the Chivalry Thesis is male police are less likely to arrest and prosecute female criminals compared to male criminals, even if they are caught committing similar crimes. Similarly, male judges will give female prisoners more lenient sentences compared to males for the same offences.
The first person to coin the term ‘Chivalry Thesis’ was Otto Pollak, in 1950.
Otto Pollak: The ‘masked’ female offender
Writing in 1950, Otto Pollack argued official statistics on gender and crime were misleading. He claimed statistics underestimated the extent of female criminality.
Pollak analyzed statistics from several countries and claimed to have identified certain crimes that are usually committed by women but which tend to go unreported.
nearly all offences of shoplifting and criminal abortions were carried out by women. Both of these often went unreported to authorities.
Female domestic servants were in a position to commit theft from properties, which often went unnoticed.
In the case of prostitution Pollak saw the female prostitutes as committing criminal acts, but not the male clients.
Women’s domestic roles gave them opportunities to get away with poising their husbands and abusing their children.
Pollack argued the police, magistrates and other law enforcement officials tended to be men. Brought up to be chivalrous, they were usually lenient with female offenders so fewer women appeared in the statistics.
However, according to Pollack, the chivalry thesis only explained a small part of the low female offending rate in the official statistics. A more significant factor was that women were very good at hiding their crimes. This Pollak attributed to their biology. Women were good at deceiving men because they were used to hiding pain and discomfort which due when menstruating.
Criticisms of Pollack
Heidenshon (1985) criticises Pollak’s work for being based on unfounded, stereotypical assumptions about women.
Stephen Jones (2009) pointed out that Pollak provided a lack of evidence to back up his points. He had no actual evidence that female domestic servants committed crimes against their employers, for example.
Despite the obvious sexism in Pollak’s theory, he is important as he was the first person to raise the possibility of ‘chivalry’ being a factor in explaining gender differences in the official crime statistics. The Chivalry Thesis has been taken a little more seriously by criminologists!
Evidence supporting the Chivalry Thesis
Historical self report studies have shown a difference in the reported rates of offending by males and females. These differences are NOT as great as the imprisonment statistics.
For example the 2006 Offending, Crime and Justice survey 12% of males admitted to committing more serious offences compared to 8% of females.
When offence type is controlled for women receive 4.5 years less than men.
However this does not factor in the precise details of the offence, plea or previous convictions.
Evidence against the Chivalry Thesis
The latest trends from Women in the Criminal Justice System shows that women are receiving more harsher punishments compared to previous years. Thus catching up with men.
This could be linked to the fact that there are proportionally more female police and judges today than ever before.
Feminist criminologists argue that far from being chivalrous towards women the criminal justice system is in some ways biased against women.
Signposting
This material is mainly relevant to the Crime and Deviance module, usually taught as part of second year A-Level sociology.
Early feminism criticised the extreme male bias in early to mid 20th century criminology. Most criminological theories from consensus theories to radical criminology focused exclusively on men, ignoring women, issues of patriarchy and gendered discourses altogether.
One key early feminist criminology text was Carol Smart’s (1976) Women, Crime and Criminology 1976.
Smart argued that the sociology of deviance had to become more than just about men if it was ever to fully understand crime. She criticised the gender blind assumptions inherent within criminology, which saw male and female experiences of crime and criminal justice as largely the same.
Smart argued criminology should focus on highlighting the similarities and differences between male and female experiences of crime and the criminal justice system and the importance of creating a space for women’s experiences and voices within criminological research and theory.
Feminist contributions to criminology can be broken down into four main categories:
An early focus on developing theories of why women do and don’t commit crime.
A focus on‘ doing gender’: how masculinity is a main driver of crime.
Criticising the Chivalry Thesis by focusing on how women are seen as doubly deviant by the criminal justice system
A later focus on intersectionality and how factors such as ethnicity and age intersect with gender resulting in diverse experience of crime and criminal justice.
These contributions throughout the 1970s and 1980s reshaped the contours of modern criminology.
The rest of this post explores some of the contributions of mainly second wave feminism to the development of criminology in the 1970s, 1980s and into the early 1990s.
Much of this involved criticising existing criminological theory and practice.
Control theory: why do women commit less crime than men?
Fracnces Heidensohn (1985) argued that male dominated patriarchal societies control women more effectively than they do men, making it more difficult for women to break the law. She developed Hirschi’s Control Theory but adapted it to focus on gender.
Control operates across three spheres:
At home
In public
At work.
Control of women at home
Being a housewife directly restricts women by limiting the opportunities for criminality. Heidensohn describes domesticity as a form of detention. The endless hours spent on housework and the constant monitoring of young children leaves very little time for illegal activities. A pervasive value system persuades women they must carry out their domestic responsibilities dutifully or they will have failed as mothers and wives. Women who challenge the traditional roles of women within the family run the risk of having them imposed by force. Heidensohn says many observers confirm that wife battering is in fact an assertion of patriarchal authority.
If they are the main or only breadwinner men may also use their financial power to control women’s behaviour. The family more closely controls daughters as well as wives. They are usually given less freedom than boys who may come and go as they please or stay out later at night, and girls are expected to spend more time doing housework.
Control of women in public
In public women are controlled by the male use of force and violence, by the idea of holding onto a good reputation and the ideology of separate spheres.
Women often choose not to go out into public places because of the fear of being attacked or raped. Heidensohn quotes the 1986 Islington crime survey which found that 54% of women but only 14% of men often or always avoided going out after dark because of fear of crime. She quotes Susan Brownmiller’s claim that rape and fear of rape is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear. Heidensohn stops a short of endorsing this view but she does argue that the sensational reporting of rapes and the unsympathetic attitude of some police officers and judges to rape victims act as forces controlling women.
Women also tend to limit their behaviour in public Places because of the risk of being labelled unrespectable. The wrong sort of dress, demeanour, makeup and even speech can damage your women’s reputation in the eyes of men.
The ideology of separate spheres which sees women’s place as being in the home has become part of the system that subtly and sometimes brutally confines women. Women are not expected to raise their concerns in public or place them on the political agenda. If they try they may be ridiculed and told to return to where they belong in the home. such a fate befell of the Greenham Common women who during the 1980s protested about the sighting of American nuclear weapons in Britain.
Control of women at work
At work male superiors in the hierarchy usually control women and men also dominate trade unions. Women may also be intimidated by various forms of sexual harassment that discourage female employees from asserting themselves and from feeling at home. Sexual harassment ranges from whistles and cat calls and the fixing of pinups and soft p*** pictures to physical approaches and attacks which could be defined as indecent and criminal. Heidensohn quotes surveys that find that up to 60% of women have suffered some form of sexual harassment at work.
Conclusion
Heidensohn’s arguments about the causes or conformity by women fits in well with consensus views on the causes of deviance. Based on control theory, both agree the crime and deviance by women takes place when controls break down and women lose the real or imagined incentives to conform. Heidensohn suggests that some female criminals may be those who have perceived the biases of the system and decided to push against it.
For other women it is the restrictions themselves that force them into reliance upon crime. Heidensohn says women are particularly vulnerable because they are so economically exploited if they lose protection of a man and may turn to crimes such as prostitution as the only way of earning a reasonable living.
Evaluation of Heidensohn’s Control Theory
Many of her arguments are based upon generalisations, some of which do not apply to all women..
Heidensohn does not always support her claims with strong empirical evidence. Furthermore, she admits that many of the empirical tests of control theory have been carried out on juvenile offenders rather than adults.
Control theory does sometimes portray women as passive victims.
However Heidensohn does present a plausible explanation of why such a gap remains between men’s and women’s crime rates. In doing so she highlights some of the inequalities that remain between men and women. Furthermore the theory is supported by some empirical studies.
There is still some relevance today. In 2023 23% of women (compared to only 8% of men) said they had experienced sexual harassment in the previous year. 75% of those reported they’d experienced harassment in public places, 25% in the workplace. (Source: Office for National Statistics).
Pat Carlen: women crime and poverty
In 1985 Pat Carlen conducted a study with 39 women aged 15 to 46 who had been convicted of one or more crimes. She carried out lengthy and in-depth unstructured interviews with each of the women. Most were from the London area and 20 were in prison or youth custody centres at the time of interviewing. Most of the women were working-class and they had committed a range of offences. 26 had convictions for theft or handling stolen goods, 16 for fraud or similar offences, 15 for burglary, 14 for violence, 8 for arson, six for drugs offences and four for prostitution related crime.
Carlen criticised Freda Adler’s Liberation Theory. She did not believe that liberation had resulted in increased crimes by women; most of her sample had been touched little by any games that women had experienced through increasing opportunities in the job market for example.
Carlen argued that the type of working-class background of most of her sample was typical of female offenders convicted of more serious crimes. 30 members of her sample were from working-class backgrounds.
By reconstructing the lives of such women from in-depth interviewing, Carlen hoped to identify the set of circumstances that led to their involvement in crime.
Control Theory
Carlen adopted control theory as her theoretical approach. She argued that working-class women have been controlled through the promise of rewards stemming from the workplace and the family; such women are encouraged to make what she called the class deal and the gender deal.
The class deal offers material rewards such as consumer goods for those respectable working-class women who work dutifully for a wage. The gender deal offers psychological and material rewards from either the labours or the love of a male breadwinner. When these rewards are not available for women, or they have not been persuaded these rewards are real or worth sacrifices, then the deals breakdown and criminality becomes a possibility.
Factors encouraging deviance
Carlen found that the women she studied attributed their criminality to four main factors. These were drug addiction (including alcohol), the desire for excitement, being brought up in care and poverty. She placed particular emphasis on the last two factors: very often the abuse that drugs and the desire for excitement the consequence of being brought up in care will be important
In all 32 the women had always been poor, four of the remaining seven were unemployed at the time of being interviewed and only two had good jobs. 22 of the women had spent at least part of their lives in care.
Rejection of the class deal
Poverty and being brought up in care led to the women rejecting the class and gender deals. Few of the women had experience of the possible benefits of the class deal. they never had access to the consumer goods and leisure facilities which Society portrays as representing the good life.
Attempts to find a legitimate way of earning a decent living had been frustrated. For example six of the women had been through the youth training scheme but they had returned to being unemployed at the end of their training. A number had gained qualifications in prison but found them to be of no use in finding a job. Many had experience of day-to-day humiliations, delays and frustrations in trying to claim benefits. They had a strong sense of injustice, oppression and powerlessness. Crime was a way of resisting these justices and trying to solve the problems of poverty. The women had little to lose by turning to crime and potentially a good deal to gain.
Rejection of the gender deal
According to Carlen women generally are deterred from committing crime because they are brought up to see themselves as the guardians of domestic morality. They have less opportunities to commit crimes because they are more closely supervised than males first by parents, later by husbands. Patriarchal ideology promises women happiness and fulfilment from family life. For most of the women in the study though the gender deal had not been made or had been rejected. They felt they had been freed from family life or felt so closely supervised they felt oppressed by the family.
Some of the women had been sexually or physically abused by their fathers. Eight of them had been physically attacked by male partners.
For the 22 women who had been in care there had been little opportunity to acquire the psychological commitment to male related domesticity. spending time caring.
Broken attachments to friends and family had reduced some of the potential social costs of isolation that could result from crime. Some had run away from care usually with no money and some had experienced homelessness and unemployment, all of which can easily lead on to crime.
Many of the women saw crime as their only route to a decent standard of living. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Convictions and prison sentences served to restrict the women’s legal opportunities even further and make the attractions of crime greater.
West and Zimmerman: Doing gender
Feminist Criminology also engaged in a closer consideration of masculinity, and the social construction of maleness. For example West and Zimmerman (1987) in their article ‘Doing Gender’.
West and Zimmerman proposed that women and men engage in gendered practices i.e ‘do gender ‘in response to situated social hierarchies and expectations about masculinity and femininity thus contributing to the reproduction of social structure.
Messerschmidt (1993) has developed this arguing that for many men crime served as a resource for doing gender and that different crimes were useful for demonstrating masculinity depending on men’s social structural positions across axes of race and class.
Masculinity was seen as a crucial point of intersection of different forms of power stratification and identity formation . Feminist theoretical work on the social construction of gender asserted that male power was crucial in understanding crime.
Feminist Criticisms of the Chivalry Thesis
The Chivalry Thesis stated that women were treated less leniently by the police and courts than men which partially explained their lower levels of representation in the official crime statistics.
One of the first criticisms of this was put forward by Francis Heidensohn (1968). Heidensohn argued that women were treated more harshly by the criminal justice system because they were seen as doubly deviant: They had broken social norms by breaking the law and also broken the social norms of their gender, thus they received harsher punishments.
Research from 1987 found that compared to men women were more likely to be put in jail for robbery and assault compared to property crime. This suggests women are punished more harshly for being violent than men.
Research from 2018 found that mothers receive harsher penalties than fathers. This suggests women are punished more when they break the ‘good mother’ stereotype.
Carol Smart (1989) argued male offenders are sometimes treated more sympathetically than their female victims. This is particularly the case with rape trials She argued such trials ‘celebrate notions of male sexual need and female sexual capriciousness’. She quoted some historical comments by judges in rape trials as evidence:
“It is well known that women in particular and small boys are likely to be untruthful and invent stories.” Judge Sutcliffe, 1976.
“Women who say no do not always mean no. It is not just a question of how she shows and makes it clear. If she doesn’t want it she only has to keep her legs shut”. Judge Wild, 1982.
“It is the height of impudence for any girl to hitch-hike at night. That is plain, it isn’t really worth stating. She is in the true sense asking for it”. Bertrand Richards, 1982.
Sandra Walklate (2004) argued that it is the female victim who ends up on trial. Women have to establish their respectability if their evidence is to be believed.
From a feminist perspective rape trials tend to see things from the male point of view which accepts that men become unable to restrain their sexual desires once women give them any indication they may be available for sex.
Female victims of rape are portrayed as not knowing their own mind, not being able to determine whether they want sex or not.
Prison is a harsher form of punishment for women
Pat Carlen’s work revealed that prisons were outdated, outmoded and gender insensitive forms of punishment for women. She argued that women’s prisons both infantilize and medicalice their occupants. Women and girls confinement was revealed to be shaped by powerful and pervasive ideologies about femininity and the proper place of women
Intersectionality and Criminal Justice
Third wave Feminism celebrated multiple ways of ‘doing Feminism’. More focus on intersectionality and on the impact of criminal justice on those who cross identities.
Some third and fourth wave feminists criticised early feminisms as being based on the experience of white women. They sought to understand more how gender inequality intersected with cross cutting systems of oppression such as race, class, sexuality, ableism and age. (Collins and Bilge 2016)/.
An intersectional lens is now increasingly used to understand how intersecting social identities mediate crime and experiences of victimisation. And focus critically on how criminal justice systems both embody and perpetuate existing social inequalities. (Healy and Colliver 2022).
Signposting and sources
This material is part of the Crime and Deviance module, taught in the second year of A-level Sociology.
Courts decide how criminals should be punished in England and Wales. 80% of offenders receive a fine as punishment. Only 11% of offenders receive some kind of prison sentence.
Sentencing in England and Wales
Sentencing in England and Wales takes place in either a magistrates or crown court.
Magistrates courts deal with less serious offences. These are resided over by a magistrate. Magistrates are just ordinary citizens who take on the role voluntarily. The maximum prison term you can receive from a magistrates court is 6 months.
Crown courts deal with more serious offences. These are resided over by professional judges who have more extensive powers to pass longer jail sentences than magistrates.
When sentencing the court will take into account the following factors:
How serious it the offence is
Whether the defendant pleaded guilty or not guilty..
The defendant’s character, personal circumstance and any criminal record.
Punishments for criminal offences in England and Wales
In England and Wales, there are four main types of sentences for those found guilty of crimes, in order of seriousness….
Discharges for the least serious offences. 2% of offenders receive a discharge.
Fines. 80% of offenders receive a fine as a punishment.
Community sentences. These require an offender to do something. This may be unpaid work, getting treatment for an addition, adhering to a restraining order or avoiding going to a particular place. Only 7% of offenders receive a community sentence.
Custodial sentences (aka prison). These are only for the most serious offences. 11% of offenders get a custodial sentence.
Discharges
Judges award discharges for the most minor offences. With a discharge the offender is still found guilty and still gets a criminal record.
An offender can receive either an absolute or conditional discharge.
With an absolute discharge the offender is effectively free to go with no further punishment or conditions.
A conditional discharge means if the offender commits another crime they can be sentenced for their first offence along with that one.
Alongside a discharge an offender may also get a disqualification orders, compensation orders, and/ or court costs.
In 2022 only 2% of offenders received a discharge. In fact, with an absolute discharge, going to court is the only real punishment.
Fines
Fines are the most common form of punishment in England and Wales. Judges hand out fines for 80% of offences.
How large a fine will depend on how serious the crime is and the offender’s capacity to pay.
Technically the courts can set unlimited fines, but guidelines for amounts vary for different crimes.
Fines are the most common form of punishment. In 2022 79% of offenders received a fine as a punishment. That’s 831 000 fines in 2022!
Community Sentences
Community sentences involve punishments carried out within the community and require the offender to actively do something.
Examples of community service includes:
Doing up to 300 hours of unpaid work.
Taking part in programmes to change behaviour.
Getting treatment for mental health issues or undertaking rehabilitation for drugs or alcohol.
Offenders may have to refrain from doing certain things. This may include curfews, avoiding certain places, not travelling abroad.
There are generally three aims for community service: to punish, to change behaviour and to pay back the community.
In 2022 7% of offenders (69 000) received some type of community service as punishment.
Custodial Sentences
Custodial sentences are given for the most serious crimes, such as violent crimes, weapons offences and drug trafficking.
There are different maximum sentences depending on the crime, and some crimes carry minimum custodial terms. For example if you threaten someone with a weapon there is a minimum six month sentence.
Some offences also have a ‘three strike’ rule. For example after your third domestic burglary, the minimum sentence is three years.
There are four types of custodial sentence:
Suspended sentences. A judge may decide to suspend sentences up to two years. If the offender complies with all conditions set and doesn’t offend again for the term of the sentence they won’t go to jail. If they commit a further offence during their suspended sentence, they will most likely serve the original custodial term.
Determinate sentences. Here the judge specifies the maximum number of years an offender could spend in jail. For less serious offences of up to four years the offender will typically spend half the term in jail, then be released on license. For offences over four years, offenders will serve two thirds of the time before release on license.
Extended sentences. These are for more serious offences. Here offenders may apply for parole after they have served two-thirds of their sentence.
Life sentences. These are for the most serious offences such as murder and terrorism. Here the judge sets a minimum term which depends on the offence. The offender then serves that term and then may apply for parole. They remain ‘on license’ for the rest of their lives and can be recalled to jail at any time. In the most serious cases judges may pass whole life sentences. There are currently 65 people in jail for the rest of their lives.
In 2022 4% of offenders received a suspended sentence, and 6% received a determinate sentence. Only 1% received an extended sentence.
Disposal Orders
For people with limited mental capacity the court may make a disposal order. This is where they are put in a hospital for treatment or under guardianship.
Ancillary Orders
In addition to any of the above punishments, the court may also impose ancillary orders. These are further conditions offenders need to meet.
They include such things as restraining orders, criminal behaviour orders and driving bans.
Signposting
This material is mainly relevant to the A-level sociology Crime and Deviance module.
This month’s (May 2021) teaching resource bundle contains work books and Power Points covering eight lessons on Crime and Deviance – Intro to Crime, Functionalism and Consensus Theories and Marxism and Crime
Resources in the May 2021 bundle include
Intro to Crime
Intro to Crime Statistics
Introducing perspectives on Crime and Deviance using the London Riots as an example
Consensus Theories 1 – Functionalism, Bonds of Attachment and Strain Theory
Consensus Theories 2 – Subcultural and Underclass Theory
Marxism and Crime 1 – Crimogenic Capitalism and Corporate Crime
Marxism and Crime 2 – Selective Law Enforcement and the ‘real’ functions of punishment
Marxism and Crime 3 – Marxism and Crime Letter writing research task
The lessons are typically planned to last for one hour and 15 minutes, although some are longer. The Consensus Theories for example are longer lessons.
The materials contain a good deal of material applying Crime and Deviance to Coronavirus and Lockdown.
The next three months resources will also focus on Crime and Deviance and work through the rest of the specification.
Resources in the bundle include:
Work books
Power points
Also contained in this month’s (May 2021) teaching bundle is a students Scheme of Work and some revision/ review material.
Fully modifiable resources
Every teacher likes to make resources their own by adding some things in and cutting other things out – and you can do this with both the work pack and the PowerPoints because I’m selling them in Word and PPT, rather than as PDFs, so you can modify them!
NB – I have had to remove most the pictures I use personally, for copyright reasons, but I’m sure you can find your own to fit in. It’s obvious where I’ve taken them out!
Below I summarise the 2018 AQA’s examiner report for crime and deviance with theory and methods and add in the questions, which aren’t in the report. You can get both the report and the question paper here!
General Advice
Most students seem to have managed their time appropriately, with few signs that they were unable to complete the paper.
Some students showed detailed sociological knowledge and sophisticated understanding that they applied successfully to the set questions, and in general students seemed reasonably well versed in relevant material.
However, fewer found success in evaluating the issues raised by the questions.
Question 1
Outline Two ways in which gender may influence the risk of being a victim of crime
Most students successfully identified two ways in which gender may influence being a victim of crime.
Most answers referred to the vulnerability of women or the influence of patriarchy; many linked this with domestic abuse or sexual crimes.
References to male victims usually referred to socialisation and/or to violence related to masculinity, leading to men becoming victims of the violence of other men when they became gang members or spent time in the wrong places.
The main reason for failing to score marks was to write about committing crime rather than about being a victim.
Some gained partial reward for identifying a particular type of crime of which men or women are likely to be victims but without going on to elaborate on this.
Question 2
Outline three criticisms of the labelling theory of crime and deviance
The most frequently cited criticism was that labelling theory is deterministic; this was usually explained correctly.
Other frequently cited criticisms included the theory’s failure to explain primary deviance, its romanticised view of deviants or its neglect of structural factors.
A significant minority of answers outlined criticisms of the labelling process (for example that labelling is discriminatory or unfair), rather than of the theory.
Some students tended to recycle the same criticism in different guises.
A few wrote excessively long answers to this question.
Question 3
Applying material from Item A, analyse two reasons for social class differences in official crime statistics
Most students were able to draw on one or two appropriate points from the Item.
More effective answers then developed these points appropriately by employing relevant sociological concepts and studies.
For example, ‘agencies of the criminal justice system, such as the police’ was linked to how the police use typifications in activities such as stop and search, how justice may be negotiated etc.
‘some individuals may also have greater… pressure to offend’ was applied to utilitarian crime via relative deprivation or blocked opportunities faced by the working class.
In less effective answers, the connection between the potential point from the Item and the material presented was less clearly made.
In a minority of cases, students simply offered various sociological explanations of class differences in the statistics but with no application of material from the Item.
Question 4
Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate sociological contributions to our understanding of the relationship between crime and the media (30)
Good answers included…
the social construction of crime news;
media representations of crime,
criminals and victims; t
he role of the media in creating crime (for example, relative deprivation, moral panics and the deviance amplification spiral)
the role of new media in contributing both to crime and to its policing.
Good answers also had evaluation which was explicit and well linked to the specific issues raised in the answer.
Some answers took a ‘perspectives’ approach, including Marxist, functionalist, feminist or other views. Unfortunately, this approach led many to focus on tangential material, with detailed accounts of the general sociological perspectives that quickly lost sight of the media, crime, or both. However, there were a few very good answers of this type that did succeed in applying such perspectives to the set question.
Question 5
Outline and explain two disadvantages of using laboratory experiments in sociological research (10)
Most students could offer two disadvantages of laboratory experiments.
Most often these included the artificiality of the setting (often conflated with the Hawthorne effect)
other disadvantages included difficulties in identifying and controlling variables, a lack of representativeness or ethical problems.
However, many answers failed to explain or develop these points successfully; some simply described an example of an experiment that experienced such problems. Some students did not know the difference between reliability and validity.
A minority of students included evaluation, for which no marks were available on this question.
Question 6
Applying material from Item C and your knowledge, evaluate the advantages of using structured interviews in sociological research [ 20 marks]
This question proved to be quite challenging for some students.
Most were able to put together a list of positivist characteristics as advantages, such as objectivity, reliability, quantification and generalisability.
However, most could not evaluate these advantages.
Instead a typical response, having provided a paragraph or two on the advantages, gave a list of disadvantages, or a list of reasons why interpretivist sociologists would not like the method.
The result was an essay of two halves with little to link them into a coherent answer to the set question.
This classic example of a laboratory experiment suggests that children learn aggressive behaviour through observation – it is relevant to the Crime and Deviance module, and lends support to the idea that exposure to violence at home (or in the media) can increase aggressive and possibly violent behaviour in real life.
Bandura, Ross and Ross (1961) aimed to find out if children learnt aggressive behaviour by observing adults acting in an aggressive manner.
Their sample consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls from the Stanford University Nursery School aged between 3 to 6 years old.
Stage one – making some of the children watch violence
In this stage of the experiment, children were divided into three groups of 24 (12 boys and 12 girls in each group), and then individually put through one of the following three processes.
The first group of children watched an adult actor behaving aggressively towards a toy called a ‘Bobo doll’. The adults attacked the Bobo doll in a distinctive manner – they used a hammer in some cases, and in others threw the doll in the air and shouted “Pow, Boom”.
The second group were exposed to a non-aggressive adult actor who played in a quiet and subdued manner for 10 minutes (playing with a tinker toy set and ignoring the bobo-doll).
The final group were used as a control group and not exposed to any model at all.
Stage two – frustrating the children and observing their reactions
The children were then taken to a room full of nice of toys, but told that they were not allowed to play with them, in order to ‘frustrate them’, and then taken onto another room full of toys which consisted of a number of ‘ordinary toys’, as well as a ‘bobo doll’ and a hammer. Children were given a period of time to play with these toys while being observed through a two way mirror.
The idea here was to see if those children who had witnessed the aggressive behaviour towards the doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards it themselves.
Findings
To cut a long story short, the children who had previously seen the adults acting aggressively towards the bobo doll were more likely to behave aggressively towards to the bobo doll in stage two of the experiment.
A further interesting finding is that boys were more likely to act aggressively than girls.
The findings support Bandura’s ‘social learning theory’ – that is, children learn social behaviour such as aggression through the process of observation – through watching the behaviour of another person.
Evaluation
Strengths of the bobo-doll experiment
Variables were well controlled, so it effectively established cause and effect relationships (see the link below for more details)
It has good reliability – standardised procedures mean it is easy to repeat.
Limitations of this laboratory experiment
This study has very low ecological validity – this is a very artificial form of ‘violence’ – an adult using a hammer on a doll (rather than a human) is nothing like the kind of real life aggressive behaviour a child might be exposed to, thus can we generalise these findings to wider social life?
Cumberbatch (1990) found that children who had not played with a Bobo Doll before were five times as likely to imitate the aggressive behaviour than those who were familiar with it; he claims that the novelty value of the doll makes it more likely that children will imitate the behaviour.
The effects of exposure to aggression were measured immediately, this experiment tells us nothing about the long-term effects of a single exposure to aggressive behaviour.
There are ethical problems with the study – exposing the children to aggressive behaviour and ‘frustrating them’ may have resulted in long term harm to their well-being.
NB – There is every possibility that the actual 10 marker will be much more convoluted (complex) than this, but then again, there’s also the possibility of getting a simpler question – remember you could get either, and there’s no way of knowing which you’ll get – it all depends on how brightly the examiner’s hatred of teenagers is burning when he (it’s still probably a he!) writes the paper…
Firstly… Underclass – New Right – highest levels of crime – unemployment/ single parents = low attachment (Hirschi) also less opportunity to achieve legitimate goals (Merton’s strain theory), also more relative deprivation, marginalisation and subcultures (Young). Results in more property crime (theft) , possibly violent crime because of status frustration (Cohen). Backed up by prison stats – disproportionate number prisoners unemployed etc.
In contrast Middle classes supposedly have lower crime rates because they experience the opposite of all of the above.
However, Interactionists argue this difference is a social construction – Media over-reports underclass subcultures and deviance (Stan Cohen), Police interpret working class deviance as bad, middle class deviance as acceptable (Becker).
Secondly… Elite social classes – Because of greater access have the ability to commit different crimes – Corporate Crime – health and safety negligence (e.g. Bhopal) – Marxists = cost is greater than street crime – more people die annually than from street murders (Tombs and Whyte) – Also white collar financial crimes (e.g. Kweku Adeboli/ Madhoff/ Enron) – Total economic cost greater than street crime (Laureen Snider) – often go unpunished because of selective law enforcement (Gordon) – e.g. Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley paying below the minimum wage – but crimes = technically more difficult to prosecute and the public generally aren’t that worried about them.
In contrast ‘the rest of us’ don’t have the ability to commit high level Corporate Crimes, and so any one crime committed by an ordinary individual is relatively low-impact in comparison, although more likely to be picked up by the media and the authorities.
Finally (relevant to both of the above) – the government doesn’t collect any reliable stats on the relationship between social class and offending so we can’t actually be sure how the patterns vary any way!
And a few bonus thoughts on a related question…
Outline and analyse two reasons why crime statistics may not provide us with a valid picture of the relationship between social class background and patterns of criminal behaviour (10)
First way into the question = pick two different sets of stats on crime and talk them out…
1. Prisoner statistics suggest that…..
2. The Crime Survey of England and Wales suggests that…
Second way into the question…. More general points (easier, but more danger of repeating yourself)
1. The types of crime committed by elite social class are different to those committed by those from lower social classes…..
2. According to Interactionists, the different labels agents of social control attach to people from different class backgrounds mean the crime stats may lack validity…..
3. There are so many different ways of measuring social class and the government doesn’t collect any systematic data on the relationship between social class and crime….
Zero Tolerance Policing involves the police strictly clamping down on minor criminal activities such as littering, begging, graffiti and other forms of antisocial behaviour. Clamping down might take the form of on the spot fines, or mandatory jail sentences, as with the ‘three-strikes’ rule in California.
The best known example of Zero Tolerance Policy was its adoption in New York City in 1994. At that time, the city was in the grip of a crack-cocaine epidemic and suffered high levels of antisocial and violent crime. Within a few years of Zero Tolerance, however, crime had dropped from between 30 – 50%.
In the UK Zero Tolerance has been applied in Liverpool, a relatively high-crime rate city. Following its introduction in 2005, overall recorded crime fell by 25.7 per cent in the three years to 2008 with violent crime falling by 38%.
Another application of Zero Tolerance is the ASBO – you can get an ASBO for antisocial rather than criminal behaviour, and go to jail if you breach it, thus ASBOs police minor acts of deviance.
The rationale behind the ASBO stems from the right realist (right wing/ new right/ neoliberal view of the causes of crime – they hold the individual responsible for crime, seeing the individual as making a rational choice to commit crime – if people believe the reward of committing crime outweighs the risk of getting caught and the cost of the punishment, they will commit crime – ZT addresses this by increasing the punishments for minor crimes. This also fits in with Broken Windows Theory – by focussing on minor crimes, this prevents these spiralling into major crimes, and it fits in with the New Right’s view that the state should be ‘tough on crime’
The biggest strength of ZT is that it seems to work – as the figures above demonstrate. It is also relatively cheap to implement and seems to have an immediate effect on crime, unlike the more expensive, long term, social solutions preferred by Left Realists. It also makes the public feel as if something is being done about crime, and gives victims a sense of justice.
However, there are many downsides – Firstly, Zero Tolerance Policing in New York resulted in a lot more people being arrested for possession of marijuana – 25 000 a year by 2012 (one every ten minutes) – some of those people lost their jobs or rental houses as a result. If labelling theory is correct, once labelled as a criminal, these people will find it very hard to get jobs in the future.
Secondly, despite the claims of the right wing governments who implemented them, comparative analysis shows that there are other causes of crime reduction – crime has gone down in cities in the US and the UK without the widespread use of Zero Tolerance techniques – Target Hardening, the increased time people spend online (and thus not on the streets), the declining use of drugs, and even abortion have been suggested as the REAL reasons crime is going down.
Thirdly, Zero Tolerance might be racist in consequence – somewhere in the region of 85% of people dealt with under Zero Tolerance in New York were/ are black or Hispanic.
Fourthly ZT focuses on minor crimes, and street crimes, ignoring the more serious crimes committed by elites, which Marxists see as more harmful. It also does little to address the underlying causes of crime.
Finally, and in conclusion, there is the very real possibility that rather than being about reducing crime, ZT policies are ideological in nature – they allow politicians to claim that they are the ones reducing crime by being ‘tough on crime’, but in reality, crime is going down anyway because of other reasons. Thus maybe ZT has been so widely used because it benefits politicians rather than society as a whole.
Where modern social systems encourage excessive individualism – as a consequence there is a general lack of agreement around norms and values – some commentators describe anomie as a state of normlessness.
Hirschi argued that when an individual is more attached to society they are less likely to commit crime. He theorised that there were 4 main bonds of attachment – commitment, attachment, involvement and belief. For more details please see this post: Hirschi’s Control Theory of Crime.
Broken Windows Theory
A theory of crime developed in the 1980s and associated with Right Realism. Broken Windows theory states that crime increases in areas where there are high levels of ‘social disorder’, characterised by such things as high levels of litter, graffiti and broken windows. These signs give off the impression that people in the area don’t care, and that there are low levels of informal social control, and criminals are thus drawn to such areas. As a result, social disorder and crime increases further.
Context Dependency Deviance
Whether or not an act is deviant depends on the society in which the act takes place, the historical period, and the actors present. The context dependency of deviance emphasises the fact that the same form of behaviour can be considered deviant in one society, but not deviant in another.
Corporate Crime
Crimes committed by or for corporations or businesses which act to further their interests and have a serious physical or economic impact on employees, consumers and the general public. The drive is usually the desire to increase profits.
Crime
The breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a punishment – depending on the society this might ultimately mean imprisonment or the death penalty.
Crimogenic Capitalism
The Marxist idea that the exploitative capitalist system generates crime. According to Marxists, the self-interested pursuit of profit lies at the heart of the Capitalist system. The means whereby the Capitalist class get rich is by exploiting workers through paying them as little as possible to increase their profits, and they also encourage materialism, to increase demand for the goods they produce. A final way capitalism generates crime is by creating inequality – resulting in a significant number of people at the bottom of society (the underclass) who are effectively unable to consume at a reasonable level.
Dark figure of crime
The amount of unreported, or undiscovered crime. These are the crimes which do not appear in Official Police Statistics.
Deviance
Behaviour that varies from the accepted standard of normal behaviour in society. It implies that an individual is breaking social norms in a negative way.
Dog Eat Dog Society
A phrase associated with Marxist Sociologist David Gordon who said that capitalist societies are ‘dog eat dog societies’ in which each individual company and each individual is encouraged to look out for their own self-interest before the interests of others, before the interests of the community, and before the protection of the environment.
Ideology
A set of cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes that underlie and justify either the status quo or movements to change it. The culture of every social system has an ideology that serves to explain and justify its own existence as a way of life. In Sociology, Marxists use the term the ‘dominant ideology’ to refer to the world-view of the ruling class, which they present to everyone else as normal – their world view passes of inequality and exploitation as normal and natural, thus justifying their existence.
Ideological Functions
The idea that institutions such as schools and the media teach a set of norms and values which work in the interests of the powerful and prevent social change. For example, Marxists say the education system performs ‘ideological functions’ for the Capitalist system and the Bourgeois: they believe that the norms of punctuality and acceptance of authority and hierarchy prepares us for our future exploitation at work, which benefits future employers more than workers.
Labelling
Labelling is the process of pre-judging/ categorising an individual based on superficial characteristics or stereotypical assumptions. For example when a teacher decides a scruffy looking student is not intelligent.
A moral entrepreneur is an individual, group or formal organization that seeks to influence a group to adopt or maintain a norm. Moral entrepreneurs are those who take the lead in labelling a particular behaviour and spreading or popularizing this label throughout society.
Neutralisation of Opposition
In Marxist theory resistance to capitalism and eventual revolution should come from the working classes once they realise the injustice of the high level of exploitation they face. However, according to Marxist criminologists, the criminal justice system works to get rid of opposition by selectively locking up working class (Rather than middle class) criminals which prevents resistance and revolution. Selective law enforcement does this in three main ways:
By literally incarcerating (‘incapacitating) thousands of people who could potentially be part of a revolutionary movement.
By punishing individuals and making them responsible for their actions, defining these individuals as ‘social failures’ we ignore the failings of the system that lead to the conditions of inequality and poverty that create the conditions which lead to crime.
The imprisonment of many members of the underclass also sweeps out of sight the ‘worst jetsam of Capitalist society’ such that we cannot see it, thus we are less aware of the injustice of inequality in society.
Official Crime Statistics
Official Statistics are numerical information collected by the government and its agencies – the two main types of crime statistics collected by government agencies are Police Recorded Crime, and the Crime Survey of England and Wales. Crime statistics also encompass Prison Statistics, which include information about the numbers and characteristics of prisoners.
Police recorded Crime
All crimes reported to and recorded by the police. Police forces around the country record crime in categories that are outlined in the Home Office counting rules. These include: violence against the person, sexual offences, robber, burglary, theft, handling stolen goods, fraud and forgery, criminal damage, drug offences and ‘other offences’.
Rational Choice Theory
Believes individuals make rational (logical) decisions about whether or not to commit a crime the crime rate is affected mainly by three factors – the available opportunities to commit crime, the perceived risk of getting caught, and severity of the punishment the offender believes they will receive if they are caught. According to Rational Choice Theory, the more opportunities to commit crime, the lower the risk of getting caught and the lower the likelihood of punishment, then the higher the crime rate will be.
Relative Deprivation
Lacking sufficient resources to maintain a standard of living or lifestyle which is regarded as normal or average in a given society; or lacking sufficient resources to maintain a living standard which is approved of by society. While it is possible to measure relative deprivation objectively, there is a subjective element to this concept which can make it difficult to measure – an individual can feel relatively deprived even when they are relatively well-off compared to the average, if they have an unrealistic idea about what ‘the average is’. This concept is associated with Left Realism and Jock Young’s Vertigo of Late Modernity especially.
Self-Report Studies
Surveys in which a selected cross section of the population is asked what offences they have committed. A good example of a self-report study is the ‘Youth Lifestyles Survey’ – although the last one was done over a decade ago.
Selective Law Enforcement
Where the police mainly focus on policing working class (and underclass) areas and the justice system mainly focuses on prosecuting working and underclass criminals, while ignoring the crimes of the elite and the middle classes, although both of these classes are just as likely to commit crime as the working classes. A concept associated with Marxist criminologist David Gordon.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Where an individual accepts their label and the the label becomes true in practice.
Social integration
Where people are connected to society through social institutions. The more connections an individual has to social institutions, the more integrated an individual is to society. For example, someone with a job, with a family, and who spends time with others in the community is more integrated than an unemployed single loner.
Social Regulation
reaffirming the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. High levels of social regulation basically mean explicit and clear rules and norms which set out clear social expectations. In Functionalist theory an appropriate amount of social regulation is essential for preventing anomie which leads to high levels of suicide and other forms of deviant and criminal behaviour.
Socially Constructed
Where something is the product of social processes rather than just being natural. For example, most sociologists agree that crime is socially constructed because people in society decide what crime is law breaking behaviour, and laws are made-up by people and change over time, thus crime varies from society to society. Similarly, we can say that crime statistics are socially constructed because they are the result of a series of social interactions – of people witnessing and reporting crimes and then the police recording them, rather than the stats reflecting the actual real number of crimes in any society.
Society of Saints
A phrase associated with Emile Durkheim which emphasises the inevitability and social necessity of crime. Durkheim argued that even in a ‘society of saints’ populated by perfect individuals deviance would still exist. In such a society there might be no murder or robbery, but there would still be deviance. The general standards of behaviour would be so high that the slightest slip would be regarded as a serious offence. Thus the individual who simply showed bad taste, or was merely impolite, would attract strong disapproval.
Status frustration
A concept developed by Albert Cohen in Delinquent Boys (1956) – he used it to explain working-class male delinquency as being a collective reaction against middle class success – working class boys tried hard in school and failed to gain status, got frustrated, found each other and formed a deviant subculture – status was gained within the subculture by being deviant and going against the rules of the school.
Subculture
A group which has at least some norms and values which are different to those held in mainstream society, and can thus be regarded as deviant.
The Underclass
A term first coined by American Sociologist Charles Murray (1989) – The underclass’ refers to the long term unemployed who are effectively welfare dependent. They have higher rates of teen pregnancies and single parent households and much higher crime rates. Some statistical analysis suggests that the underclass (approximately 1% of the population) might commit as much as 50% recorded crime in the UK.
Victim Surveys
Ask people whether they have been a victim of crime, typically in the previous 12 months. The most comprehensive victim survey in England and Wales is the ‘Crime Survey of England and Wales’.
White Collar Crime
White-collar crime refers to financially motivated nonviolent crime committed by business and government professionals. Within criminology, it was first defined by sociologist Edwin Sutherland in 1939 as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”.
Zero Tolerance Policing
Involves the police strictly enforcing every facet of law, including paying particular attention to minor activities such as littering, begging, graffiti and other forms of antisocial behaviour. It actually involves giving the police less freedom to use discretion –the police are obliged to hand out strict penalties for criminal activity.
The ten mark question on crime and deviance in the A Level Sociology Crime and Deviance/ Theory and Methods paper will ask you to analyse two reasons/ ways/. Below are a few exemplars (well, one for now, more to follow!) I knocked up, which should get you 10 marks in the exam…
My suggested strategy for answering these 10 mark questions is to make two points which are as different from each other as possible and then try to develop each point two to three times. You don’t have to evaluate each point, but it’s good practice to put a brief evaluation at the end, but don’t spend too long on this, focus more on the development (which is basically analysis).
NB – Usually there is an item attached to these questions, but more of those later!
Question: analyse two reasons for the formation of subcultures (10)
Point 1 – Consensus theorist Albert Cohen suggested status frustration was the root cause of subculture formation.
According to Cohen deviant subcultures are a working class problem – working class boys try hard in school, and fail, meaning they fail to gain status (recognition/ respect) – these boys find each other and form a deviant group, whereby they gain status within the group by being deviant – by doing things which are against the rules – for example bunking lessons – and the further you go, the more status you get.
Another Consensus theory which we could apply here is underclass theory – Charles Murray would argue that lower class boys fail at school because their parents don’t work and fail to socialise them into a good work-ethic, hence offering a deeper ‘structural cause’ of why subcultures are more likely to form among the lower social classes.
Hence applying these two consensus theories together, the process goes something like this – and individual is born into the underclass – they are not socialised into a work ethic – they fail at school – they get frustrated – they find similar working/ underclass boys – they gain status by being deviant.
A Problem with this theory is that it blames the working class for their own failure, Marxism criticises consensus theory because the ‘root cause’ of subcultures is the marginalisation of working class youth due to Capitalism.
Point 2 – Interactionists would point to negative labelling as the root cause of subculture formation
According to Howard Becker, teachers have an image of an ‘ideal pupil’ who is middle class – working class pupils don’t fit this image – they dress differently and have different accents, and so teachers have lower expectations of them – they thus don’t push them as hard as middle class students – over the years this results in a self fulfilling prophecy where working class students are more likely to decide they are failures and thus think that school is not for them – It is this disaffection which results in subculture formation.
David Gilborn further applied this idea to the formation of subcultures among African-Caribbean students – according to Gilborn teachers believed black students to be more disruptive and thus were more likely to pick them up for deviant behaviour in class, while White and Asian students were ignored – this marginalised black students who when on to develop anti-school subcultures as a form of resistance against perceived racism.
In contrast to subcultural theory, in labelling theory it is the authorities who are to blame for the emergence of subcultures, rather than the deviant youths themselves.
A criticism of labelling theory is that it is deterministic – not everyone accepts their labels, so not every negative label leads to a subculture.
