Sociology Questions for A2

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Marxist Perspectives on Crime and Deviance.

Intro=Perspective=Different approaches and explanations. Sociologists debate as to whether class is relevant anymore.  Background=German Philosopher Karl Marx. Marxism says capitalism is criminogenic and they use the Bourgeoisie and Proletariat to explain this.

P1=Traditional Marxism=Gordon we live in a "Culture of envy." Althusser Ideological State Apparatus (Law) used by the Bourgeoisie. Snider capitalism protects the Bourgeoisie. Box the Bourgeoisie kill, inure and maim ordinary people. Reiman the higher the class a person is the less likely the crime is to be treated as serious. Croall White collar and corporate crime often goes undetected. Eval=Ignores the relationship between crime, gender + ethnicity; not all people are deviant (Gordon?); Criminal Justice goes against the ruling class.

P2=Neo-Marxism=Taylor, Walton and Young. Hall talked about mugging dividing the black and white working class. Eval=Left realists say they make people out to be Robin Hoods; Taylor, Walton and Young are said to ignore the effect on the victim; political motives for some crimes are difficult to find; Rodger Hopkins Burke says they are to general and too idealistic and not useful.

P3=Marxist Subculturalists= CCCS. Hebdige uses Punks to show that the way they act and dress is to shock the public. Cohen uses Skinheads and says they have a symbolic reaction. Eval=don’t take into account globalisation and social media; or the effects of capitalism and consumerism.

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Marxist Perspectives on Crime and Deviance.

P4=Statistics= OCS (Not Official) they are critical of them as they say that they serve an Ideological function in society, Box says that it diverts attention from middle class crime to working class crime. This is similar to what Reiman said. Box then went on to say that the powerful in society kill and injure the ordinary people in society. Eval= Left realists say that the Islington Crime Survey supports the findings of the OCS. Judicial Bias, Moral Panics and Police stereotyping can also all have an effect on it. 

Functionalist Views= Durkheim used the term anomie to describe deviance and he said that by having anomie they committed crime rather than society making them do it. However he fails to explain why not all people commit crime. Merton says that the strain theory in which people respond in one of 5 ways they: conform, innovate, retreat, rebel and ritulaist and some of these ways makes them commit crime. However he fails to explain why everyone isn't deviant and he also doesn't explain violent or sexual crimes as well as working class crime.

Conclusion= Marxism is different to the other theories as is talks mainly about capitalism. However it is not the best as it does neglect areas like gender and it focuses too much on capitalism rather than people. Also the contempory UK is always changing. 

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