Crime, deviance & social control

• Crime — behaviour that breaks the law and is punishable by the state.
• Deviance — behaviour that breaks social norms; it may or may not be illegal. Deviance is relative — it varies by time, place and culture.
• Social control — the ways society keeps behaviour in line. Formal control = laws, police, courts (agencies of formal social control). Informal control = family, peers, disapproval.

Key idea: not all deviance is crime, and not all crime is seen as deviant — the two overlap but are not the same.

Crime or deviance?

Functionalist theories of crime

• Durkheim argued crime is inevitable and even functional: it reinforces shared values (boundary maintenance), allows social change, and too little or too much both signal problems. He introduced anomie — normlessness.
• Merton's strain theory: crime results when people cannot reach society's goals (e.g. wealth) by legitimate means, producing responses such as innovation (crime to get the goals).
• Subcultural theory (e.g. Cohen) — 'status frustration' pushes some working-class youths into delinquent subcultures.

Sort the theory

Tap a claim, then the perspective that makes it.

Whose theory?

Interactionism & labelling

Interactionists focus on how acts and people come to be labelled as deviant:

• Becker — deviance is not the act itself but a label society attaches. There is no such thing as an inherently deviant act.
• Master status — once labelled 'a criminal', that label overrides all others.
• Deviancy amplification — the reaction to deviance (e.g. media 'moral panics') can make it worse.

Key term — moral panic: an exaggerated public reaction, often media-fuelled, to a group seen as a threat to society's values.

Your turn — percentage

Marxist theories of crime

• Capitalism is criminogenic — its inequality and greed generate crime at all levels.
• The law is applied selectively: white-collar and corporate crime by the powerful is under-policed, while working-class 'street' crime is heavily policed.
• Law and its enforcement serve ruling-class interests and protect private property.

Your turn — percentage change

Match the concept to the theory

Tap a concept, then the theory it belongs to.

Your turn — response rate

Who commits crime? (patterns)

Official statistics suggest patterns, but sociologists question how reliable they are:

• Age — recorded offending peaks in the teens and early twenties.
• Gender — official statistics show far more male offenders; chivalry thesis and different socialisation are debated explanations.
• Class & ethnicity — patterns may reflect real differences or biased policing and labelling.
• The 'dark figure' of crime — much crime is unreported and unrecorded, so statistics are incomplete.

Your turn — percentage

Reading statistics

Your turn — sample size

Social control

Crime & deviance — the big ideas

You've covered AQA 3.5 Crime and deviance. Press Finish to see your score.