What you'll learn
Crime is behaviour that breaks the law; deviance is behaviour that breaks a society's norms, whether or not it is illegal. Sociologists argue that both are socially constructed: what counts as crime or deviance depends on time, place and who has the power to define it. Crime and Deviance is one of the two topics on AQA GCSE Sociology (8192) Paper 2 (1 hour 45 minutes, 100 marks, 50% of the GCSE), alongside Social Stratification and research methods. This guide covers the social construction of crime and deviance, formal and informal social control, factors affecting criminal and deviant behaviour, and the main sources of data on crime, including the "dark figure". It explains the key ideas of every sociologist the specification names: Merton, Becker, Heidensohn, Albert Cohen and Carlen.
Key terms and definitions
Crime — An act that breaks the criminal law and can be punished by the state.
Deviance — Behaviour that goes against the norms of a society or group. Some deviance is criminal (theft), some is not (talking loudly in a library), and some crime is not widely seen as deviant (minor speeding).
Social construction — The idea that the meaning of behaviour is created by society rather than being fixed. The same act may be deviant in one context and acceptable in another.
Social control — The methods used to make people conform. Formal control is carried out by official agencies (police, courts, prisons) using written rules and laws; informal control is carried out by family, friends, peers and colleagues through approval or disapproval.
Sanction — A reward (positive sanction) or punishment (negative sanction) used to encourage conformity.
Anomie — A state of normlessness, when shared rules break down or no longer guide behaviour.
Labelling — Attaching a name or identity to a person, such as "criminal" or "delinquent".
Master status — A label that overrides all other aspects of a person's identity, so they are seen only as, for example, "an offender".
Subculture — A group with norms and values that differ from those of mainstream society.
Patriarchy — A system in which men hold power and women are disadvantaged.
Official statistics — Data on crime collected by government agencies, mainly from police records.
Dark figure of crime — Crime that is not reported to or recorded by the police, and so does not appear in official statistics.
Self-report study — A survey asking people to admit crimes they have committed.
Victim survey — A survey asking people about crimes committed against them, such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales.
Core concepts
The social construction of crime and deviance
Behaviour that is deviant in one place may be normal in another (for example, drinking alcohol is legal in the UK but banned in some countries). Behaviour also changes over time (smoking in pubs was normal until the ban in 2007, while same-sex relationships have moved from being illegal to being legally recognised). The situation matters too: killing is murder in peacetime but may be lawful for a soldier in war. Sociologists therefore ask not "why are some people bad?" but "who defines behaviour as deviant, and why?"
Robert Merton, a functionalist, explained crime through strain between society's cultural goals and the legitimate means of achieving them. In the United States, the shared goal was material success (the "American Dream"), but not everyone had equal access to the legitimate means of reaching it, such as good education and well-paid jobs. This strain creates anomie, and people respond in five ways:
- Conformity — accepting the goals and the legitimate means.
- Innovation — accepting the goals but using illegitimate means, such as theft or fraud.
- Ritualism — giving up on the goals but sticking rigidly to the rules, such as a bored office worker.
- Retreatism — rejecting both goals and means, such as some drug addicts or people who drop out of society.
- Rebellion — rejecting existing goals and means and replacing them with new ones, such as political revolutionaries.
Merton's theory explains why crime may be higher among groups with fewer opportunities. Critics say it assumes everyone shares the same goals and does not explain non-financial crime such as vandalism.
Howard Becker, an interactionist, argued that "deviance is not a quality of the act" but the result of other people applying a label. An act becomes deviant when powerful groups, such as the police or the media, successfully define it as such. Once someone is labelled, the label can become a master status, leading others to treat them as an outsider and pushing them towards a deviant career, for example by making it harder to get a job, so further offending becomes more likely. Becker's work shifted attention to the people and agencies who create and apply rules.
Social control
Societies use formal social control through the police, courts, prison and probation services, and laws backed by sanctions such as fines and imprisonment. Informal social control works through family, peer groups, workplaces, schools and the media, using praise, gossip, teasing or exclusion.
Frances Heidensohn, a feminist, asked why women commit far less recorded crime than men. She argued that women in a male-dominated, patriarchal society are subject to more social control, so they conform more. At home, women's domestic and childcare roles leave little time or opportunity for crime, and daughters are more closely supervised than sons. In public, fear of male violence and concern about their reputation limit women's behaviour, for instance going out at night. At work, women are often controlled by male supervisors and sexual harassment. Heidensohn's work shows that conformity, not just crime, needs explaining.
Factors affecting criminal and deviant behaviour
Patterns in official statistics show that recorded offenders are disproportionately young, male and working class, and some ethnic minority groups are over-represented in stop-and-search figures and prisons. Sociologists explain these patterns through structural factors (poverty, unemployment, lack of opportunity), cultural factors (subcultures, peer pressure, socialisation) and the actions of the agencies of control (labelling, policing practices). Crime regularly generates public debate, for example about knife crime, youth crime and the role of the media in creating "moral panics".
Albert Cohen, writing in the 1950s, studied delinquent subcultures among working-class boys. He argued that these boys experienced status frustration: at school they were judged by middle-class standards they could not meet, so they were denied status. In response, they formed subcultures that reversed mainstream values, giving status for behaviour such as vandalism, truancy and fighting. Much of this delinquency was non-utilitarian, meaning it brought status rather than material gain, which Merton's theory could not explain. Critics say Cohen ignored female delinquency and assumed that working-class boys first accepted middle-class values.
Pat Carlen, a feminist, interviewed working-class women who had been convicted of crimes. She argued that women are normally kept conforming by two "deals". The class deal offers material rewards (a decent standard of living) in return for working; the gender deal offers emotional and material rewards in return for conforming to the role of wife and mother. When women are in poverty, have been in care or have no family support, these deals are not available or have broken down, so crime can seem a rational choice. Carlen's work links women's crime to poverty and lack of opportunity.
Data on crime
Police recorded crime (official statistics) is collected from crimes reported to and recorded by the police. It is useful for showing trends and is easy to compare over time, but it misses the dark figure: many crimes are never reported (victims may think the crime is too trivial, fear reprisal, or distrust the police) and some reported crimes are not recorded. Changes in recording rules and police priorities can also change the figures without any real change in crime.
Victim surveys, such as the Crime Survey for England and Wales, ask a large sample of people about crimes they have experienced. They uncover much unreported crime but miss crimes without an obvious victim (such as drug use) and depend on memory and honesty. Self-report studies ask people which crimes they have committed; they reveal hidden offending, including middle-class crime, but people may exaggerate or conceal offences.
Because each source has weaknesses, sociologists use them together to build a fuller picture of patterns and trends.
Worked examples
Example 1: Describing Merton
Question: Describe Merton's explanation of crime (3 marks). Merton argued that society sets a cultural goal of material success but not everyone has legitimate means to achieve it. This strain causes anomie, and some people respond through innovation, using illegitimate means such as theft to reach the goal.
Example 2: Applying labelling
A teenager caught shoplifting is labelled a "thief" by the police, the school and neighbours. According to Becker, this label may become a master status: employers refuse to hire them and friends' parents keep their children away. Excluded from normal opportunities, the teenager joins others with the same label, and further offending becomes more likely.
Example 3: Evaluating official statistics
Question: Identify one strength and one weakness of police recorded crime (4 marks). A strength is that the figures are collected regularly by the same agencies, so trends can be compared over time. A weakness is the dark figure: many crimes such as domestic abuse are under-reported, so the statistics underestimate the true amount of crime.
Example 4: Comparing explanations of gender and crime
Heidensohn explains women's lower crime rate through greater patriarchal control at home, in public and at work. Carlen explains why some women do commit crime: when poverty breaks the class and gender deals, crime becomes a rational choice. Together they show both conformity and offending among women.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
Do not treat crime and deviance as the same. Not all deviance is criminal, and not all crime is seen as deviant.
Do not confuse Albert Cohen (status frustration and delinquent subcultures) with Merton (strain and five adaptations). Cohen explains non-utilitarian crime that Merton's theory does not.
Remember that Heidensohn explains female conformity while Carlen explains female crime linked to poverty.
Avoid saying official statistics are "wrong". Explain precisely what they miss (the dark figure) and why.
Do not describe Becker as studying why people break rules. His focus is on how rules and labels are applied.
Exam technique for "Crime and deviance"
Name the perspective with each sociologist: Merton (functionalist), Becker (interactionist), Heidensohn and Carlen (feminist), Cohen (subcultural, building on functionalism). For questions on data, always identify the source, give a strength and a weakness, and mention the dark figure. In 12-mark questions, compare at least two explanations, use examples (types of crime, social groups) and finish with a judgement about which explanation is most convincing and why.
Quick revision summary
- Crime and deviance are socially constructed: they vary with time, place and situation.
- Merton: strain between goals and means; conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion.
- Becker: deviance is created by labelling; master status; deviant career.
- Heidensohn: patriarchal control at home, in public and at work makes women conform.
- Albert Cohen: status frustration; delinquent subcultures; non-utilitarian crime.
- Carlen: class deal and gender deal; poverty makes crime a rational choice for some women.
- Formal control (police, courts) and informal control (family, peers).
- Data: police recorded crime, victim surveys, self-report studies; the dark figure is unrecorded crime.