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CTIC Notes 10.10.17
Criminological Theory in Context (SOCIO5032)
University of Glasgow
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Criminology in Context: 10.10. Early Sociological Approaches.
Note: reading week for next week’s class to allow time for assignment. Susan will not be replying to emails that week as she will be off during the reading week. Gender class is on as usual.
Kaitlin will be leading the lecture the week after the reading week. The week of the 24th will also be when the group discussion work will start. Details are up on Moodle. Sign up for one of those groups.
Assignment One: Essay Plan.
Rather than write the full essay, you are just asked to write an essay plan. The marks will be broken down in a formulaic way: a large part of the marks will be awarded for the introduction which should: set topic and context, provide central argument, and describe the structure of the essay. This should be a properly written paragraph(s). Often, the first couple of pages of an essay are indicative of the quality of the essay as a whole. This is why so many marks are being awarded for the introductory paragraphs. Recommendation: incorporate thesis statement into your introduction (the main point of your article should be included in the introduction). To take the essay further, bring an argument and critical stance to your thesis. Relate theories from across the course, and take a position on the material. Using the first-person makes sense particularly in accounts of your methodology. Try to be consistent, and not overly artificial.
The main body will just be notes. There has to be a topic-sentence, and then evidence and expansion of that statement. This should all just be notes. Each one of these five points can only get the one mark.
Indicative bibliography: not a list of everything that would be in your actual essay, but a demonstration that you understand different types of academic sources (journal article; online source; textbook; research monograph; – i. Alistair’s book from last week’s gender class - etc.) You can have more than five texts, but you must have one of each from the five different source types.
Example essay shows a good way to go beyond the normal limits of what is expected for an essay – this won’t be hugely rewarded in this short essay, but is a good thing to explore going forward into the longer assignments.
Lecture: Social Structural Tradition – broadly positivist in with some overlap with the Chicago school.
Social-Structural Tradition:
Developed broadly within a sociological setting – why is crime patterned in group dynamics. Features of the social landscape and the socially ascribed norms shape patterns of offending behaviour. Emphasis on pathology. Chicago School would fall into the social ecology variation of social-structural tradition, whereas Durkheim and others fall into ‘strain theory’.
Emile Durkheim: one of the founding fathers of sociology (not criminology!).
Working in a period of rapid growth and change – in France and elsewhere. Particularly interested in rapid-industrialisation, and the influence that had on shifting populations and changing living norms.
Trying to demonstrate how if there are social patterns to behaviours like crime, then it is caused in part by social structures (as he argues with suicide, too). Structural features shape individual behaviours.
Different cultures coming together in cramped living environments key to the world he is describing.
This is the concept of ‘anomie’ – a situation in which social and or moral norms become confused, unclear, or absent. This leads to a breakdown of social regulation and deviant behaviour and social problems (isolation and anxiety).
Function of Crime
He does not see crime or criminals as pathological – it is a ‘normal’ feature of society: when there is a high-profile crime, people unite together to re-establish norms and condemn the deviate, thus strengthening social solidarity. It can also lead to social change, if there is a collective lack of condemnation and disgust.
Robert Merton:
Wrote much more specifically about crime.
Strain theory and the American theory. Uses concept of the Anomie. Whereas Durkheim argued that anomie arises when there is rapid social change and a lack of regulation, Merton argues that the ‘anomie’ arises from strains in the social structure. The cultural norms of the American society (the ‘American Dream’) and its goals are at odds with the realities of lots of lives. The goals being unattainable lead to criminal behaviour and breakdown of social order.
Subcultural Approaches: Cohen, Cloward & Ohlin, Miller.
Cohen: Delinquent Boys
He uses ideas of Merton but criticises his focus on economic crimes: lots of the deviant and delinquent behaviour not motivated by an instrumental purpose (i. vandalism, violence), explains a wider range of behaviours. Looks at the implications of social class and the impact of cultural norms and values and how they play out in different sub-cultures – makes a distinction between middle-class and working-class youth.
Working class youths, when they reach late education, don’t have the means to reach the success-standard of the middle-classes, and so they create their own social system that they can be successful within (the gang). They exert agency in this context and establish an alternate identity. Cohen saw the gangs as acting collectively within a different value system from mainstream society (subcultures).
Jock Young:
CTIC Notes 10.10.17
Module: Criminological Theory in Context (SOCIO5032)
University: University of Glasgow
