Status Frustration

Albert Cohen - builds on Merton's work - but focuses on the position of groups in society. 

He argues that working class youth believe in the success goals of mainstream culture.

Experiences of failure in education etc. mean they have little opportunities to attain these goals by approved means. 

Feel they are denied status in the mainstream society and experience status frustration. 

They react by developing an alternative distinctive set of values - a delinquent subculture. 

Evaluation

Looks at a group - social class - rather than individuals.

Young working-class delinquents accept the mainstream values as superior and desirable. 

Strain Theory - Merton

RRRIC - Rosie's Really Really Itchy Calf

Conformity - Accept goals and means - non-deviant, non-criminal conformist citizen.

Innovation - Accepts goals but does not accept means - Factors like poor education qualifications or unemployment mean that some people can't achieve goals by approved means so they turn to crime as an alternative.

Ritualism - Accepts means but does not accept goals - Give up on achieving goals but stick to means. E.g. teachers who have given up caring about student success, or office workers who have abandoned hopes of promotion and are just marking time until they retire. 

Retreatism - Does not accept means or goals - Drop outs like drug addicts or tramps, who give up all together.

Rebellion - Can either accept of reject both means and goals - Reject existing social goals and means, but substitute new ones to create a new society, like revolutionaries or members of some religious sects. 

Functionalism

Functionalism

1. Consensus - all parts of society work together in agreement.
2. All aspects have a function; a purpose.
3. Structuralist theory - studying society as a whole system.
4. Members of society need to be integrated into society - To maintain social order and social stability. 
5. Parsons - family - socialisation - Providing a 'Warm Bath' - stabilising adults. 
6. Education - Secondary socialisation. Learn norms & values of society. Sorts & sifts you into academic achievers/failures. 
7. Meritocracy - our society is a meritocracy. Our status is earned - if you work hard & gain skills & intelligence you will then succeed in society. 
8. Members of society need to be socialised  into shared norms & values. "Value Consensus" - members of society agree on the shared values. 

Debate: Is Moral Panic a useful concept?

Stan Cohen 

Moral Panic

• Public concern about some exaggerated or imaginary threat to society, stirred up by exaggerated or sensationalised reporting in the mass media.

Folk Devils

• Individuals or groups posing an imagined or exaggerated threat to society.

Deviancy Amplification

• The way the media may actually make worse or create the very deviance they condemn by their exaggerated, sensationalised and distorted reporting of events and their presence at them. 

McRobbie & Thornton ('95)

• Moral Panic is an outdated concept.
• New media e.g internet, TV on demand etc. means we do not all receive the same uniform message from media. 
• Media audiences are more sophisticated. Audiences do not accept blindly the representation/interpretation of the media professionals. 
• There is a diversity of (different) media reports etc. --> The Media cannot control the interpretation.
• Most moral panics are short lived --> fast moving media.

Mass Media and Crime

Agenda Setting

• Set the topics which we talk about.
• choose the information that is important for the audience to see.
  
• What the audience deems is important is shaped, to a large extent, by what they are fed by the media.
  

News Values

• Values and assumptions held by editors and journalists which guide them in choosing stories that are important.

Newsworthy

• Items selected by editors and journalist as being of importance and this which should be broadcast .

Crime and Deviance

Define situational and societal deviance. (Plummer)

Deviance as a social construction.

1. Happens at a certain stage of life for many people.

• A non-deviant crime? There are mnay illegal acts that people don't regard as particularly deviant, such as speeding, underage drinking, pinching office stationary. These are all extremely common, but because everyone does at one point, it is difficult to see it as deviant.
  

2. Time

• Definitions of deviance can change over time in the same society. For example, smoking used to be popular and was socially acceptable, but is now becoming increasingly deviant. Since July 2007, when it was made illegal to smoke in public places, it is seen as a deviant and socially unacceptable thing to do.
• Homosexuality was illegal in the UK before 1967, but since then it is legal and widely accepted

3. The Society or Culture

• Deviance is culturally relative. For example, what is regarded as deviant in one society of culture may not be in another. E.g. consumption of alcohol is often seen as deviant and illegal in many Islamic countries, but is seen as normal in Britain.
  

4. The Social Group

• As like above, what may be accepted in one social group, may be seen as deviant in another. For example, smoking cannabis is acceptable among Rastafarians in Britain and among many young people who are not Rastafarian, although it is regarded as deviant by many adults and it is illegal.
  

5. The Place

• It is seen as deviant if people have sex in public, but not among couples in the bedroom.
  
• Killing someone can be seen as heroic, manslaughter, self-defence, murder, a 'crime of passion,' justifiable homicide or euthenasia (mercy killing).
  

Crime and Deviance

• Crime is socially constructed - society defines what a crime is - members of society create the idea of a 'crime.'
• A crime depends on the time period and area/country/place.
  
• Criminal acts most often reflect the norms and values of our society at the time.
• 'Crime' is agreed by most members of society.
  

Values

RESPECT FOR HUMAN LIFE - Murder, Euthenasia, Domestic Violence.
RESPECT FOR INDIVIDUAL PROPERTY - Burglary, Arson, Criminal Damage
PROTECTION OF CHILDREN & VULNERABLE - Child Sexual Abuse, Physical/Mental abuse - Must have a CRB Check to work with those types of people.
PRIVACY - Trespass, stalking/harrassment, Data Protection, Identity Theft
EMOTIONAL WELL BEING - Recognise mental abuse.

Agencies of Social Control

FORMAL - Criminal Justice System
INFORMAL - Media, Family, Education

Criminal justice system enforces and safeguards norms and values through law-making and law-enforcement. The criminal justice system enforces sanctions on behaviour, these include formal punishments e.g. fine.