Social Class and Crime
TITLE
To what extent is social class the best explanation of crime?
ESSAY
**Introduction**
Social class has long been a significant factor when it comes to explaining the prevalence of crime within society. This essay will explore the extent to which social class serves as the best explanation for crime, considering various arguments for and against this perspective.
**Arguments for Social Class as an Explanation for Crime**
1. **Official Crime Statistics:** The majority of crimes are committed by individuals from the working or underclass, indicating a correlation between social class and criminal behavior.
2. **Socialization:** Individuals from lower social classes may be socialized into different values that prioritize immediate gratification, potentially leading to criminal behavior.
3. **Merton’s Strain Theory:** The disparity between societal expectations and opportunities for success can push individuals from lower classes towards crime as a means to achieve desired goals.
4. **Relative Deprivation:** Lower-class individuals may resort to crime as a method to acquire goods they perceive as unattainable through legitimate means, driven by a sense of deprivation.
5. **Marxism:** The criminalization of certain actions by the lower classes and selective enforcement of laws suggest that social class plays a role in defining criminal behavior.
6. **Cohen’s Status Frustration:** Lower social classes experiencing low status in society may seek to improve their standing through criminal activities, such as joining gangs.
7. **Cicourel’s ‘Typical Delinquent’:** Law enforcement agencies may hold biases against working-class individuals, leading to increased scrutiny and arrest rates among this demographic.
8. **Education:** Limited access to quality education among lower classes can hinder job prospects, potentially making crime an appealing alternative for achieving financial success.
9. **White-Collar/Corporate Crime:** Instances of white-collar crime committed by higher social classes highlight the connection between criminal behavior and privileged societal positions.
**Arguments Against Social Class as the Best Explanation for Crime**
1. **Age:** Younger individuals exhibit higher rates of criminal behavior, suggesting that age, rather than social class, may be a more salient factor in explaining crime.
2. **Gender:** Males are disproportionately involved in criminal activities compared to females, indicating that gender dynamics could be a more influential factor than social class.
3. **Ethnicity:** Certain ethnic groups demonstrate higher rates of crime, challenging the notion that social class is the primary determinant of criminal behavior.
4. **Official Crime Statistics Validity:** The limitations of official crime statistics and the presence of a significant "dark figure" of unreported crimes cast doubt on the reliability of data linking social class to criminality.
5. **Middle-Class Crimes:** Crimes such as fraud committed by the middle class may be more closely tied to factors like greed rather than social class.
6. **Expressive Crimes:** Crimes driven by emotional motives, such as murder and assault, may not align neatly with explanations centered on social class.
7. **Feminist Perspective:** Feminists argue that gender, rather than social class, plays a more central role in understanding crime, particularly concerning issues like sexual assault and domestic violence.
**Conclusion**
While social class undeniably influences criminal behavior to a significant extent, it is crucial to consider a range of intersecting factors such as age, gender, ethnicity, and systemic biases within the criminal justice system. The relationship between social class and crime is complex and multifaceted, requiring a nuanced understanding that incorporates various perspectives to comprehensively address this societal issue.
SUBJECT
SOCIOLOGY
LEVEL
O level and GCSE
NOTES
To what extent is social class the best explanation of crime?
Arguments for:
- Official crime statistics show that most crimes are committed by members of the working/under class, therefore social class must be an explanation for why crime is committed.
- Socialisation – the lower classes may have been socialised into a different set of values than the higher classes e.g. immediate gratification – this may lead them into crime (Miller focal concerns).
- Merton’s strain theory – Western societies socialise individuals to believe in the American Dream but in reality these levels of success are not available to everyone and are harder to achieve for the lower social classes, who may then turn to crime in order to gain the things they desire.
- Relative deprivation – members of the lower classes may be more likely to steal goods that they see the higher classes enjoying but that they cannot afford legitimately, thus leading to crime.
- Marxism – some actions of the lower classes are criminalised and the law is selectively enforced so that the powerful are less likely to have their actions defined as criminal. This makes it seem as though being from a lower social class is part of the explanation for crime.
- Cohen status frustration – the lower social classes are likely to have a low status in society and thus may turn to crime in order to improve this through illegitimate means e.g. gangs.
- Cicourel ‘typical delinquent’ – his study showed that the law enforcement agencies have a stereotype of who the typical criminal is and that being working class is part of this – this means those in the working class are more likely to be stopped and searched and arrested than other classes.
- Education – the lower classes are less likely to have a good education which then impedes upon their job prospects, perhaps making crime an attractive ‘career choice’ where rewards can be high (illegitimate opportunity structure).
- White-collar/corporate crime – these types of crime demonstrate links between crime and the higher social classes through the workplace.
- Any other reasonable response.
Arguments against:
- Age – young people commit a lot more crime than other age groups, therefore maybe it is age that is the best explanation.
- Gender – males commit a lot more crime than females, therefore maybe it is gender (masculinity) that is the best explanation.
- Ethnicity – some ethnic groups commit more crimes than others, therefore perhaps it is ethnicity that is the best explanation.
- OCS validity – sociologists recognise that the official crime statistics do not give us a true picture of crime therefore the assumption that crime is committed largely by the lower classes (based on OCS data) could be misplaced.
- Dark figure of crime – a significant number of crimes never feature in the OCS and therefore any trends in criminality (e.g. that crime is committed mainly by the lower class) should be treated with caution.
- Is the criminal’s social class position really the best explanation for middle class crimes such as fraud or is it more to do with greed?
- Expressive crimes – it is difficult to align social class with sensible explanations for expressive crimes such as murder and assault.
- Feminism – feminists believe that the criminal justice system is patriarchal and that men are the problem when it comes to crime – low rates of conviction for sexual assault, rape, domestic violence against women etc; this all leads them to believe that the best explanation for crime is not class based, but gender.
- Any other reasonable response.