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  • Essay / Criminological Concepts of Crime and Deviance

    Crime and deviance are criminological concepts that are said to be heavily influenced by practical issues such as gender and media exposure. Firstly, regarding gender; There have been many attempts to explain this idea and one way to see the main difference is to investigate official crime statistics. In doing so, criminologists have concluded that in most countries around the world, men commit more crimes than women, this is called the "gender crime gap" or the "crime ratio". -sex” (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). '.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on 'Why violent video games should not be banned'?Get the original essayOfficial crime statistics for England and Wales in 2013-14 show that men made up 75% of all people convicted of all offenses, and 85% of all people convicted of more serious offenses and 95% of prisoners are male (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). Many criminologists criticize the use of official crime statistics and attempt to use self-report studies to test their validity. Graham and Bowling (1995) did this after studying 1,721 young people aged 14 to 25 and concluded that although men committed more crimes than women, this figure was only twice as high as four times, as official crime statistics suggest. However, the use of official crime statistics and self-report crime studies can be similarly criticized, primarily on the basis of their validity, as both methods rely solely on reported crimes. Figures show that, according to official statistics, “women were more likely than men to report physical injury (42% vs. 18%) or fear for their life as a result of domestic violence (33% vs. 5%). )” in 2009 (Hotton). Mahony, 2010), the figures may therefore not be completely representative. This is called the “dark figure” of crime, which refers to the number of crimes that go unreported. Additionally, self-report studies lack additional ecological validity because they have a relatively small sample size and are therefore also not accurately representative. Many criminologists have attempted to explain these differences in crime rates between the sexes. First, the Chivalry thesis was developed by Pollak in 1950 and argues that the criminal justice system is dominated by men and that, because gender stereotypes view women as being more vulnerable and in need of protection, members of the criminal justice system are socialized to treat female offenders. in a more lenient, protective, and patriarchal manner, their crimes are therefore less likely to appear in official crime statistics, further inhibiting the validity of these statistics (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). On the other hand, this thesis is based on the work of criminologists such as Sear and Player (1986) who noted that according to the statistics of the Ministry of Justice, supported by those of the Ministry of Justice, 35% of women recognized The culprits had received a warning even though they were under caution. only 19% of men did so, and 50% of women received suspended sentences, compared to only 36% of men (Newburn, 2017). Additionally, the Home Office also showed that women were generally seen as less threatening by thepolice, thus benefiting from informal approaches to their accusations, such as warnings or warnings, rather than being charged. However, the chivalry thesis has been criticized by many criminologists. It has been argued that the more "lenient" approach towards women in criminal justice is simply because women commit less serious crimes than men and generally have more mitigating factors, such as showing remorse and having family responsibilities, which are taken into account by the criminal justice system. system and can lead to a reduction in the length of the sentence. Another concept has been developed to explain how women are treated more harshly and are subjected to oppressive and paternalistic forms of justice by the criminal justice system. This is called double deviance because women are essentially judged twice, first for committing a crime and, second, for their deviation from stereotypes of femininity. This concept has been supported by many criminologists such as Smart, who argued that women may be treated more harshly/with more antipathy by the courts and may be stigmatized with negative identities such as "mean woman" if their act criminal deviates particularly from related norms. to gender roles such as being caring and sensitive, such as child neglect/abuse or severe physical abuse. Similarly, some criminologists argue that social constructs regarding stereotypical gender roles influence crime rates. These ideas focus on concepts such as the aforementioned double deviance, as well as the role of socialization in explaining why women are less likely to commit crimes than men. Heidensohn (1985) argues that women are expected to base their lives in the "private domestic sphere of the home", where they will be busy with responsibilities such as domestic work and childcare, leaving them neither time nor he opportunity to commit crime, while adolescent girls are also more likely to be monitored more closely by their parents than boys, thereby reducing their chances of committing crimes (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). This idea that women have less time and opportunity outside the home to commit crimes was also reinforced by Dobash and Dobash (1979), who found that some women were subject to domestic violence and that their husbands exacerbated their power through financial power, for example. such as not giving their wives enough funds for leisure activities, thereby limiting their time outside the home (Newburn, 2017). Other societal impacts also include the idea of ​​labeling, as Lees, in her study "Losing out", proposed the idea that women fear losing their reputation and being negatively labeled. It has been found that girls tend to avoid negative labels such as "slag" by conforming to the social controls imposed by my institutions such as the family, the education system and peers, while boys do not have such fears and are therefore more likely to commit crimes because they do not. fear the informal sanctions of labels. A similar argument has also been used to describe how social constructs prevent women from moving up the professional ladder to higher positions. This is called the "glass ceiling" and criminologists argue that because women are less likely to hold these more powerful positions, they are less likely to commit crimes in crime.white. In addition, criminologists also focus on many other factors as to why women are believed to commit fewer crimes than women. One of these explanations was developed by Lombroso and Ferro (1895) who used biology as an explanation. They argued that by studying skeletal structure it is possible to distinguish between those who are criminal and those who are "normal" and that because women are "less evolved" than men, they are unable to discard as much and therefore commit fewer crimes. Lombroso also said that women do not biologically have the aggressive trait that men possess and therefore are less likely to be involved in criminal activities of an aggressive nature. This idea has also been supported by other researchers who argue that it is the hormone testosterone that leads to the commission of a crime, hence why women commit less because they lack this hormone. To criticize this, Smart (1977) argues that this explanation is oppressive because it ignores the idea of ​​free will and suggests that biological influences predetermine an individual's actions, as well as failing to take into account the social constructions of gender roles that could This leads to a difference in crime rates between the sexes (Newburn, 2017). Despite many arguments as to why men commit more crimes than women, women's involvement in crime has recently increased. This can be seen in the fact that the number of women charged with criminal offenses increased from 304,343 in 2009/10 (Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2011) to 314,175 in 2015/16 (Statistics on Women and the Criminal Justice System, 2011) women and the criminal justice system 2015, 2016). Some have argued that this may be due to increased drug use, as 47% of female offenders reported using crack cocaine in the year before their arrest, compared to only 35% of male offenders. However, this figure is based on their own opinion. -which means it lacks reliability. The second practical problem in today's society is the effect that the media has on criminal behavior and aggression. Aggression can be defined as “feelings of anger or antipathy leading to hostile or violent behavior; to be prepared to attack or confront” (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.), this can refer to physical and/or verbal behavior such as hitting, shouting or swearing. Media can be defined as “the principal means of mass communication” (Oxford Dictionaries, n.d.), for example television, newspapers, radio and the Internet. Many criminologists have argued that as media exposure increases, there is a direct correlation with increasing levels of aggressive behavior in society; this has been supported by work such as that of Anderson (2003), whose research concluded that media violence increased the likelihood of immediate and long-term aggressive behavior (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). This link could be due to factors such as desensitization, imitation, and stimulation of desire for unaffordable goods. First, it has been argued that exposure to violence and crime through the media leads an individual to become desensitized towards it, as increased exposure to aggressive behaviors causes them to be less fearful or less sympathetic and therefore they become socialized and accept aggression as normal everyday behavior. Research supporting this theory includes the work of Bartlett et al (2009) who conducted a study involving 69 male participants who wererandomly assigned to play a violent or nonviolent video game, after which they were asked to choose an amount of hot sauce to consume. given to a person who said they didn't like spicy food. It was found that those who played the violent video game chose to administer significantly more than those who played the nonviolent video game (Busching, Allen, and Anderson, 2016). This supports the idea that exposure to aggressive behavior leads to a greater likelihood that the individual will exhibit aggressive traits. However, this research lacks both demographic and ecological validity because it took place in a laboratory setting and had a small, all-male sample, making generalization difficult. to the population as a whole. Additionally, this argument has been challenged by theorists such as Young (1981) who stated that rather than becoming desensitized, exposure to aggression and violence actually leads an individual to become positively "sensitized" to as individuals become increasingly aware of the consequences of acts of violence. examples seen on the news or television and therefore become less tolerant and may try to avoid it (cgp). Another theory is that the media creates moral panics and mob demons that lead to an amplification of deviance through labeling. A moral panic occurs when the media amplifies the perceived risk of being a victim of a crime, leading to a public response of panic or outrage (pgc). Stanley Cohen (1972) develops this idea and takes the example of “mods and rockers”. In 1964, two groups of working-class youths clash in a seaside town and the media creates a moral panic by exaggerating the extent of the violence between them and negatively labeling each group while turning them into folk devils; individuals or groups representing an exaggerated threat to society (Browne). Other examples of this theory include how the media can exaggerate isolated incidents of student misbehavior in schools, leading the public to fall into a moral panic and believe that all students are deviant and a threat. for social order. This label can then be internalized by some students, leading to the self-fulfilling prophecy where the label becomes actualized, leading to increased deviance. This process by which the media exaggerates or creates these problems, leading to a social control response by authorities such as the police, which in turn causes more deviance, is known as deviance amplification (cgp) . One criticism of this theory of amplification of deviance and moral panic is that it is outdated. McRobbie and Thornton (1995) stated that in a media-saturated society with a multitude of different media types such as the Internet, social media, and television, there is a greater diversity of media reporting and interpretations of events . This means that it is more difficult for media sources to portray false or exaggerated issues or events in ways that cause moral panic (Browne, Blundell, & Law, 2016). Additionally, this theory is deterministic because it ignores the concept of free will and relies on labeling as the cause of deviance, implying that deviance would be nonexistent without labels. Other theories that examine the causes of deviance and crime without considering media influences include personality difference theories. First, a genetic disorder leading to an extra Y chromosome in males has been shown to lead an individual to have more personality traits..