Sociology of Crime and Deviance

1 [250 words] Outline three ways in which poverty could cause crime. A) Inequality – Via wealth, opportunity, unemployment, education, race, area (inner cities for example) or class can leave people exposed to the kind of poverty that can then lead on to a breakdown of social and personal morality, thereby diluting the common understanding of crime to such a degree that crime becomes an acceptable necessity in order to improve ones situation. In this way areas of poverty can arguably become crime eco systems, within which crime itself can evolve until it almost redefines itself in a sub cultural context. B) Culture – Certain aspects of criminal behaviour, or deviant behaviour are, rightly or wrongly, most commonly attributed to poverty laden areas of a society. In this way poverty itself becomes, the cause and the advertisement for crime to be an attractive proposition. For instance gang culture, gun, knife and drug cultures, to name a few, are all familiar paths for a criminal career within a cycle of poverty and can all seem both attractive and lucrative based on collective perceptions and shared social identities or the embedded institutional reasoning of an under privileged minority. C) Political cause – With poverty also comes, the identification of the victim. Victims of social injustice, of under privilege, the rank of invisibility and the lack of a voice. These can lead to mass statement making and attention seeking crime whereby anger and frustration are unleashed via mass deviance. An example of this may be the London Riots of 2012 or the Brixton Riots of the 80’s where one act could be said to have lit the fuse of social angst that had been simmering within deprived communities.

2 [250 words] Describe the concept of anomic suicide and suggest 2 sociological reasons why it might be the most common form