4.3.1 - Applying Theory to Crime

Mapping theories onto crime

When sociologists apply theory to crime, they are deciding what the real problem is. A consensus approach starts from the idea that society depends on shared rules, so crime appears when regulation or socialisation breaks down. A conflict approach starts from inequality, so crime is linked to capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and the unequal power to make and enforce laws. A social action approach starts from meaning, so crime is not just something people do, but something that gets defined and labelled through interaction.

Structural theories work mainly at the macro level. They look for broad patterns such as class inequality, gender control, blocked opportunities, or consumer pressure. Social action theories work mainly at the micro level. They ask how police, teachers, courts, and media organisations attach labels to people and how those labels can change identity and behaviour.

The big synoptic skill is comparison. A theft can be explained as a response to blocked opportunity, as a product of capitalism, or as behaviour that becomes serious because of labelling. In the exam, the strongest answers do not just name a theory. They show what that theory sees clearly and what it tends to miss.

Consensus explanations of crime

Consensus theories assume that social order is both possible and desirable. Crime matters because it threatens the shared rules that hold society together. That does not mean every consensus theorist sees crime in the same way, but they usually agree that some degree of common morality exists.

Durkheim — argued that crime is normal because no society gets total agreement. Some deviance is even functional: it can strengthen the collective conscience by reminding people where moral boundaries lie, and it can help societies adapt when old rules no longer fit new conditions. However, Durkheim also argued that rapid social change can produce weak regulation and normlessness.

Merton — kept the functionalist idea of social order but showed why crime can be patterned rather than random. In strain theory, society promotes shared success goals, but access to legitimate means is unequal. Some individuals respond through innovation, accepting the goal of success while using illegitimate means to achieve it. This is why Merton is especially useful for explaining class-linked street crime in societies that celebrate material success.

Murray — from the New Right, argued that crime grows when socialisation weakens and an underclass develops. He linked offending to welfare dependency, unstable family life, and a lack of discipline and responsibility. This keeps the focus on failed social control rather than unequal power. The policy message is therefore tougher discipline, stronger families, and stricter punishment.

Consensus theories are useful because they explain why crime is often treated as a sign that society is not integrating people properly. They also connect crime to policy debates about schooling, work, welfare, and punishment. Their weakness is that they often assume too much agreement about values and too little conflict over who gets policed, punished, or ignored.

Conflict, power, and inequality

Conflict theories start from the claim that society is not held together mainly by shared values. It is shaped by unequal power. That changes the crime question completely. Instead of asking only why rules are broken, conflict theories ask who makes the rules, who benefits from them, and why some harmful acts are criminalised more aggressively than others.

Gordon — argued that capitalism is criminogenic because it produces crime in all classes. The poor may turn to theft or hustling because of deprivation, while the rich commit corporate or financial crimes in pursuit of profit. Capitalism also normalises selfishness and competition, so law-breaking is not an accident on the edge of the system; it is encouraged by the system itself.

Chambliss — showed that laws often protect the interests of the powerful. This is why Marxist approaches are strong on corporate and state crime: they draw attention to harms that may be greater than street crime but are more weakly enforced. A company that pollutes, evades regulations, or exploits labour can cause serious damage while still being treated more leniently than a visible street offender.

Taylor, Walton and Young — in the neo-Marxist fully social theory of deviance, tried to combine structure and meaning. They argued that crime must be understood through wider inequalities, immediate meanings, social reaction, and the unequal power of the state. This makes neo-Marxism more flexible than traditional Marxism, but critics argue it can romanticise working-class crime as resistance.

Heidensohn — argued that patriarchy helps explain why women commit less crime because women are subject to stronger controls in the home, at work, and in public space. Carlen — argued that some women offend when the class deal and gender deal break down, so crime can reflect exclusion from both economic rewards and conventional female roles. Feminist approaches are especially useful because they explain both offending and the under-policing of violence against women.

Conflict perspectives are strongest when the question involves power, inequality, selective law enforcement, or hidden harms. They are less convincing when they imply that all law is simply class law, because some legal rules do protect ordinary people from real victimisation.