Crime and Deviance | OCR A-Level Sociology (H580)

Crime and Deviance

108 questions
11 subtopics
Component 03: Debates in contemporary society
Component 03

Crime and Deviance is examined on component 03 of OCR Sociology, Debates in contemporary society.

It is one of the three Section B options on that paper, of which a student sits one. 108 recall questions across 11 subtopics.

Sample questions from Crime and Deviance

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

Defining crime and deviance, social control and relativity

What do sociologists mean by social order?

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Social order is the stable, predictable patterning of everyday social life that results from people largely sharing and following the same norms and expectations.
Social construction of crime and police recorded crime

What is the dark figure of crime?

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The dark figure is the volume of offences that actually take place but never appear in police records, because they are not noticed, not reported or not recorded.
The Crime Survey, victim surveys and self-report studies

What are the main limitations of the Crime Survey for England and Wales?

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It relies on respondents' memory and honesty, it cannot record homicide or victimless offences, and it has historically excluded crimes against businesses and people living outside private households.
Crime patterns by social class, gender and age

Distinguish between occupational crime and corporate crime.

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Occupational crime is committed by an employee for personal gain at the expense of the organisation, whereas corporate crime is committed by or on behalf of the organisation itself in pursuit of its goals, such as breaching safety law or misleading consumers.
Crime patterns by ethnicity, crime trends and global organised crime

How does ethnicity relate to victimisation?

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Crime Survey figures show adults from the Mixed ethnic group are more likely to be victims than White adults, while differences for most other groups are small once age and area are allowed for; minority ethnic people are also exposed to racially and religiously aggravated offences that white victims rarely experience.
Glocal organised crime and green crime

Define green crime.

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Green crime is crime against the environment, understood by green criminologists as any action that causes serious environmental harm, whether or not the law of the country in which it occurred defines it as an offence.
Functionalist, strain and subcultural theories of crime

What did Cohen mean by status frustration?

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Cohen argued that working-class boys are judged against a middle-class measuring rod in school and find themselves at the bottom of the legitimate status hierarchy, producing a resentment at their failure that he called status frustration.
Marxist, interactionist and left realist theories of crime

What ideological function do Marxists say the treatment of crime performs?

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By presenting crime as the work of a criminal working class, the law and the media divide workers against one another, shift blame for social problems onto individuals rather than the capitalist system, and make the ruling class appear benevolent when occasional token prosecutions of the powerful take place.

The 11 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
Defining crime and deviance, social control and relativity	Recall questions on defining crime and deviance, acts that are deviant but not criminal, social order, formal and informal social control, and the relativity of crime and deviance over time, between societies and within a single society.	10
Social construction of crime and police recorded crime	Recall questions on the social construction of crime and deviance, the two sources of official crime statistics, the dark figure of crime, what police recorded crime measures with its advantages and unreliability, why victims do not report crime, and why police may not record it.	8
The Crime Survey, victim surveys and self-report studies	Recall questions on the Crime Survey for England and Wales, its advantages and limitations and why it differs from police recorded crime, local victim surveys, and self-report studies with their uses and weaknesses.	8
Crime patterns by social class, gender and age	Recall questions on class patterns in conviction and victimisation and why statistics may exaggerate working-class crime, occupational and corporate crime, gender differences in offending, offence types and victimisation, the fear of crime paradox, and how offending and victimisation vary with age, including desistance.	10
Crime patterns by ethnicity, crime trends and global organised crime	Recall questions on ethnicity in criminal justice statistics, stop and search and victimisation, the long-term fall and changing composition of crime in England and Wales, global organised crime, Castells's global criminal economy, and why globalisation has made transnational organised crime easier.	8
Glocal organised crime and green crime	Recall questions on Hobbs and Dunnighan's glocal organised crime and Glenny's McMafia, green crime, South's primary and secondary green crimes, where traditional and green criminology disagree, anthropocentric and ecocentric views of environmental harm, and Beck's risk society.	8
Functionalist, strain and subcultural theories of crime	Recall questions on Durkheim's view that crime is inevitable and functional, anomie, Merton's strain theory and five adaptations, Albert Cohen's status frustration and delinquent subculture, Cloward and Ohlin's three subcultures, Miller's focal concerns, and Matza's drift and techniques of neutralisation.	9
Marxist, interactionist and left realist theories of crime	Recall questions on Marxist views of capitalism as criminogenic, selective law enforcement and the ideological function of crime, Taylor, Walton and Young's New Criminology, Hall on mugging, Becker's labelling theory, primary and secondary deviance, deviancy amplification, Cicourel on crime statistics, and Lea and Young's left realism and square of crime.	11
Right realism, New Right, feminism and explaining ethnic and age patterns	Recall questions on right realist rational choice and Wilson and Herrnstein's biosocial theory, Murray's New Right underclass explanation, Heidensohn's control theory, the chivalry and double deviance theses, Adler's liberation thesis, Messerschmidt on masculinity, Gilroy and Phillips and Bowling on ethnicity, and why offending peaks in the teenage years.	10
Left-wing crime reduction, social crime prevention and restorative justice	Recall questions on left-wing and right-wing approaches to crime reduction, social and community crime prevention, the Perry Pre-School Project, rehabilitation, restorative justice and Braithwaite's reintegrative shaming with its advantages and criticisms, structural change in society, and the left realist policy programme.	12
Situational crime prevention, zero tolerance and punitive justice	Recall questions on situational crime prevention, target hardening, rational choice and displacement, Wilson and Kelling's broken windows thesis, zero tolerance policing and the disputed New York evidence, environmental crime prevention, retributive justice, punitive punishment, deterrence and incapacitation, and Foucault's disciplinary power.	14

Crime and Deviance is 108 of the 859 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £8

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.