Films to Watch

There are many films on crime to watch and the following are just some of the sociology department favourites. Do check with who you live with before watching any film with a 18 certificate.

• A touch of evil
• All the President's Men
• Bad Day at Black Rock
• Badlands
• Boyz n' the Hood
• Cape Fear
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Falling Down
• L.A. Confidential
• Mean Streets
• Mississippi Burning
• Psycho
• Rear Window
• Salvador
• 10 Rillington Place
• The Accused
• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Untouchables
• The Usual Suspects
• West Side Story

Sociology Exam Dates 2009

Remember the exam season will soon be fast approaching, so here is a reminder of when the sociology exams are taking place...

Unit 1 Family 12th May am / Unit 2 Education/Methods 18th May am / Unit 4 Religion 4th June pm / Unit 6 Crime & Deviance 11th June pm

For A2 students view AQA past papers here. Good Luck!

A2 Crime and Deviance: New Criminology

What is New Criminology?

New Criminology was a popular neo Marxist combination within British Sociology in the 1970's. It seemed like a good idea at the time, after all , interactionism had dominated Liberal American Sociology in the late 1960's whilst Marxism reigned supreme in many British University departments. Taylor, Walton and Young therefore simply combined the two and produced what became known as the 'Robin Hood' theory of Criminology. In other words the criminal had to be understood as a victim of the system who was fighting back and attempting to redistribute wealth. Crime in short was a political act.

However, this was rapidly seen as idealistic - particularly given the fact that these 'outlaws' did not actually give to the poor but rather kept it all for themselves! Taylor et al. also seemed to miss the fact that poor do not rob from the rich, rather they rob from each other. The Chicago School could have told them this fifty years earlier!

However there were positives to the theory; by using Interactionism it enabled the sociologist to investigate the meanings of the act for the individual criminal and it additionally allowed them to thoroughly examine the importance of societal reaction and the consequences of this within the whole labelling process. The idea of mixing both theories was also successfully applied to the example of classroom deviance by Paul Willis in his book 'Learning to Labour' (a useful synoptic link).

Nevertheless the clear problems within New Criminology were demonstrated when Paul Gilroy applied this theory to the example of 'black crime'. Gilroy applied Marxism in suggesting that crime committed by the ethnic minority had to be seen as part of an 'anti-colonial struggle' - the exploited individual fighting back against an unjust system. However he then applied interactionism in suggesting that black crime was nothing more than the racist police stereotyping and labelling the community. In doing this, not only had Gilroy ignored the clear contradiction of suggesting that ethnic minorities do/do not commit crime, he also gave very little evidence in support of the view that crime was seen by the criminal as part of an anti-colonial struggle.

Although New Criminology was a little ahead of its time in trying to encourage sociologists to go beyond the narrow confines of placing themselves and their thoughts within separate theoretical groups, nevertheless the final nail in its coffin came when most its initial proponents- particularly Jock Young - introduced a new neo-Marxist theory in New Left Realism in the mid 1980's. The fact that this represented a dramatic shift to a more functionalist view of crime showed that even these sociologists had realised that perhaps they had originally tried to be a little too radical and had lost an understanding of the basic realities of crime.

A2 Philip Zimbardo: How ordinary people become monsters ... or heroes

Firstly, I realise Phil Zimbardo is a (Social) Psychologist, but do we as sociologists not have an obligation to address the question of, "what makes people turn evil" even when we are usually looking at such problems more systematically and through social structures. And how do we as sociologists relate this to 'crime and deviance'? Zimbardo looks at whether 'evil' is a fixed or a moving concept. Are we as an individual good or evil - is it as simple as that (or can we simply shift from one to the other)? Zimbardo looks at the 'Lucifer Effect' and how Lucifer went from god’s favourite angel (Lucifer means 'the light') to an occupant of 'hell' (see right illustration). Was he manipulated by the system, or were his flaws more psychological?

What may be more relevant is the unique circumstances that makes people do evil things, and how do we as individuals justify causing harm (think of the harmful impact of a war, regardless of the political reasoning)? In the C&D module, is it worth looking at those few bad apples, or the barrel itself (the barrell being the system)? If people are the actors on a stage, is their behaviour determined by the stage or are they acting independently, as conscious beings - as you can see on the attached video Zimbardo claims that the power is in the system. Obviously individual acts will relate more to Interactionism as a theory, but can sociologists link in the Marxist perspective here, is the system to blame for working class crime? Or maybe more importantly are the criminals those who can't achieve legitimate goals, when the system deprives them of the means.

The more anonymous the criminal is, dressed in face paint, a uniform, whatever, does this make them more likely to commit harm under the banner of a mystical force, under the cloak of invisability? The 'Stanford Prison Experiment' showed us that criminal acts are not beyond any one individual or put more bluntly, Zimbardo claims any one individual can turn to crime or an act of evil if the environment is conducive.

AS Methods Summary

So finally the 'methods' section of the AS Sociology course is nearly complete, after four weeks of social surveys, questionnaires, interviews and observations you will all be masters of who does what research and why. You now understand words like positivists, quantitative and case studies, but remember you must always think of why you would use each method or would not, for example if an email questionnaire is quick, explain why, i.e. because respondents can instantly send back their responses. But is it as simple as that? Obviously not, have you ever answered an email questionnaire? Come on we are living busy lives here, these emails are usually deleted or instanlty filtered as spam by your email provider hence there is a low response rate. So expand on your reasons and also make them appropriate to the method that you are talking about. For example Barker wanted to study the Moonies in a overt format, reason, to come-and-go as she pleased, even though she did end up spending 6 years with them! Problem, the Moonies all knew she was a sociologists...

Read an article on "The Making of a moonie" on sociology online.

A2: Chicago School (Ecology of Crime)

The Chicago School (CS) was a sociological development in the 1920/30s to address changing patterns of behaviour relating to urban sociology. The CS is an attempt to link the human being as an organism to the social structure and environment in which they live. Genetic and personal characteristics are dismissed as part of the CS study which focused on the city of Chicago as the object of their study. The main issue, as a link to crime and deviance, is that due to increased social mobility communities become fractured primarily within what Shaw and McKay call the 'Zone of Transition' which is the inner-city that rings the city centre. Quantitative data was used to support their study in the form of census reports, housing/welfare records and crime figures. The CS largely focus on 'migrant' workers which move into these areas due to cheap housing and access to work, but quickly move away causing social disorganisation. There is a key synoptic link here with the family, schools and the church failing to bond communities, in short communities in the inner city are failing to "solve their problems together" leading to the functionalist ideas of anomie and strain theory.

In criticism of the CS:
1. Do all inner city residents turn to crime;

2. Is this over negative to migrant workers;

3. Are humans simply passive to their environment.

Read a review of the Shaw and McKay investigation on Social Disorganisation Theory.

Fewer schools below GCSE target

Secondary school league tables for England show that 470 schools were below the government's "floor target" for pupils' exam results last summer.

Read the full article.

Great Sociology/Philosophy Link

A great site from Stanford University which can be used to find key words in both sociology and philosophy. See link below.

http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

"Selfish adults 'damage childhood' ..."

Read the latest report highlighting the dangers and damage the modern world is doing to contemporary childhood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7861762.stm

Welcome

Welcome to the Loreto College sociology blogpage, this site will contain information on the subject, key reading material and general information about the subject. If there is anything missing from the page please feel free to offer interesting links or material to help other students.