A2 SCLY4 Crime and Deviance Sociology Exam June 2014

Aw thank you! that's so helpful! would you be able to explain this aswell please: economic-Coca-Cola depleting water in India, Security Forces-Abu Ghraib and the cohen evaluation, i don't understand thank you

Is all of this included in an essay asking about victimization? I don't know what to put in if it asks for victimization :/

is that the best one?

Victim surveys measure victimization. If a question is on victimization talk about positivist and critical victimology. Also discuss the definition of the term 'victim' - Christie claims the term is socially constructed, e.g the stereotype of the 'ideal victim' held by the media, public and CJS is a weak, blameless individual who is the target of a stranger's attack. In reality, the victim may have victimised themselves, as Wolfgang studied 288 homicides and found 26% involved the victim triggering the events leading up to the murder. Therefore we cannot stereotype a victim to a helpless group of people, although critical criminology views this as a 'victim blaming' approach which doesn't consider structural causes of victimisation, such as poverty and patriarchy (link to marxism and feminism)

You can also discuss patterns of victimisation, and the impact of victimisation.

If a question on experiments comes up what do I talk about , I havenn't even got an examples related to crime, any help?

Of course I'd be able to explain!

McLaughlin attempts to categorise state crime into four main types so that we can understand it easier rather than having to deal with 'state crime' as such a wide concept. He makes 4 main categories.

Economic crimes-Crimes where states try to save money/gain money without concern for the safety of their citizens. For example, In India, the state allowed Coca-Cola to deplete water reserves because it generated profit for the state yet it killed countless people living in the surrounding area.


Security Forces-Crimes committed by aspects of the state such as the army, navy etc. Abu Ghraib was where western soldiers went into a prison in Iraq to sexually and physically torture, humiliate and sometimes kill them. It's an example of state crime because it was carried out by an agency of the state.

Political crimes-Crimes by those who are meant to help the smooth running of the state/go against the need to assist people to help them live. MP expenses scandal is a great example as it took money that should be used to help.

Social/Cultural Crimes-Crimes against sections of society such as racism and discrimination like the institutional racism of the met police in the Stephen Lawrence case.


Cohen's spiral of denial/neutralisation theory can be seen as a good theory because it shows how incidents like Abu Ghraib happened. For example, the US army first denied that the events took place, then they said that it was due to one or two rogue soldiers, but then everyone found out that it was all of the soldiers so they had to claim it was to protect national security. You can expand this further by stating that it lets us understand state crime in western countries, showing that we commit it too and that it isn't just an aspect of third world countries

Hope this helped !

55/90 will get you an A this year. 60/90 is an A*

If you get 15/21, 14/21, 10/15 and 25/33 you get an A*

For a 33 mark question? You would need to distinguish between the types of experiments and deal with them all separately, evaluating throughout and you also need to show A2 knowledge on experiments.

So rather than just going through the pros and cons of experiments, you need to link it explicitly to theories and how this helps certain theories achieve their goal for Sociology. So for example, you would state that positivists want to see the ways in which structure shapes action, meaning experiments are used because they can manipulate a variable to see how it changed action, generalising into cause and effect laws in the social world. You could then criticise this with the interpretivist view that Sociology needs to understand the social world view of the individual, and experiments do not allow for verstehen or a subjective understanding and are essentially useless.

You of course need to go through the basic pros and cons so they lack validity if lab experiments, hard to generalise from a small sample, lab experiments are useless as you cannot control all variables etc. Try and link to theories as well to show synoptic knowledge, so for example Functionalists would be the most willing to use experiments due to their desire to see how roles/order is created by society. Feminists would criticise them as they are another way in which patriarchal oppression works against women, controlling them in experimental conditions to do the researchers biddings etc.

Make sure to cover lab, field and comparative experiments, showing the pros and cons of each and how some deal with the cons of another. So for example, field experiments are more valid, but even harder to control. The comparative method is easier in terms of control, but it isn't based on empiricism so it can be deemed as a less valid approach that lacks understanding of society.

For examples, it's pretty hard to think of some but of the top of my head I've got;

Rosenthal and Jacobson for education-Manipulating teachers expectations of pupils and seeing if it led to a self fulfilling prophecy

Wilson-The implementation of zero tolerance in NYC to see if it reduced crime rates

Noon-Sent out identical job applications (same qualifications etc) to companies, one had the name Patel, the other smith, to see if there was any difference in employment opportunities.


Hope this helped

thank you that's so helpful!! do you jhave any evaluation points for taylor's theory in globalisation? would be greatful!

Thanks, thanks a million!!

How do you structure 15 markers please?

how much are we expected to write on the 21 markers for crime and also the 15 marker for methods in context??? like how many pages?

my teacher told me to spend about 45 mins on crime (thats both questions) 30 on methods in context and that leaves 45 for the 33 marker. is this correct? how much am i expected to write within these time limits?

please respond timing is make or break really isn't it?

I'm gonna just have an intro, one paragraph on advantages and another on disadvantages (linking to the topic in the item) and a conclusion on the usefulness. My 21 mark essays are usually two sides so I figured one side for this should be decent? I'd be happy with 10/15 in all honestly, my main focus is the other three questions