Crime and deviance essay! Reslly stuck!

Right, when you strip all the high-falutin' flim-flam out of this question it basically boils down to:

Positivism v Interpretivism

On the positivist side the argument is that "deviants / criminals" are "made"; i.e they are the product of their cultural environments. What you have to do here for synoptic linking is think about how, say, the family and education "turn people on" towards deviance / criminality.

E.g Family - could talk about primary socialisation (and gender socialsiation - men seem to be more criminal than women); social class - how does being wealthy / poor affect your life chances etc. There are loads you could use (just think about the poissible ways "criminals are created" and the various theories - such as conventional criminology, Marxism, Feminism - associated with these ideas).

Same for education - link to things like educational failure, discrimination (ethnicity) even labelling (effects of negative labelling) etc.

On the Interpretivist side you're looking at the "it's not who you are / what you do" but "how people react to who you are / what you do" argument. In other words how social reactions create deviance. Here you can use labelling theory, deviancy amp. / moral panics / crusades etc. In fact, the whole Interactionist set of arguments.

Synoptic examples? Look at Marxist arguments about who makes laws and who benefits (power and politics) - could also talk about the power to create deviant definitions ("chavs" are criminals etc.).

Hope this helps.