A) CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY

1.  Labelling Theory (Tannenbaum, Lemert & Becker): asked questions about crime rather than about the person

1. Play and delinquency: children do not know they are engaging in delinquent behaviour

2. Secondary deviance: (Lemert) primary deviance is the initial act, all the behaviours that a person develops as a result of societal responses to primary deviance, once a deviance becomes known person finds it difficult to behave other than deviant although this is a lengthy interactive process

3. Societal response: (Becker) acts are not deviant until so defined, deviance is not inherent in the act rather created by our responses to the act, idea of master status which is deviance where no matter what are other qualities of other person, person who is labelled will be seen as deviant (reintegration shaming is opposite to labelling theory where people are publicly shamed)

2.  Conflict Theory: ideas of power, focus more on law and its application and administration of justice

1. Liberal Conflict theory: (Sellin)when normative behavious of one group violates normative of behaviour of group what has power to codify its conduct norms (rules governing a cultural group) into , result is criminalization of weaker group, e.g. poor, minorities and youth

2. Radical Conflict theory (neo-Marxists): (Greenberg) capitalism is root of all crime, age structure of capitalist society forces them into economic dependency thus likely to commit property crime

B) INTEGRATIVE THEORY

1.  Social Learning Theory

1. Differential association-Reinforcement theory (reformulation of Sutherland’s theory of diff. assoc.): (Burgess & Akers) specifies the mechanisms whereby people learn criminal behaviour where a person’s actions are conditioned and shaped by rewards and punishments, key concepts of differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement and imitation

2.  Social Control and Social learning

1. Self-derogation theory (Kaplan): all motivated to maximize our self-esteem, motivation to conform will be minimized by family, school and peer interactions that devalue our sense of self, interactions and behaviour may be self-defacing or self-enhancing

2. Integrated theory (Elliot, Huizinga & Ageton): anomie combined with social disorganization and inadequate socialization sets the stage for weak bonds with social institutions which leads to stronger bonds with delinquent peer groups where learning delinquent behaviour is enhanced

3. Interactional theory: (Thornberry) social class, race and community and neighborhood characteristics affect the social bond and social learning variables, delinquency may cause weakening of social bonds but also may be consequence of weakened social bonds

4. Radical, conflict, social control and social learning (Neo-Marxists – Colvin & Pauly): social control in capitalist society is coercive and is designed to support class structure, coercive control patterns are reproduced in family and in school

3.  Social Control Theory, Strain Theory and Liberal Conflict Theory

1. Theory of differential oppression (Regoli & Hewitt): social control is oppressive where oppression refers to unjust use or misuse of authority, those subject to oppression are made into objects and they come to view themselves not as subjects, analogy of women, children are oppressed because of status relative to adults a matter of degree not kind, oppression is both at the individual (worse, oppression as a result of relational coercion) and societal level; 4 ways youth adapt – passive acceptance, exercise of illegitimate coercive power, manipulation of peers and retaliation

C)  OPPORTUNITY THEORY - back to classical school where people operate out of free will making rational choices, question is why a particular criminal event happened, law and order approach

1. Routine Activity Theory (Cohen, Felson): changes in routine activities of members of society due to structural changes, i.e. changes in prosperity, need convergence of motivated offenders, suitable targets and absence of a capable guardian

2. Rational Choice Theory (Cornish, Clarke, Felson): offenders rationally assess all information about potential crime and made a rational choice based on an assessment of consequences, combines the offender and his/her motivation and situational factors

D) FEMINIST PERSPECTIVES

Traditionally: negative, sexist, stereotypical in view of girls and women, sexualizes or pathologizes women. Theory of female delinquency draws upon flawed heritage of theories of male delinquency.

2 Questions arise:

1.  Invisible Girl (very sexist): many ideas some of which are - socially acceptable female behaviour is antithetical to gang activity, idea of tomboys; women have relational goals where men have material goals; delinquent is rogue male i.e. essential to masculinity; girls are supervised differently than boys; blaming mothers

2.  Less than perfect girl (stereotypical and misogynous): positivist school

1. Biology and physiology: (Lombroso) Women are lower on the evolutionary scale, and female criminals are lower than female noncriminals; (Freud) penis envy; (Thomas) girls need love and use sex to get it; (Pollak) women are as criminal as men but use their physiology to hide their criminality, women are deceitful because they have less physical strength, lack a penis and menstruate thus women take a passive role

2. Chivalry hypothesis: female delinquency and crime is lower as will be caught less because men reluctant to report victimization by women, and men in criminal justice system reluctant to prosecute

3. Bonger: women are protected in society

3.  Contemporary Theory and Sexual Girl: assumes most female delinquency is either sexual or relational rather than criminal; conflicts with their mothers, dysfunctional families but delinquent girls have more psychiatric and health problems than boys with some acknowledgement of sexual abuse but latter not studied

1. Girls and their hormones: violent female offenders have higher levels of testosterone, PMS (a socially constructed label and another example of the medicalization of problems women experience as a result of their oppressed status)

4.  Liberated Girl - liberation hypothesis: socialization not biology, more women working outside the home therefore opportunities increase to commit offences in traditionally male activities; liberated attitudes encourage women to imitate male competitive behaviours; however studies find that delinquent girls are more traditional in their thinking about women's place, so instead behaviour changes are due to changes in attitude from chivalry and paternalism to law and order approach and more gender neutral treatment of offenders

5.  Delinquency and Patriarchy - power control theory (Hagan, Gillis, Simpson): contrasts gender roles and control mechanisms in patriarchal families with those in egalitarian families, in former boys are raised to be risk takers while girls are raised to be risk aversive however blames now mothers' liberation as cause of daughters crime, issue is quality of relationship between child and mother, and there has not been increase in female delinquency with greater female-headed households

6.  Girls and oppression (Messerschmidt): double marginality, socialist-feminist explanation where in a capitalist patriarchal society, women's labour and sexuality are controlled by men; (Regoli and Hewitt) double oppression with girls as youth and as female (differential oppression theory applied)

7.  Feminist Theorizing about Girls

1. Ethics of care/care ethic (Morash and Chesney-Lind): children raised in an ethic of care will develop identities that involve concern for others, strong bonds created through nurturing by either parent will reduce delinquency for both boys and girls; female delinquency is consequence of fact girls more often victims of family sexual abuse thus girls do the caring but are not cared for or about

2. Resistance to care lessons: Girls are pressured to care in 3 ways: theylearn to be the major and primary providers of love and nurture, they learn to restrict caring for themselves to looking nice and good and not to make a fuss putting themselves second, learn to make boyfriend primary object of caring - these 3 levels are policed with techniques of regulation: judgement of a girl's reputation, physical force, justice system; acts of resistance are viewed as signs of disturbance - the girls need help, protection or correction