OxfordAQA A-Level Sociology (9690): Deviance, Harm and Crime — Revision Notes

Section 3.1.2.5 Deviance, harm and crime of OxfordAQA International AS/A level Sociology (9690) is the last content section of 3.1.2 Socialisation and social control, assessed in Unit 2 Section A. It covers how crime and deviance are socially constructed and differ between societies and over time; the main types of crime; social harms that are not treated as crimes; the problems of measuring and researching crime; and patterns of offending and victimisation by gender, social class, age and ethnicity.

Full overview: Exploring Sociology study guide.

Specification coverage

3.1.2.5 lists:

• Social construction of crime and deviance, including differences between societies and over time.
• Types of crimes and examples: violent crimes; property crimes; white collar crimes; corporate crimes; state crimes; green/environmental crimes; “victimless” crimes; cybercrimes.
• Social harms, including examples of actions which cause harm but are not considered crimes.
• Issues in measuring and researching crime and deviance, including official/police statistics, self-report studies and victim surveys.
• Patterns of offending and victimisation by gender, social class, age and ethnicity.

Key terms

Term	Definition
Crime	An act that breaks the criminal law
Deviance	An act that breaks social norms
Social construction	Defined by society; varies across cultures and time
White-collar crime	Crime by people in respectable, high-status occupations in the course of their work (Sutherland, 1939)
Corporate crime	Crime committed by or for a company
State crime	Illegal or harmful acts by governments or state agencies
Green crime	Crime and harm against the environment and other species
“Victimless” crime	Offence with no obvious direct victim, e.g. some drug offences (the inverted commas show the label is disputed)
Cybercrime	Crime committed using computers and the internet
Social harm	Serious harm caused by actions or policies that may not be illegal
Dark figure	Crime that is unreported or unrecorded
Victimisation	Experience of being a victim of crime

Social construction

• Acts are defined as crime or deviance by those with the power to make and enforce rules.
• Differences between societies — alcohol, gambling or forms of dress are legal in some states and criminal in others.
• Differences over time — behaviours have been criminalised (new cyber offences) or decriminalised as attitudes change.
• Moral panics (Stanley Cohen, Folk Devils and Moral Panics, 1972) show how media and public reaction help define deviance.

Types of crime — examples to learn

Type	Example
Violent	Assault, robbery, homicide
Property	Burglary, theft, criminal damage
White-collar	Embezzlement, insider trading by an employee
Corporate	Breaches of health and safety law; price-fixing; false accounting
State	Torture, genocide, corruption by officials
Green	Illegal logging, wildlife trafficking, toxic dumping
“Victimless”	Personal drug use, some gambling offences
Cyber	Hacking, online fraud, ransomware

Social harm

The social harm (zemiology) approach — associated with Paddy Hillyard and Steve Tombs, Beyond Criminology: Taking Harm Seriously (2004) — argues that focusing on legally defined crime ignores many of the most serious harms. Examples of harmful but often legal acts: deaths and injuries from unsafe but legal working conditions, pollution within legal limits, poverty caused by policy, and aggressive marketing of harmful products. Stanley Cohen’s States of Denial (2001) explored how states and societies deny atrocities and suffering.

Measuring and researching crime

Source	Strengths	Limitations
Official / police statistics	National, regular, cheap; show trends in recorded crime	Many crimes unreported; recording depends on police discretion and priorities; counting rules change
Self-report studies	Reveal hidden offending; show offenders never caught	Respondents may lie or forget; usually limited to minor offences; sampling problems
Victim surveys (e.g. Crime Survey for England and Wales)	Capture unreported crime; large samples	Miss crimes without individual victims (corporate, green, state); rely on memory; exclude some groups such as homeless people

Researching powerful offenders is especially difficult: access is limited and corporate and state crimes are often hidden.

Patterns of offending and victimisation

• Gender: men are responsible for most recorded crime, especially violence; women are more often victims of domestic and sexual violence.
• Social class: working-class people are over-represented in recorded crime and prisons; crimes of higher classes (white-collar, corporate) are under-recorded.
• Age: recorded offending peaks in late teens and early twenties; young people are also at high risk of victimisation.
• Ethnicity: in some societies certain minority groups are over-represented in arrests and imprisonment — debated as evidence of discrimination, deprivation or both — and minorities may suffer hate crime.

Always note that patterns depend on the data: official statistics reflect reporting and policing.

Worked example: an 8-mark answer outline

Explain two problems with using victim surveys to measure crime. (practice)

1. Missing crimes — victim surveys ask individuals about crimes they experienced, so they miss corporate, state and green crimes where victims may not know they have been harmed, and crimes against organisations. (4)
2. Memory and honesty — respondents may forget, misremember dates (“telescoping”) or not disclose sensitive crimes such as domestic abuse, especially if the abuser is present; this reduces validity. (4)

Common mistakes and exam traps

• Confusing white-collar (individual, in the course of work) with corporate (for the company) crime.
• Treating official statistics as a true measure of crime.
• Writing about social harm without giving examples of harmful but legal acts, which the specification asks for.
• Describing patterns without considering victimisation as well as offending.
• Ignoring differences between societies when explaining social construction.

Quick self-test

1. Give an example of an act that is a crime in one society but not another.
2. Define state crime and give an example.
3. What is meant by social harm?
4. Give one strength and one limitation of self-report studies.
5. Describe the age pattern of offending.

Frequently asked questions

Why does the specification put “victimless” in inverted commas? Because whether such crimes really have no victims is disputed — families or communities may still be harmed.

Is social harm the same as crime? No. It is a wider concept including legal actions and policies that cause serious harm.

Which data source is best? Each has strengths and limitations; combining sources gives a fuller picture.

Related pages: deviance, harm and crime practice questions | Exploring Sociology revision notes