Wits Criminology: Theories of Crime and Deviance Exam Notes for CRIM1001 and CRIM2001

Crime and deviance theories form the conceptual backbone of criminology at the University of the Witwatersrand, especially in introductory and intermediate modules such as CRIM1001 and CRIM2001. These notes provide a comprehensive, exam-focused guide to the major theoretical traditions used to explain why people offend, why certain acts become labelled deviant, and how social institutions shape both crime and crime control. The emphasis is on clear definitions, comparisons between theories, and the ability to apply ideas to South African examples in an exam setting.

1. What Crime and Deviance Mean in Criminology

Criminology begins with a deceptively simple problem: not every harmful act is legally defined as crime, and not every criminal law violation is viewed as deviant in the same way across societies. To study theories of crime and deviance properly, it is necessary to separate behaviour, legal definition, social reaction, and power. This distinction matters because theoretical explanations differ depending on whether the question is “Why do people break the law?”, “Why do some acts get defined as criminal?”, or “Why are some people labelled deviant more often than others?”

Crime versus deviance

Crime refers to conduct prohibited by criminal law and punishable by the state. It is a legal category. Deviance is broader and refers to behaviour that violates social norms, expectations, or moral codes. Something can be deviant without being criminal, criminal without being heavily condemned in a particular setting, or both criminal and deviant at once.

Examples help clarify the distinction:

Jaywalking may be technically illegal in many places but is often not treated as serious deviance.
Alcohol use may be legal, yet considered deviant in religious or cultural communities.
Domestic violence is both criminal and highly deviant, though historically it was often hidden or minimized.
Political protest may be lawful and legitimate in one context, but criminalized or stigmatized in another.

This distinction is crucial in criminology because many theories explain not only offending but also the social processes that turn certain acts into crimes. For example, radical criminology and labelling theory ask why the law reflects the interests of some groups more than others, while classical and strain theories ask why individuals choose or are pushed into offending.

Why the distinction matters in South African criminology

In South Africa, the line between crime and deviance has often been shaped by the country’s history of colonialism, segregation, apartheid policing, and uneven post-apartheid urban development. Acts considered “deviant” during apartheid may have included interracial relationships, political activism, and resistance practices. Conversely, certain forms of state violence were legal at the time yet morally and socially condemned by those affected.

In the democratic era, the legal system no longer serves the same explicit racial order, but criminologists still examine how crime statistics, policing practices, and media portrayals may concentrate attention on poor, urban, and racialised communities. This makes South African criminology especially attentive to the relationship between law, power, and inequality.

Core questions that theories of crime and deviance try to answer

A strong exam answer usually starts by identifying the central question each theory addresses:

Why do individuals offend?
Why are some groups overrepresented in crime statistics?
Why are some acts labelled deviant while others are tolerated?
Why do criminal justice institutions respond differently to different people?
How do inequality, culture, family, school, and neighbourhood conditions shape offending?

Different theories answer these questions in very different ways. Some focus on rational choice and individual decision-making. Others emphasise social structure, such as poverty or blocked opportunity. Others highlight peer groups, learned behaviour, or labels imposed by society. The key to passing exam questions is not simply memorising names, but understanding the logic behind each theory and its limitations.

Crime as a social construct

A foundational criminological insight is that crime is not only a set of acts; it is also a social construct. This does not mean crime is unreal. It means that societies decide, through law-making and enforcement, which behaviours are criminalized and which are not. The process is affected by politics, economics, culture, and social struggle.

For example:

Corporate pollution may produce significant harm, but it is often regulated less aggressively than street crime.
Drug use may be widely harmful, yet the law often distinguishes sharply between users, sellers, and substances based on political and moral judgments.
Shoplifting is punished more visibly than wage theft or tax avoidance, even though the latter may involve larger financial losses.

This matters because theories of crime are not only about offenders; they are also about social reaction. Theories of deviance often question who gets defined as deviant, by whom, and with what consequences.

The role of power in defining crime

Power influences criminalization. In every society, some groups have more influence over law, policing, and public discourse than others. Therefore, what counts as crime often reflects the interests of the politically powerful, economically dominant, or culturally privileged. This is one reason conflict and Marxist theories became important in criminology: they challenge the assumption that law is neutral.

In exam answers, it is often useful to state that crime definitions emerge from an interaction of:

Moral values
Political power
Economic interests
State priorities
Media influence
Public fear

A theft by a poor person and a harmful commercial practice by a corporation may not be treated with equal urgency, even if both cause harm. This unevenness is one of the reasons criminologists study both crime and deviance rather than treating law as a complete explanation.

Key exam distinction

A concise distinction that is worth remembering:

Crime = behaviour forbidden by law.
Deviance = behaviour violating social norms.
Criminological significance = both are shaped by social power, meaning, and context.

2. Classical, Positivist, and Rational Choice Traditions

The earliest major criminological theories ask a straightforward question: why would a person choose crime when legal behaviour is available? The answer changed over time. Early classical thought emphasised free will and deterrence. Positivist thought shifted attention to factors that determine offending. Later rational choice approaches retained the idea of choice but gave it a more practical, situational form.

Classical theory

Classical theory emerged in the eighteenth century and is associated with Enlightenment thinking. The core idea is that humans are rational beings who weigh pleasure against pain before acting. Crime occurs when the expected benefits outweigh the expected costs.

The major assumptions are:

People have free will.
Individuals are rational actors.
Punishment should be certain, swift, and proportionate.
The goal of criminal justice is deterrence, not revenge.

The classic principle is that punishment must be calibrated so that offending becomes a less attractive option than lawful behaviour. The theory is strongly associated with the idea that clear laws and predictable sanctions reduce crime.

Strengths of classical theory

It highlights the importance of legal certainty.
It explains why weak enforcement may encourage offending.
It underpins modern criminal justice policy, especially deterrence and sentencing.

Limitations of classical theory

It assumes rational calculation even in emotional, impulsive, or desperate situations.
It does not explain why some people offend repeatedly while others do not.
It neglects structural constraints such as poverty, trauma, addiction, or coercion.

Positivist criminology

Positivism arose in the nineteenth century as a reaction against the abstract humanism of classical theory. Positivists argued that criminal behaviour is caused by factors outside immediate rational choice. These factors might be biological, psychological, or social.

Positivist criminology looks for determinants of crime, including:

Genetic and neurological factors
Personality traits
Mental illness
Childhood abuse
Family breakdown
Poverty and social disorganization

The positivist shift is important because it moves criminology from “what should the law do?” to “what causes criminal behaviour?”

Biological positivism

Early biological theories, especially those influenced by Cesare Lombroso, claimed that criminals could be identified through physical traits or inherited characteristics. These ideas are largely rejected today in their original form because they were scientifically weak and often tied to racist assumptions. However, modern biosocial approaches look more carefully at how biology interacts with environment, such as:

Brain functioning
Impulse control
Hormonal influences
Genetic vulnerability
Effects of prenatal exposure or early trauma

Modern criminology treats biology cautiously, recognising that no single biological factor causes crime on its own.

Psychological positivism

Psychological explanations focus on personality, cognition, moral development, and self-regulation. They ask whether offenders have:

Low empathy
Poor impulse control
Hostile attribution bias
Underdeveloped moral reasoning
Trauma-related responses

Psychological theories are useful because they can explain why individuals exposed to similar environments respond differently. Two people may grow up in the same neighbourhood, but one becomes violent while the other does not. Psychology helps explain that variation.

Sociological positivism

Sociological positivism links crime to social conditions such as poverty, unemployment, residential instability, weak institutions, and unequal opportunity. This direction overlaps with many later theories discussed in the next section, especially strain, social disorganization, and subcultural explanations.

Rational choice theory

Rational choice theory modernises classical ideas without fully reverting to them. It argues that offenders make decisions based on perceived opportunities, expected rewards, and perceived risks, but these decisions may be limited rationality rather than perfect calculation. Offenders may act quickly, use incomplete information, or rely on habit, but they still respond to immediate conditions.

Key ideas include:

Crime is situational and opportunity-driven.
Offenders assess targets, guardianship, and escape routes.
Some crimes are impulsive, but many are strategic.
Prevention can work by increasing effort, increasing risk, reducing reward, and reducing provocation.

This theory underpins a wide range of crime prevention strategies, such as:

Better lighting
CCTV
Target hardening
Vehicle immobilisers
Secure access controls
Environmental design

Example

A burglar may choose one house over another because one is dark, empty, poorly secured, and near a quick escape route. The offender may not be a “career criminal” in a deep psychological sense; the opportunity itself may be decisive.

Strengths

Useful for explaining property crime and opportunistic offending.
Strong policy relevance.
Good for situational crime prevention.

Limitations

Overstates calculation in violent, emotional, or habitual crime.
Does not explain why some people see crime opportunities at all.
Underplays inequality and social context.

A comparative summary

Tradition	Main assumption	Cause of crime	Policy implication
Classical	Free will and rationality	Cost-benefit calculation	Certainty and proportionality of punishment
Positivist	Behaviour is determined by causes	Biological, psychological, or social factors	Diagnosis, treatment, and prevention
Rational choice	Limited but purposeful decision-making	Opportunity, risk, and reward	Situational prevention and target hardening

Exam point

A strong answer should show that these traditions are not simply old versus new. They overlap. Classical theory introduces rationality; positivism adds causation; rational choice reworks rationality in a situational form. Together they form an important baseline for later sociological theories, many of which reject the idea that crime can be explained only by individual choice.

3. Social Structure Theories: Strain, Anomie, Social Disorganization, and Subcultures

The next major set of theories shifts the focus from the individual to the social environment. These approaches argue that crime is not merely the result of bad choices, but of pressure, blocked opportunity, community breakdown, and group adaptation. They are essential in South African criminology because inequality, unemployment, informal settlement conditions, and educational exclusion are central public issues.

Strain and anomie

Strain theory is commonly associated with Robert Merton, who argued that societies encourage people to pursue culturally approved goals, such as wealth, success, and status, but not everyone has equal access to legitimate means of achieving them. When there is a gap between goals and means, people experience strain.

Merton’s key insight is that social structure can generate crime. If a society glorifies success but distributes opportunities unevenly, some individuals may adapt through deviance.

Merton’s five modes of adaptation

Conformity — accepts goals and means.
Innovation — accepts goals but uses illegitimate means.
Ritualism — gives up on goals but follows rules.
Retreatism — rejects both goals and means.
Rebellion — rejects existing goals and means and seeks new ones.

The most criminologically important is innovation, because it includes those who pursue socially valued goals through illegal means, such as theft, fraud, corruption, or drug dealing.

Why Merton matters

Merton is useful because he links crime to structural inequality. In a society marked by sharp wealth gaps, people may feel pressure to achieve status but lack legitimate routes. This does not excuse crime, but it helps explain why offending may be concentrated in environments with weak opportunity structures.

Limitations

Merton focuses heavily on class success and material goals.
It says less about violence, gender, race, or symbolic forms of deviance.
It does not fully explain why many people under strain do not offend.

General strain theory

Later strain theorists broadened the concept. General strain theory argues that crime results not only from blocked economic goals, but also from a wide range of negative experiences that create anger, frustration, and stress.

Sources of strain may include:

Failure to achieve valued goals
Loss of positive stimuli, such as family support or employment
Presentation of negative stimuli, such as abuse, humiliation, discrimination, or victimization

The emotional response matters. Strain produces negative affect, especially anger, which can be channelled into offending when lawful coping resources are weak.

South African relevance

General strain theory is particularly useful in contexts of:

Youth unemployment
Household violence
School exclusion
Community violence
Experiences of racism, xenophobia, or gendered abuse

The theory helps explain why some offences are expressive rather than instrumental. Violence may arise not only to gain material benefit, but to cope with humiliation, shame, or social rejection.

Social disorganization theory

Social disorganization theory shifts attention from individual strain to neighbourhood structure. It argues that crime is more likely where communities lack stable institutions and collective capacity to regulate behaviour.

Typical indicators of social disorganization include:

Residential mobility
Poverty concentration
Ethnic or social heterogeneity
Weak informal social control
Poorly functioning schools, families, and local associations

The theory suggests that neighbourhoods with high turnover and low collective efficacy struggle to supervise youth, respond to disorder, or build shared expectations.

Collective efficacy

Collective efficacy refers to the shared belief that residents can work together to maintain social order. It is not simply about friendliness; it involves trust, mutual intervention, and willingness to act for the common good.

Application

A community with active street committees, school-parent cooperation, local youth initiatives, and shared norms about safety is often better positioned to limit offending than a fragmented area where people do not know or trust one another.

Subcultural theory

Subcultural theories argue that delinquent or criminal behaviour can emerge from group-based value systems that differ from mainstream expectations. In some environments, youths develop alternative norms that reward toughness, defiance, or status-seeking through illegal means.

Major subcultural ideas include:

Status frustration: working-class youth may fail in mainstream institutions and seek respect through delinquent status.
Delinquent subcultures: groups may form around shared values that legitimate violence, theft, or risk-taking.
Focal concerns: in some communities, toughness, excitement, autonomy, and fate can shape offending patterns.

Subcultural theory is especially useful for understanding collective forms of youth crime, gang formation, and group violence.

Important caution

Subcultural theory must not be used to stereotype poor communities as inherently criminal. The point is not that poverty produces crime automatically. The point is that when legitimate status routes are blocked, some groups may create alternative status systems that make certain forms of offending meaningful or rewarded.

A comparative table

Theory	Main focus	Key mechanism	Common example
Mertonian strain	Blocked legitimate goals	Innovation, rebellion, retreatism	Theft to pursue wealth
General strain	Negative experiences and stress	Anger and poor coping	Violence after humiliation or abuse
Social disorganization	Neighbourhood breakdown	Weak informal control	High crime in unstable areas
Subcultural theory	Group norms and status	Alternative values and peer approval	Gang violence or delinquent peer identity

South African exam application

These theories are often easiest to apply to South African settings when linked to concrete conditions:

Informal settlements may experience weak infrastructure and limited guardianship.
Youth facing unemployment may encounter strain and blocked mobility.
Communities with high violence exposure may normalize retaliation.
Gang-influenced areas may reward toughness and territorial reputation.
School exclusion and dropout may weaken pro-social attachments and increase peer dependence.

An excellent exam answer would show that crime is not simply the product of poor morals. It can also be an adaptation to social pressure, institutional failure, and neighbourhood inequality.

4. Learning, Control, and Labeling: How Crime is Acquired and Managed

Social process theories ask how individuals learn to offend, why they refrain from crime, and how social reactions shape future identity. These theories are especially powerful because they explain not just the origin of offending, but also the continuation of criminal careers.

Differential association

Edwin Sutherland’s differential association theory states that criminal behaviour is learned through interaction with others. People learn techniques, motives, rationalisations, and definitions favourable to law violation.

The theory has several core principles:

Crime is learned, not inherited.
Learning occurs through communication in intimate groups.
The meanings attached to lawbreaking matter.
A person becomes delinquent when favourable definitions to violation outweigh unfavourable ones.

This theory is useful because it explains how crime can spread through family networks, peer groups, gangs, and criminal subcultures.

Example

A young person who regularly associates with peers who normalise theft, carrying weapons, or drug dealing may come to view these behaviours as normal, necessary, or even admirable. The learning includes practical skills and moral justifications.

Differential reinforcement and social learning

Later social learning approaches expanded Sutherland’s work. They argue that behaviour is shaped by reinforcement and modelling. If offending brings money, status, excitement, or peer approval, it is more likely to continue. If it is punished, shamed, or fails to produce reward, it becomes less likely.

Key processes include:

Direct reinforcement: immediate rewards such as money or status.
Vicarious reinforcement: seeing others rewarded for crime.
Modelling: copying behaviour observed in peers or family.
Definitions: beliefs that justify or condemn behaviour.

This framework is especially helpful for understanding why some youth become persistent offenders while others desist. The social environment can either reward or discourage deviance.

Control theories

Control theories begin from a different assumption: rather than asking why people offend, they ask why most people do not offend, even when opportunities exist. The answer is attachment to social bonds, stakes in conformity, and internal controls.

Hirschi’s social bond theory

According to Hirschi, delinquency is more likely when bonds to society are weak. Four elements matter:

Attachment – emotional ties to parents, teachers, and peers.
Commitment – investment in conventional goals.
Involvement – time spent in conventional activities.
Belief – acceptance of moral rules and legitimacy of authority.

When these bonds are strong, the likelihood of delinquency decreases. A student committed to education, attached to family, involved in sport, and respectful of rules has more to lose from crime.

Self-control theory

Gottfredson and Hirschi later argued that low self-control, usually developed early in childhood, is the primary cause of crime. People with low self-control tend to be impulsive, risk-seeking, shortsighted, and insensitive to others. Crime offers quick gratification, so those with low self-control are more vulnerable to it.

This theory is influential because it offers a broad explanation for a wide range of crimes. However, it is criticised for underestimating social context and for being too static. People’s offending patterns often change with age, relationships, and opportunity.

Labeling theory

Labelling theory marks a major shift in criminological thinking. Rather than asking why an act occurred in the first place, it asks how social reaction shapes identity and future behaviour. The central idea is that once a person is labelled deviant, they may internalize the label or be treated in ways that make further deviance more likely.

Key concepts include:

Primary deviance: initial rule-breaking, which may be minor or isolated.
Secondary deviance: deviance that develops after societal reaction and identity change.
Master status: a label that dominates how others see a person.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: being treated as deviant can increase actual deviance.

Why labeling matters

A young person arrested repeatedly for a minor offence may be excluded from school, distrusted by employers, and rejected by peers. The label can shrink legitimate opportunities, making offending more likely. In this way, control systems may unintentionally create the behaviour they claim to prevent.

Strengths and weaknesses of labeling theory

Strengths

Explains the role of policing, courts, schools, and media.
Highlights power and inequality in social reaction.
Useful for understanding juvenile justice and stigma.

Weaknesses

Sometimes underplays the significance of the initial act.
Does not fully explain why some people receive labels and others do not.
Can be difficult to test directly in empirical research.

Restorative implications

Labeling theory has influenced approaches that seek to reduce stigmatisation, including diversion, restorative justice, and community-based interventions. The goal is not to deny wrongdoing, but to prevent the criminal justice process from permanently excluding people who could otherwise reintegrate.

Exam comparison: learning, control, and labeling

Theory	Central question	Main mechanism	Policy implication
Differential association	How is crime learned?	Peer learning and definitions	Interrupt criminogenic associations
Social learning	Why does crime persist?	Reinforcement and modelling	Change rewards and peer environments
Control theory	Why do most people conform?	Social bonds and self-control	Strengthen family, school, and community ties
Labeling theory	How does reaction shape deviance?	Stigma and identity change	Reduce unnecessary criminalisation

South African relevance

These theories fit South African criminology well because many youth grow up in environments where:

Family structure may be disrupted by labour migration, violence, or economic stress.
School attachment may be weak due to overcrowding or dropout.
Peer groups may provide status, protection, and income.
Police contact may create stigmatizing identities that are difficult to escape.

A sophisticated exam answer should show that criminal behaviour can be learned, constrained, or amplified through social relationships and institutional responses.

5. Critical, Feminist, and Contemporary Approaches to Crime and Deviance

The final major family of theories challenges the idea that mainstream criminology is neutral. Critical approaches ask who benefits from criminal law, whose harm is prioritized, and how inequality shapes punishment. Feminist theories add that gender is central to understanding both offending and victimization. Contemporary perspectives then bring these insights together with globalisation, late modernity, and risk.

Conflict theory

Conflict theory argues that law is not the product of shared social consensus alone. Instead, it reflects struggle between groups with unequal power. The state may protect dominant interests by criminalizing some conduct while ignoring other harmful conduct.

Core claims include:

Law is shaped by conflict, not perfect agreement.
Powerful groups can influence what is criminalized.
Crime control may target the poor more aggressively than the wealthy.
The criminal justice system can reproduce inequality.

This perspective is especially useful for examining selective policing, disproportionate sentencing, and the criminalization of marginalised communities.

Example

Street robbery may receive intense police attention, while harmful corporate practices, environmental damage, or elite corruption may be handled more slowly or leniently. Conflict theory asks why certain forms of harm are visible and others remain normalized.

Marxist criminology

Marxist criminology develops conflict theory further by linking crime and punishment to capitalism. It argues that capitalist societies create inequality, exploitation, and alienation, and then use law and punishment to manage the consequences.

The main ideas are:

Economic inequality produces crime indirectly.
Capitalist systems criminalize threats to property and order.
Punishment disciplines the working class and marginalised groups.
Crime can be viewed both as resistance and as a symptom of structural exploitation.

Marxist criminologists are often interested in state power, labour markets, and the ways in which criminal justice protects property relations.

Feminist criminology

Feminist criminology argues that traditional criminology ignored gender and treated male experience as the norm. Feminist scholars ask how patriarchy, gendered violence, care responsibilities, and unequal power shape crime and deviance.

Important concerns include:

Women’s pathways into crime often involve abuse, poverty, coercion, or survival.
Men’s offending can be linked to performances of masculinity, dominance, and control.
Victimization, especially sexual and domestic violence, is deeply gendered.
The justice system may re-victimize women through disbelief, stigma, or inadequate support.

Types of feminist approaches

Liberal feminism: focuses on equal treatment and legal reform.
Radical feminism: emphasises patriarchy and male violence.
Marxist/socialist feminism: links gender oppression to class and economy.
Intersectional feminism: examines how gender overlaps with race, class, sexuality, and age.

Gender, masculinity, and crime

One of the most important contributions of feminist and gender-aware criminology is the idea that crime is often tied to masculinity. Many violent acts are not just about anger; they are about proving toughness, defending status, or avoiding humiliation.

This is highly relevant in settings where male identity is linked to:

Physical dominance
Control over women
Peer respect
Economic provision
Resistance to vulnerability

At the same time, many women involved in crime have histories of abuse, economic dependency, substance use, or survival-based offending. Their pathways often differ from those of men and should not be treated as identical.

Postmodern and late modern approaches

Later theories argue that contemporary societies are more fragmented, insecure, and risk-oriented than older industrial societies. Globalisation, consumerism, social media, precarious employment, and rapid urban change have altered patterns of crime and deviance.

These approaches ask questions such as:

How do media and consumer culture shape desire and frustration?
How do insecurity and surveillance change everyday life?
How do people construct identity in unstable social conditions?
How do global inequalities shape local crime patterns?

These theories are useful for understanding emerging issues like cybercrime, identity fraud, transnational trafficking, and new forms of social control.

Green and state crime perspectives

A broader critical criminology also studies state crime and green crime.

State crime includes human rights abuses, unlawful violence, corruption, and abuses of power by state actors.
Green crime includes environmental harm, pollution, illegal wildlife trade, and climate-related destruction.

These fields matter because they show that crime is not limited to street-level offending. Harm caused by institutions, corporations, or states can be extensive and socially destructive, even if it is not always prosecuted with the same intensity.

South African context

Critical criminology is especially relevant in South Africa because of the country’s history of institutionalized racial domination and ongoing inequality. Questions of:

Spatial segregation
Police legitimacy
Economic exclusion
Corruption
Violence against women
Xenophobia
Environmental injustice

all reveal that crime and deviance are deeply political phenomena.

Strengths and criticisms of critical approaches

Strengths

Exposes power relations in law and punishment.
Broadens criminology beyond street crime.
Makes visible social harms often ignored by mainstream theory.

Criticisms

Sometimes seen as too political or too broad.
May underplay the agency of offenders.
Can be weaker at predicting individual offending patterns.

Final comparative summary

Approach	Main concern	Main strength	Common critique
Conflict theory	Power and law	Reveals inequality in criminalization	Can be broad and abstract
Marxist criminology	Capitalism and control	Links crime to structural exploitation	May overemphasize class
Feminist criminology	Gender and patriarchy	Explains gendered crime and victimization	Needs careful intersectional application
Late modern/postmodern theories	Risk, identity, and change	Explains contemporary social fragmentation	Can be difficult to operationalize

6. How to Revise and Answer Exam Questions Effectively

Success in a Wits criminology exam depends on more than memorising theory names. Marks are usually awarded for definition, explanation, comparison, application, and critique. A well-structured answer demonstrates that the student understands how the theories fit together and why they matter in South African society.

A practical study strategy

To revise efficiently, organise theories into families:

Choice-based theories
- Classical
- Rational choice
Positivist theories
- Biological
- Psychological
- Sociological
Social structure theories
- Strain
- Anomie
- Social disorganization
- Subculture
Social process theories
- Differential association
- Social learning
- Control
- Labeling
Critical and contemporary theories
- Conflict
- Marxist
- Feminist
- State crime
- Green crime
- Late modern approaches

This grouping helps because exam questions often ask for comparison rather than isolated definitions. For example, a question might ask how strain differs from social learning, or how labeling differs from classical theory.

What examiners usually want

A high-quality answer generally includes the following elements:

A precise definition of the theory
The main theorist or theorists associated with it
The core assumptions
The mechanism linking social conditions to crime
A practical example
A critique or limitation
A concluding sentence showing significance

Example of how to structure a paragraph

If asked about strain theory, a strong paragraph might move in this order:

Define strain as the pressure created when socially valued goals cannot be achieved through legitimate means.
Explain Merton’s argument that this pressure can produce innovation, rebellion, or retreatism.
Give an example such as theft or drug dealing as alternative means of success.
Note that later general strain theory expands the idea to include abuse, victimization, and emotional stress.
Critique the theory by pointing out that many strained individuals do not offend.

This structure is easy to adapt to almost any theory.

Typical compare-and-contrast points

When comparing theories, focus on these contrasts:

Individual vs structure
- Classical and rational choice emphasise individual decision-making.
- Strain, disorganization, and conflict theories emphasise social conditions.
Learning vs control
- Differential association says crime is learned.
- Control theory says crime occurs when bonds are weak.
Offending vs reaction
- Classical and strain theories focus on why crime happens.
- Labeling theory focuses on what society does after deviance occurs.
Consensus vs conflict
- Functionalist theories often assume shared values.
- Conflict theories stress power and inequality.

Common mistakes to avoid

Students often lose marks when they:

Confuse deviance with crime
Use theory names without explaining them
Forget to mention the mechanism linking cause and behaviour
Treat all theories as if they explain the same thing
Ignore South African examples
Fail to critique the theory
Write descriptions that are too general or repetitive

High-yield revision table

Theory family	Key idea	Typical exam phrase
Classical	People choose crime if rewards outweigh costs	“deterrence through certainty and severity”
Positivist	Crime has causes beyond free will	“determinants of criminal behaviour”
Strain	Blocked goals create pressure	“innovation under strain”
Social disorganization	Weak neighbourhood control increases crime	“collective efficacy”
Differential association	Crime is learned in groups	“definitions favourable to law violation”
Control	Weak bonds increase delinquency	“attachment, commitment, involvement, belief”
Labeling	Stigma can produce secondary deviance	“self-fulfilling prophecy”
Conflict/Marxist	Law reflects power relations	“selective criminalization”
Feminist	Gender and patriarchy matter	“gendered pathways and victimization”

Final exam memory anchors

A few memory anchors can help distinguish the theories quickly:

Classical = choice
Positivist = causes
Strain = blocked goals
Disorganization = broken community
Differential association = learned crime
Control = social bonds
Labeling = reaction
Conflict = power
Feminist = gender

Concluding synthesis

Theories of crime and deviance are not merely competing answers to the same question. They illuminate different layers of the social world: individual choice, social learning, neighbourhood conditions, institutional power, gender relations, and the meaning of deviance itself. In the Wits criminology context, the strongest answers are those that move fluently between theory and South African reality, showing how crime is shaped by both agency and structure. A student who can define, compare, critique, and apply these theories will be well placed to handle essay questions, short notes, and case-based problem questions in CRIM1001 and CRIM2001.