2.3

Question 1

Describe the Functionalist theory of crime according to Durkheim.

Answer 1

• Society is a stable structure based on shared norms, values, and beliefs about right and wrong. - This produces social solidarity/integration as people belong to the same harmonious unit. - - - According to Durkheim, crime is inevitable as not every member of society is committed to the collective sentiments or shares the same values and beliefs.
• This is due to inadequate socialisation into the established norms.
• Durkheim argued that crime serves a key function in society.
  1. Boundary maintenance: Crime strengthens social cohesion and the willingness of members of society to cooperate with one another, uniting against the criminal act.
  2. Social change: When individuals challenge established ideas of crime and deviance. A once deviant act can become legal (e.g., homosexuality).
• Crime serves a function and only becomes dysfunctional when the rate is too high or too low.

Question 2

Describe Merton’s Strain Theory of crime.

Answer 2

• • Merton’s Strain theory argues that crime is caused by the unequal structure of society. Society encourages people to subscribe to the goals of material success.
• However, society is unable to provide the legitimate means for all to achieve success.
• These ‘blocked opportunities’ due to poverty and inadequate schools create a ‘strain’ between the goal of material success and the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve it.
• This causes anomie and creates various responses from those affected:

1. Innovation: Innovators accept the goal but find criminal means of achieving it (e.g., bank robbers).
2. Ritualism: Ritualists give up striving for money success (e.g., ‘plodding along’ in a dead-end job).
3. 3. Retreatism: Retreatists reject the goal and means and ‘drop out’ (e.g., vagrants, drug addicts).
4. Rebellion: Rebels reject the goal and means and replace them with new ones, aiming to change society (e.g., alternative cultures like hippies).

Question 3

Describe Cohen’s Subcultural Theory of crime.

Answer 3

• Subcultural theories apply Merton’s strain theory.
• A subculture is where a dominant group emerges that does not conform to society’s main goals.
• Subcultures enable their members to gain status by illegitimate means.
• Cohen focuses on non-utilitarian crime (e.g., vandalism) and argues that deviance in the working class is a group response to ‘status frustration’.
• It begins in school when they are regarded as ‘thick’.
• The subculture offers an ‘alternative status hierarchy’ in which respect is earned through deviant behaviour.

Question 4

Describe the Marxist theory of crime.

Answer 4

• Marxist theory suggests that society may influence a person to become criminal.
• It argues that a capitalist society encourages wealth, but the unequal structure of a capitalist society shapes people’s behaviour, including criminality and how society deals with it.
• Marxism holds that crime is something that the ruling class (bourgeoisie) use as a means of social control against the working class (proletariat). - - - Laws are made to protect the property of the rich, as laws do not challenge the unequal distribution of wealth but punish those in poverty (e.g., vagrancy, squatters).
• The theory assumes that the disadvantaged social class is a primary cause of crime, and that criminal behaviour begins in youth.
• Crime is largely a result of unfavourable conditions in a community (e.g., high dropout rate, unemployment, and single-parent families). - People in these situations have no choice but to commit crime as a means of survival.
• Selective law enforcement means that the white-collar crimes of the rich are less likely to be prosecuted than working-class ‘street crimes’. - - - This means the rich stay wealthy, and working-class people have no means of achieving wealth other than crime.

Question 5

How does Labelling Theory explain crime?

Answer 5

• Becker’s Labelling theory argues that no act is criminal or deviant in itself – it only becomes so when labelled as such by others.
• Interactionists such as Americans Piliavin and Briar argue that agents of social control (the police and judges) label certain groups as criminal.
• This results in the ‘differential enforcement’ of the law, where the law is enforced against one group more than others, thereby creating labels of ‘criminal’ on individuals.
• Lemert argues that by labelling a person as deviant, society encourages them to be more deviant, and so they become what the label says they are – known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. - - People may treat an offender solely in terms of their label, becoming their ‘master status’ or controlling identity.
• As a result, the person is rejected by society and forced into the company of other criminals, which leads to criminality.
• Prison is an extreme example of this.

Question 6

How does Right Realism explain crime?

Answer 6

• Right realists view crime from a right-wing, conservative political outlook.
• They see crime, especially street crime, as a growing problem, to be tackled through control and punishment, rather than rehabilitation.
• They argue that crime is caused by three factors:
  1. Biological differences: Some people are more likely to commit crime (e.g., having low intelligence).
  2. Inadequate socialisation in the nuclear family. Charles Murray argues that the increase in welfare-dependent lone-parent families has created ‘an underclass’ who fail to socialise their children properly, leading to criminality as the children turn to delinquent gangs in the absence of a father. 3. Rational choice theory: Offending is a rational choice after weighing up the risks, so the crime rate is high because the risk of being caught is low, and punishments are lenient after a conviction.

Question 7

How does Left Realism explain crime?

Answer 7

• Left realists view crime from a left-wing, socialist political outlook.
• They see inequality in capitalist society as the cause of crime.
• The victims of crime are disadvantaged groups – the working class, ethnic minorities, and women.
• The police take crimes against these groups less seriously.
• Left realists such as the British sociologists Lea and Young identify three related causes of crime: 1. Relative deprivation: How deprived someone feels in relation to others causes people to resort to crime, especially when the media promotes the importance of material possessions.
  2. Criminal subcultures: Subcultures form to solve the problem of relative deprivation through illegitimate means.
  3. Marginalised groups:
• Unemployed groups lack organisations to represent their interests, leading to feelings of powerlessness and frustration that they express through crime (e.g., vandalism).