Crime and Deviance: Functionalist, strain & subcultural theories

Question 1

Durkheim’s functionalist theory: Anomie

Answer 1

Saw crime as a particular problem of modernity.
-The term anomie = normlessless and explains why society is becoming less inter-grated and more individualistic.
-Due to secularisation, there’s a lesser sense of community & a weakened value consensus, people commit crimes.

Question 2

How does society achieve solidarity?

Answer 2

1. Socialisation - instils the shared culture into its members ensuring individuals internalise the same norms and values.
2. Social control - mechanisms include rewards for conformity & punishments for deviance.

Question 3

The inevitability of crime

Answer 3

3 main reasons why:
1. Not everyone is socialised the same way.
2. Argued that even in a ‘society of saints’, deviance would still exist. The general standards of behaviour were extremely high.
3. Social change in order for changes to occur, yesterday’s deviance becomes today’s norm.

Question 4

The positive functions of crime: Boundary maintenance

Answer 4

-Crime produces a reaction uniting its members against wrongdoers & reinforcing their commitment to shared norms & values.
-Explains function of punishment to reaffirm society’s shared status & social solidarity.
-Social regulation
-Cohen examined the important role played by the media in this ‘dramatisation of evil’ and media coverage of crime often creates ‘folk devils’.

Question 5

The positive functions of crime: Adaption and change

Answer 5

Durkheim says all change starts with an act of deviance.
-Individuals shouldn’t be stifled with social control and should have scope to challenge existing norms & values.
-Social change happens when criminals
help the law reflect the values of the population and legitimise social change.
-If there is too much crime, social order will break down & punishment is necessary to control crime & maintain collective sentiments to enable social control.
-If crime is eradicated, society is controlling us & will stay in a period of regression.

Question 6

Supporting studies for Durkheim

Answer 6

-Davis 1961 argues prostitution acts as a safety valve for the release of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening NF.
-Polsky 1967 argues pornography safely ‘channels’ a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives like adultry.
-A.K. Cohen identities that high truancy rates may tell us there’s problems in education system (deviance).
-Erikson 1966 argues if deviance performs positive functions, than costa is organised to promote deviance (police may sustain level of crime/labelling theory).
-

Question 7

Criticisms of Durkheim’s explanation

Answer 7

-Unsure of the right amount of crime needed for functionality.
-Functionalist say crime is to strengthen solidarity, but that doesn’t mean society creates crime either the intention to strengthen it. & can lead to more isolation.
-Ignores how crime isn’t functional for its victims, but is only useful for social regulation.
-Ignored how crime benefits the rich & powerful due to W/C being imprisoned more.

Question 8

Merton’s Strain theory (1938

Answer 8

Strain theories argue that people engage in deviance when they’re unable to achieve socially approved goals through legitimate means.
-E.g. get frustrated and resort to criminality.
Merton adapted Durkheim’s concept of anomie to explain deviance:
-Structural factors- society’s unequal opportunity structure.
-Cultural factors- emphasis on success goals & less emphasis on legitimate means to achieve them.

Deviance is the result of a strain between 2 things:
-Goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve.
-What the institutional structure allows them to legitimately achieve.

Question 9

The American Dream

Answer 9

Based on a set of meritocratic principles - opportunity was available to all, regardless of class, gender or ethnicity (immigrants sold this dream).
-People’s desire to acheuve these, makes them commit crime.
-People expected to pursue this goal through legitimate means.
-Most disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities to achieve legitimately (ie. poverty, discrimination).
-This created the pressure to resort to illegitimate means such as crime (pressure to deviate/strain to anomie).

Question 10

Deviant adaptions to strain

Answer 10

5 types of adaptions to respond to Syrian to anomie:
1. Conformity: individuals accept culturally approved goals & strive to achieve them legitimately.
2. Innovation: individuals acceot glal of money success but use illegitimate means to achieve it.
3. Ritualism: individuals give up on goals but internalised legitimate means do they follow rules for own sake.
4. Retreatism: individuals reject both goals & legitimate means & become dropouts, addicts, tramps, outcasts.
5. Rebellion: individuals reject existing society’s goals & replace them with new ones to bring revolutionary change. Radicals & countercultures.

Question 11

Evaluation of Merton

Answer 11

:)
-Most crime is property crime (Americans value material wealth).
-Lower-class crime are higher due to less opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately.
-Baumer & Gustafan found crime higher in areas with ‘high commitment to money success’ than low commitment.

:(
-Takes OS at face value, over representing W/C crime, so Merton sees crime as a WC phenomenon. Also, deterministic (not all W/C deviate).
-Marxists argue it ignores ruling class power that criminalises the poor only.
-Assumed there’s a value consensus for money success.
-Only accounts for utilitarian crime, not others.

Question 12

Subcultural strain theories

Answer 12

See deviance as the product of a delinquent subculture with diff values form mainstream society.
-See subcultures as providing an alternative opportunity structure for this who cannot achieve by legitimate means.
-Subcultures are functional & criticises Merton’s theory.

Question 13

A.K. Cohen: Status frustration (1955)

Answer 13

Agrees that deviance is a largely lower-class phenomenon.
1. Merton sees deviance as an individual strain, ignoring that much deviance is committed in groups.
2. He focusses on utilitarian crime, ignoring crimes such as assault with no economic motive.

-Cohen argues W/C boys face anomie in the M/C school system, suffer from cultural deprivation and cannot succeed so reach bottom of status hierarchy.
-The boys suffer status frustration and resolve this by rejecting mainstream M/C values & join subcultures.

Question 14

Status frustration: Alternative status hierarchy

Answer 14

The delinquent subculture inverts the values of mainstream society (turns them upside down)
-What society condemns, the subculture praises.
-E.g. good school attendance/respecting school property, in subcultures, boys gain status from vandalising property & truanting.
-Cohen says the subculture offers the boys an alternative status hierarchy where they can achieve, since they failed in the legitimate opportunity structure, but can now win status for delinquency.

Question 15

Evaluation of Cohen

Answer 15

:)
-Offers explanation of non-utilitarian deviance to explain use of alternative status hierarchy for delinquency.

:(
-Assumed that W/C boys share M/C success goals and reject it when they fail.

Question 16

Cloward & Ohlin: 3 subcultures (1960)

Answer 16

Agree with Merton, that W/C youths are denied opportunities for success and deviance stems from this.
-Note that not everyone adapts by turning to ‘innovation’ (utilitarian crimes like theft).
-Diff subcultures respond differently.
-Believe not only unequal access to legitimate opportunities, but also unequal accesss to illegitimate.
-Argue neighbourhoods provide diff illegitimate opportunities for young people to become criminals.

Question 17

3 subcultures: Criminal subculture

Answer 17

-Provide youths with opportunity for a career in utilitarian crime.
-Arises where there’s longstanding criminal culture and professional adult criminals.
-Allows young to use adult criminals as role models and training, giving employment on criminal career ladder.

Question 18

3 subcultures: Conflict subcultures

Answer 18

-Arises in areas of high population turnover.
-Results in high levels of social disorganisation and to events stable professional criminal network.
-Only illegitimate oppurtunities within loosely organised gangs.
-Provides men release for frustration & an alternative status by winning ‘turf’ (territory) from rival gangs.

Question 19

3 subcultures: Retreatist subcultures

Answer 19

-Not everyone who wants to be a professional criminal succeeds.
-Leads to double failure where people fail in both legitimate & illegitimate opportunity structures.
-Means many turn to illegal drug use.

Question 20

Evaluation of Cloward & Ohkin

Answer 20

:)
Agree with Cohen that delinquent subculture are the source of much deviance.

:(
-South (2020) found that the drug trade is a mixture of disorganised crime (conflict) & professional mafia style criminals.
-Likewise, some ‘retreatist’ are professional dealers, but they argue you can only belong to one.
-Strain theories (reactive) theories have been criticised for assuming everyone shares mainstream success goal.
-Miller argues L/C had independant subculture with its own values, not regarding success and deviance is a means to achieve own goals, not mainstream ones.
-Matza argues delinquents are not strongly committed to subculture & drift in and out of delinquency.
-

Question 21

Recent strain theories

Answer 21

-Argued young people pursue a variety of goals other than money success, such as popularity, autonomy from adults and to be treated like ‘real men’.
-Failure to achieve these may result in delinquency.
-Argue M/C juveniles may have problems achieving this, explaining M/C delinquency.

Question 22

Recent strain theories: Institutional anomie theory (Messner & Rosenfeld 2001)

Answer 22

-Focuses on the American dream & argued its obsession with money success and ‘winner-takes-all’ mentality encourages people to adopt an ‘anything goes’ mentality in pursuit of wealth.
-Schools have become geared to prepare pupils for the labour market at the expense of ignoring values such as respect.
-Argue high crime is inevitable in societies based on free-market capitalism.

Question 23

Support for Institutional anomie theory

Answer 23

-Downes & Hansen (2006) found in a survey of crime rates & welfare spending in 18 countries, societies that spent more on welfare had lower imprisonment rates. Societies protecting poor have less crime.
-Savelsburg (1995) applies strain theory to post-communist societies which saw a rapid rise in crime after the fall of communism in 1989 & says this attributes to communism having collectivist values, being replace with western capitalist, individualist goals.