Crime And Deviance: Perspectives Flashcards
Define social construct
Created by society rather than naturally occurring. This means it’s likely to vary in differing locations and over time.
Define social control
The attempt to make members of society act a particular way
Define right realism
Crime as seen as a real problem in society. These are a conservative group who prefer to a tough approach to crime - the individual is responsible for the crime. It is a rational choice as the criminal weighs up risk and reward.
Define left realism
Crime is a problem for the disadvantaged groups in society. Relative deprivation and marginalised poor produces criminal subcultures whose members victimise other people people.
What are the 2 mechanisms to achieve solidarity according to functionalists?
Socialisation: instils the shared culture into its members. This helps to ensure individuals internalise the same norms and values and they feel it is right to act in the way society requires.
Social control: mechanisms of social control include reward for conformity and punishments for deviance. These help to ensure that individuals behave in the way society expects.
What are the 3 reasons why crime and deviance appears in all societies?
Not everyone is equally effectively socialised: some people are more prone to deviance as they aren’t socialised into the norms and values.
Complex modern society, there is diversity of lifestyle and values: different groups develop their own subcultures with distinctive norms and values. What the subculture sees as normal, the mainstream culture view as deviant.
Modern societies have a tendency towards anomie and normlessness: the rules governing a behaviour become more weaker and less clear cut. Society is more complex (specialised division of labour). So people are becoming more different. Collective consciousness is weakened, resulting in high levels of crime and deviance
According to functionalists, what are the 5 functions of crime?
Boundary maintenance, adaption and change, safety valve, warning, and regulates behaviour.
Functionalists functions of crime: boundary maintenance
Crime produced a reaction from society. It unites its members in the condemnation of the wrongdoer and reinforces their commitment to the shared norms and values. Media example: killings by Al Qaeda shown live broadcast. Society’s reaction is to try to identify and capture the wrongdoer.
Functionalists functions of crime: adaptation and change
Change starts with an act of deviance. Individuals with new ideas, values, and ways of living must not be completely stifled by the weight of social control. There must be some scope for them to challenge and change the existing norms and values. Example: authorities often try to persecute visionaries who try to preach a new message. In the long run, their values may give rise to a new culture and morality.
Functionalists functions of crime: safety valve
Davis argues that prostitution acts as safety valve for the real de of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the monogamous nuclear family. Polsky argues that pornography safely ‘channels’ a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives such as adultery, which would pose a much greater threat to the family.
Functionalists functions of crime: warning
Deviance is a warning that an institution is not functioning properly. For example, high rates of truancy from schools may indicate that there is a problem within the education system.
Erikson argues that crime and deviance performs positive social functions, then perhaps this means society is actually organised to promote deviance. He suggests that the true function of agencies of social control such as police may actually be to sustain a certain level of crime rather than to rid society of it.
Functionalists functions of crime: regulates behaviour
Demonstrations, carnivals and festivals all license misbehaviour that in other contexts may be punished.
What is Durkheim’s views on low and high levels of crime?
Neither too much or too low levels of crime are desirable:
Too much crime threatens to tear the bonds of society apart.
Too little crime means that society is repressing and controlling its members too much, stifling individual freedom and preventing change.
Evaluate the functionalist perspective on crime and deviance in society.
- it is recognised that some deviance is good for society; however, Durkheim offers no explanation as to how much deviance is the right amount.
- functionalists explain the existence of crime in terms of its supposed function. For example, strengthening social solidarity. But, this doesn’t mean that society actually creates crime in advance with the intention of strengthening society. Just because crime does these things is not necessarily why it exists in the 1st place.
- crime doesn’t always promote solidarity. It may have the opposite effect, leading to people becoming isolated. E.g forcing women to stay indoors for fear of attack.
What is Merton’s strain theory?
Strain theory argues people engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve goals by legitimate means. E.g may become frustrated and resort to criminal means of getting what they want. OR turn to drugs to comfort their failure and remove themselves from society