Crime - Year 2 Flashcards
What did Durkheim say in his functionalist explanation of deviance and its relationship to crime?
Durkheim suggests that every society shares a set of core values, which he called collective conscience. The more behaviour differed from these core values, the more likely it was to be viewed as deviant.
What 2 sides of crime and deviance did Durkheim say influence the functioning of society.
Positive side - which helped society change and remain dynamic.
Negative side - which saw too much crime leading to social disruption.
What are the 3 elements according to Durkheim that are positive aspects of crime?
Reaffirming the boundaries
Changing values
Social Cohesion
How is Reaffirming the boundaries a positive aspect of Crime (Durkheim)
As the publicity of being take to court or public punishments can do the role of publicly reaffirming existing boundaries.
How is changing values a positive aspect of crime? (Durkheim)
As it can change the collective conscience when it comes to laws that will be outdated.
How is social cohesion a positive aspect of crime? (Durkheim)
Particularly when bad crimes are committed, the entire community comes together in social outrage, which makes the sense of belonging to a community strengthened.
What did Durkheim say that excessive crime could be the result of which 2 problems with the collective conscience ?
Anomie and egoism
What is anomie ? (Durkheim) (negative)
Occurs when there are periods of great social change or stress and the collective conscience becomes unclear. In this situation there is uncertainty over what behaviour should be seen as acceptable and people may be partially freed from the social control imposed by the collective conscience.
What is Egoism (durkheim) (negative)
When the collective conscience becomes too weak to restrain selfish desires of individuals.
What did Newburn argue about Durkheim work on aspects of crime?
He said that Durkheim placed to much extent on the collective conscience/value consensus. Others also argued that Durkheim was vague in identifying specific crimes which would be beneficial for society.
What was Merton strain theory
Merton said crime and deviance were evidence of a poor fit (or strain) between the socially accepted goals of society and the socially approved means of obtaining those desired goals. This resulting strain laid to deviance.
Example of Merton strain theory in America.
Merton saw their main goals as wealth and power, as represented in the American dream, which said the poorest had the opportunity to reach the highest levels of society. In this scenario it wasn’t true as those in higher classes had more of an opportunity to succeed than others. This meant that people weren’t able to achieve the goals and sought out alternative (often deviant) ways of behaving.
What was Mertons 5 different forms of behaviour that could be understood as a response between the goals and means?
Conformity
Innovation
Ritualism
Retreatism
Rebellion
Who came up with the illegitimate opportunity structure?
Cloward and Ohlin (1960)
What was Cloward and Ohlins illegitimate opportunity structure about?
That for some subcultures in society, a regular illegal career was available, with recognised illegal means of obtaining society’s goals (money,power etc.).
