Evaluation points for sociological theories. Flashcards
What are two limitation points for Marxism?
Only explains certain types of crime: all it explains are utilitarian crimes, for example crimes such as sexual deviance aren’t committed for financial gain.
Not all capitalist societies have a high crime rate: two lowest crime rates in the world are in Japan and Switzerland, which are both capitalist economies. This suggests that capitalism may not be criminogenic worldwide.
What are two strength points for Marxism?
Real life examples eg. Akshata Murty, Gary Barlow, Boohoo, etc. This suggests that celebrities can pay off their crimes and receive little press coverage.
Explains the dark figure of crime: The rich can afford good lawyers and know how to evade prosecutions and media coverage
What are two limitation points for Left Realism?
Fails to explain white collar and corporate crime: white collar and corporate crime also make up a large part of the dark figure, and therefore theories should adequately explain reasons for their existence.
Focuses on high-crime, inner city areas: This is a problem because it means the theory lacks generalisability. It would be a limited approach to explaining crimes in rural areas, for example.
What is a strength for Left Realism?
Draws attention to smaller scale, problematic ‘street’ issues: the theory highlights those crimes which are often overlooked or unreported (dark figure of crime) but can often be the most damaging and prevalent.
What are two limitation points for Right Realism?
Influence of drugs, alcohol and mental health - rational choice?: overlooks barriers to rational choice such as psychological issues and substance abuse. There are many cases in which offending is not a calculated cost-benefit analysis, nor come from a place of rationality. It may be a survival mechanism among many other things.
Incomplete explanation - violent crime?: tell us very little about why people commit violent, premeditated crimes. Therefore, Right Realism can only be used to explain some types of offending.
What is a strength for Right Realism?
Explanation for opportunistic crime: theory can explain crimes that happen seemingly at random, using rational choice. For example, someone’s back is turned and an individual grabs their bag because they weren’t looking. Not all crimes are premeditated or have a deep psychological element.
What are limitations for Durkheim’s Functionalist theory?
Focuses heavily on the functions of crime and the role that crime and deviance play in society: it doesn’t explain the causes of offending - unlike biological or psychological explanations, Durkheim’s view tells us little about why people actually commit crime in the first place.
Marxist’s are critical of his theory: By focussing only on the positive functions of crime, Durkheim’s theory overlooks the social inequalities and power imbalance in capitalist society. For example, Marxists would argue that crime is only functional for those in power.
what are limitations for Merton’s Strain theory?
Merton’s strain theory is criticised for focussing heavily on crimes that have a material gain (utilitarian): This makes the theory less useful for explaining violent crimes and crimes of passion, reducing the generalisability.
Merton uses official statistics to demonstrate that crime occurs more frequently among the poorer groups in society: There is a ‘dark figure’ in official statistics that obscures the true nature of the amount and type of crime occurring in society. Marxists would argue that official statistics over-represent the extent of working class crime, due to selective enforcement of the law.
What are limitations of the labelling theory?
Labelling theory lacks scientific rigour : We cannot measure the extent to which a label influences a behaviour; it is not a tangible concept. By comparison, biological explanations of offending have measurable, testable ideas, such as that brain structure and function is correlated with offending. This can be observed during brain scans.
Not everyone who is labelled will self-fulfill it; many choose to reject the labels they have been given, for example, a child labelled as a failure might work harder to prove their teachers wrong.
What is a strength of labelling theory?
Labelling theory can help to explain the “dark figure” of crime, by indicating why some groups might appear more frequently in official statistics, for example, young Black males. This is useful as it challenges the narrative that statistics are an accurate reflection of the extent of crime in society.
