Functionalism Flashcards
Durkheim
crime is caused by society other than the individual.
a state of normlesness or ‘anomie’ can be created when there is little or too much crime.
The five functions of crime.
Evidence of Durkheim - BBC
Manchester Bombing acts as social cohesion.
Evidence - NHS strikes
Doctors nurses and other healthcare professionals stopped working and demanded a page increase in 2023 due to the rising cost of living and increasingly difficult working conditions. Links to functional rebellion as they did receive a pay raise.
Cloward and Ohlin
The three types of deviant subcultures.
criminal subcultures, emerge in areas of established organised crime where young people are exposed to deviant behaviors. People often have a chance to rise within the criminal hierarchy.
Conflict subcultures result from little access to either legitimate or illegitimate opportunity structures. The response to this situation is often gang violence, which serves as a release from anger and frustration.
Retreatist subcultures develop from groups who often par take in drug abuse as a way to remove themselves from the going on’s of society. They have failed the illigtimate means and expectations.
Merton
Strain theory - The four categories individuals fall under when trying to achieve the accepted societal expectations and means.
Ritualists - reject the SG but still follow the rules.
Rejects - reject the SG and Means and remove them selves from society.
Conformists - accept the SG and Means.
Innovators - Accept the SG but not the Means.
Evidence - National Crime Agency
in November 2024 the police busted a gang in London from trying to smuggle 90 Million pounds worth of Cocaine into the city. Six people from the gang were directly involved.
Evidence for retreatist subcultures - GOV.UK
As of 2022 there were 10,775 people sentenced for drug abuse. which is 5% rise from previous years.
Matza - A03
Drift theory - individuals drift in and out of crime and rent subject to fit into one of these divide subcultures at one time.
Parsons
There is a value consensus in society, therefore everyone is trying to achieve the same goals.
Lyng - A03 of Merton
He doesn’t explain that crime that doesn’t fit into the mold in which people commit crime for reasons other than the ‘american dream’.
People like to push the boundaries and do things they believe they can get away with as it gives them satisfaction or a reward.
A03 of Durkehim, ‘hate crime’.
Ignores the victims of crime often ethnic minorities, women and working class.
Much crime divides people instead of bringing them together. Crime like ‘hate crime’ towards minority groups like LGBTQ individuals creates a divide between those who ally themselves and those who commit the crime in the first place as not everyone shares the same collective opinion.
