Functionalism - Merton

Question 1

why is crime committed

Answer 1

crime happens when people experience a strain between goals of society e.g money and means of achieving this e.g well paid job

Question 2

strain to anomie

Answer 2

a gap between what they are encouraged to want and their means of getting it

the shared values in society can have negative effects as it encourages people to be successful through own efforts but some people have little opportunity to achieve legitimately

Question 3

5 responses

Answer 3

Conformity
Innovation
Retreatism
Rebellion
Ritualism

Question 4

conformity

Answer 4

follows rules and works hard to achieve the goals of society e.g work hard at university to get a good job

Question 5

innovation

Answer 5

someone who accepts goals of society but has no legitimate means of achieving them e.g turning to crime

Question 6

ritualism

Answer 6

someone who rejects goals of society but goes through the motions of work e.g people not bothered about their job or interested in promotion

Question 7

retreatism

Answer 7

reject the goals and means of achieving them, just give up and drop out of society all together e.g drug addicts

Question 8

rebellion

Answer 8

reject goals of society and replace them with radically different ones e.g black lives matter and extinction rebellion protests both want radical change

Question 9

evaluation

Answer 9

assumes motivation for crime is individual, ignores gangs

doesn’t explain why those who have met goals commit crime e.g wealthy people committing fraud

variety of goals such as family life

not all crimes have a material reward e.g sexual assault

Question 10

Outline three ways in which people respond when they cannot achieve societies shared goals

Answer 10

One way in which people might respond is through conformity, this means they will continue to work hard and follow rules in order to achieve social goals as they believe this is doable if they put the effort in, such as reflected in the American Dream.

Another way is through innovation, this response is linked to criminal behaviour because even though a person remains committed to societies goals, they are not committed to using legitimate means. This could mean economic crimes such as theft and fraud.

A third way is through retreatism, this is when someone rejects both societies goals and any means of achieving them and will remove themselves from mainstream society, an example of this is becoming a drug addict.