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Sociology Paper 3 > Functionalism on crime > Flashcards

Functionalism on crime Flashcards

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Sociology 101 flashcards
1
Q

What are Durkheims key ideas?

A
  • Crime is inevitable.
  • The perfect amount of crime will keep society healthy and avoid anomie (normlessness).
  • Crime has positive functions.
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2
Q

What are the postive functions of crime?

A
  • Boundary maintenance
  • Adaptation
  • Safety cohesion
  • Safety value
  • Malfunctioning society
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3
Q

What is boundary maintenance?

A

Reaffrims social norms and values of the law abiding majority.

This may be done through rituals of the courtroom, which dramatise wrongdoing discouraging others from rule breaking.

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4
Q

What is adaptation?

A

Functional rebels change the collective conscience for the better.

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5
Q

What happens to social cohesion?

A

Strengthened as we unite in disapproval.

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6
Q

Who promotes the saftey value?

A

Davis.

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7
Q

What is the saftey value?

A

A little bit of deviance reduces more serious problems.

EXAMPLE: Prositution as men releases sexual tension/frustration without threating their marriage which maintains the nuclear family.

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8
Q

What is the malfunctioning society?

A

Links to the warning device that states that criminal activity alerts us to other social problems.

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9
Q

What does strain theory focus on?

A

Why people commit crime.

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10
Q

What is Merton’s key idea?

A

People engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals.

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11
Q

How does Merton explain criminality?

A
  • Deviance is the result between the American dream + legitimate ways if achieveing them.
  • In response to strain within unequal socities produces frustration as some people cannot achieve the goals legititmately.
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12
Q

What is the response to strain?

A

Conformists.

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13
Q

What are the deviant adaptations?

A
  • Innovators
  • Rebels
  • Ritualists
  • Retreatists
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14
Q

What are conformists?

A

Those who fail to achieve success but still believe that hard work will help them achieve their goals.

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15
Q

What are innovators?

A
  • Those who realise they cannot achieve success by conforming to conventional means of hard work.
  • They create new ways to achieve which may lead criminality.
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16
Q

What are rebels?

A

Those who react badly to not achieveing goals therefore abandon it all together and create new goals.

EXAMPLE: Martin Luther King.

17
Q

What are ritualists?

A
  • Those who cope with failure by forgetting about the goal.
  • They compensate for their failure by obessing over the means and therefore work hard and don’t relate/irritate others, resulting in them not progressing in the workplace.
18
Q

What are retreatists?

A
  • Those who give up on the goals as they lack the self belief to achieve them.
  • Convert to habitual drugs and become alcoholics.
19
Q

Why do some people convert to deviant adaptations?

A

Lower class and ethnic minorities are more likely to commit criminal acts because of their position in the social structure.

20
Q

Who researched into status frustration on w/c boys?

A

Cohen.

21
Q

What did Cohen find?

A
  • A subcultural strain theory which argues lower class people are frustrated beacuse they want to be successful but lack the qualifications/skills to do so.
  • They solve this frustration by rejecting society and creating their own subcultures in a gang.
  • Here they achieve status through non-utilitarian crimes like violence and graffiti.
22
Q

Who conducted research into opportunity structures?

A

Cloward and Ohlin.

23
Q

What did Cloward and Ohlin find?

A

That not all subcultures responded to failure in the same way and where you live dictates the type of criminal activity available.

24
Q

What are the subcultures founded by Cloward and Ohlin?

A
  • Criminal
  • Conflict
  • Retreatist
25
Q

What is the criminal subculture?

A
  • Inner-city estates which criminal subculture is dominant.
  • Easy for frustrated youths to learn criminal skills.
  • Have criminal role models.
26
Q

What is the conflict subculture?

A
  • Areas of high social turnover.
  • Gangs battle for control.
27
Q

What is the retreatist subculture?

A
  • Youths who want to be a criminal that are unsuccessful.
  • Become ‘doube failures’ so turn to illegal drug use.

Sociology Paper 3 (11 decks)

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