Functionalism - Strain and Subcultural theories Flashcards
According to Durkheim, why are crime and deviance inevitable in every society?
- Not everyone is equally socialised into the same norms and values so some will be prone to deviate
- The more complex society becomes, the more differing norms and values meaning actions may be regarded as deviant by one culture and not another
What are the positive functions of crime according to Durkheim?
- Boundary maintenance, members of society are united in condemnation reinforcing the values of society, methods such as dramatising courtrooms which publicly shame the wrongdoer.
- Adaptation and change, existing norms must be challenged in the form of deviance meaning no deviance shows a repressed population. Examples include the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement etc.
- Safety valve, deviance can stop society falling into anomie. For example, prostitution or pornography allows men to release sexual frustration reducing the amount of sexual assault, maintaining the nuclear family.
- Societal diagnosis, if high rates of crime exist in one section of society, it reveals a part of society that needs maintenance thus improving society.
What are the criticisms of Durkhiem’s theory of the positive functions of crime?
- Durkheim says that deviance is needed for a degree of social change but does not specify how much deviance is needed.
- Focuses on the positives for the deviant and not the negatives for the victim such as ignoring the negatives for the prostitute who has been sex trafficked in order for men to release sexual frustrations
- Crime doesn’t always lead to solidarity, women are isolated inside out of fear of going outside.
What are strain theories?
- The idea that people engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve societal encouraged goals through socially accepeted means.
What is Merton’s strain theory and how does it exist in the form of the American dream?
Merton believes deviance is the result of two things
- Goals encouraging individuals to achieve
- Unequal access to opportunities
The American dream is an example of this:
- Americans are expected to pursue success legitimately reinforcing the idea of meritocracy
- Disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities due to racism, poverty, etc.
These two factors result in a pressure to succeed at any cost creating crime
What are the different responses in Merton’s strain theory?
- Conformity, Middle class Americans who achieve goals through legitimate means.
- Innovation, Working class Americans who achieve goals through illegitimate means
- Ritualism, given up on success but internalised means, end up in dead end jobs
- Retreatism, Reject both goals and methods, including drugs addicts and vagrants’
- Rebellion. seek to replace societal goals with new ones, including anarchists and hippies
What are the evaluations of Merton’s strain theory?
Positives
- Explains patterns of crime statistics including higher rates of working class crime and property crime being the most common in America
Negatives
- Take crime statistics at face value
- Deterministic, working class people face strain but don’t all face strain.
- Ignores power of the ruling class in criminalising the working class
- Does not explain non-utilitarian crime
- Ignores the role of deviant subcultures
What are Sub cultural strain theories?
- Deviance is the result of a deviant subculture has different values from mainstream society.
- They provide marginalised individuals with alternative status meaning they are functional for the members but not society
What is Cohen’s sub cultural strain theory of status frustration?
- Deviance is a lower class phenomenon
An example he uses is:
- Working class boys face anomie in middle class school system due to cultural deprivation placing them at the bottom of the official status hierarchy
- This status frustration leads to the boys rejecting maintstream values and forming subcultures with the boys with the same problems.
The subcultures values are:
- An invertation of mainstream values and a creation of illegitimate opportunity structure, rewarding deviance such as sexism, vandalism and truancy
What are the evaluations of Cohen’s status frustration theory?
Positives
- Offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance
Negatives
- Assumes boys have to adopt middle class values, achieve status frustration and invert the values in order to become delinquent, ignoring the possibility that the boys never accepted the values in the first place.
What is Cloward and Ohlin’s three subculture theory?
- Notes that everyone who experiences strain does not turn to utilitarian crime.
- Responses to strain are not only formed from access to legitimate but also illegitimate means.
Different neighbourhoods provide different opportunities to young people to learn criminal skills including:
- Criminal subcultures, longstanding criminal neighbourhoods allow the youth to associate with criminals, an apprenticeship of crime
- Conflict subcultures, High population turnover reuslting in social disorganisation preventing the formation of organised crime resulting in loosely formed criminal gangs who gain status through gaining territory
- Retreatist subcultures, People who have failed to achieve through legitimate and illegitimate means turn to drug use. Known as double failures
What are the evaluations of Cloward and Ohlin?
Negatives
- Ignores the crimes of the wealthy and ignore the role of the ruling class in criminalising the working class
- Ignores the possiility of an individual or a group being in two subcultures such as Professional criminals engaging in recreational drug use
- Assumes everyone starts off with the same mainstream goal
Positives
- Provides an explanation for the different types of working class deviance
