Functionalist approach Flashcards
What did Durkheim claim?
He claimed crime is healthy for a society, therefore crime can be functional. If crime is regulated and managed by the relevant social institutions, it can be beneficial in maintaining the value consensus.
What are the three functions of crime?
Boundary maintenance, warning device and safety valve.
What is boundary maintenance?
When people commit crime they are punished by the criminal justice system. This reminds people of the value consensus which therefore strengthens its effectiveness.
What is warning device?
This is when society needs to adapt and change as a result of crime. All change starts with deviance or criminal activity.
What is safety valve?
To ease stresses and frustrations in society.
What sociologist suggested this (safety valve)?
Davis
What did Davis say?
He believes prostitution provides positive functions because it allows men to express sexual frustration without threatening the nuclear family.
What did Merton say?
He discovered the strain theory.
What is the strain theory?
He focused on WHY people commit crimes, rather than the functions it performed for society. ‘The American dream’ - everyone can achieve material success through hard work and determination.
What are the 5 responses to the American dream? Explain them
1) Conformists- those who fail to achieve success but believe hard work will help them achieve their goals.
2) Rebels- They react badly to not achieving success so they abandon it all together and create new goals.
3) Innovators- those who realise they can’t achieve success by conforming through hard work. They create new ways to achieve wealth.
4) Ritualists- They cope with failure through forgetting about the goal but they conform to the means so they work too hard.
5) Retreatists- They give up on goals due to a lack of self-belief and reject the means because it is no longer relevant to them.
Which sociologist discussed status frustration?
Cohen
What is status frustration?
As a result of working class boys being unable to achieve through legitimate means they suffer status frustration. They turn to others in a similar situation and form subcultures, rejecting school goals.
What did cohen claim stays frustration results in?
An alternative status hierarchy, as the boys are competing to see who can be the best delinquent.
What sociologists talked about subcultures?
Cloward and Ohlin
What did Cloward and Ohlin say?
They argued not all subcultures respond to failure in the same way.
