FUNCTIONALIST ON CRIME

Question 1

functionalist perspective

Answer 1

• Crime is caused when everyone is not effectively socialised into the shared norms and values.
• Secondly, due to diversity of lifestyles and values, different groups develop their own subcultures with distinctive n+v, and what the members regard as normal, mainstream culture may be deviant.

Question 2

Durkheim

Answer 2

• Deviance itself is functional, normal and inevitable
• A limited amount of crime is necessary - too much crime threatens to tear the bonds of society apart but too little crime means that soc. is repressing and controlling it’s members too much, stifing individual freedom and preventing change.
• Crime has positive functions:
  1. Boundary maintenance - crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in condemnation of the wrongdoer and reinforcing their commitment to the shared n+v.
• 2. Adaption and change - for Durkheim, all change starts with an act of deviance. Individuals can express new ideas, values and ways of living through deviance. If such ideas were suppressed, soc.will stagnate and be unable to make necessary adaptive changes.

Question 3

Clinard and Cohen

Answer 3

• Shared D’s viewpoint of crime serving the function of boundary maintenance.
• A certain criminal behaviour or deviancy can indicate a problem in society or, more specifically, an institution.
• For example, truancy could indicate failure of the education system which could lead to policy change.

Question 4

Davis

Answer 4

• Believed that crime can act as a safety valve for potential social disrupt.
• For example, prositution acts as a safety valve for the release of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the monogamous nuclear family.

Question 5

Polsky (1967)

Answer 5

• Argues that pornography safety ‘channels’ a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives such as adultery, which would pose a much greater threat to the family

Question 6

Erikson (1966)

Answer 6

• Similarly to labelling theorists, Erikson argues that agencies of social control actually produce rather than prevent crime.
• Suggests that the function of agencies of social control such as the police may actually be to sustain a certain level of crime rather than to get rid of it.

Question 7

Functionalist perspective
EV.

Answer 7

+ Provides interesting analysis that suggests that deviance can have hidden or latent functions for society (not everything that is bad, is bad for society).
- It is not clear how much deviance is required to function successfully.
- Does not provide an explanation as to why crime exists in the first place, just simply how it could be seen as advantageous
- Functional for whom? Yes punishment may help establish value consensus but it it isn’t functional for the victim.
+ Some forms of crime do reinforce collective sentiments. In times of trouble, communities often come together.
- However, more often than not, crime does not prompt solidarity and instead encourages isolation and fear.