Functionalist, Strain and Subcultural Theories

Question 1

Why does Durkheim regard crime as inevitable in all societies?

Answer 1

Because some people are not effectively socialised and because in complex societies there are
subcultural differences in norms and values.

Question 2

Identify two ways in which crime and deviance may have positive functions.

Answer 2

Boundary maintenance – reinforcing norms and values for the majority; adaptation – facilitating
social change; safety‐valve, warning of a societal malfunction.

Question 3

Explain the difference between goals and means.

Answer 3

Goals are the things we are expected to want and strive for, such as success, money, fast cars;
means are the ways in which a person may obtain or achieve these goals.

Question 4

Explain the difference between ritualism and retreatism.

Answer 4

Ritualists have lost sight of society’s goals, but still follow the legitimate means or rules;
retreatists have rejected both society’s goals and the legitimate means to achieve them.

Question 5

In what sense is Merton’s Theory deterministic?

Answer 5

It assumes that all those who experience a strain to anomie will deviate, but many who
experience strain do not deviate.

Question 6

What is meant by non-utilitarian crime?

Answer 6

Crime that has no economic motive, such as vandalism.

Question 7

What is meant by ‘Status Frustration’?

Answer 7

The feeling created when individuals find their access to legitimate means of achieving status is
blocked.

Question 8

In Cloward and Ohlin’s view, why are there different types of deviant subculture?

Answer 8

Because not everyone who fails in mainstream society has equal access to an illegitimate
opportunity structure; e.g. some areas have an organised professional criminal structure but
others do not.

Question 9

Identify two features of American Society the Messner and Rosenfeld claim produce high crime rates.

Answer 9

Because not everyone who fails in mainstream society has equal access to an illegitimate
opportunity structure; e.g. some areas have an organised professional criminal structure but
others do not.

Question 10

What does Functionalists see Society as based on?

Answer 10

Value Consensus. It sees its members of society as sharing a common culture.

Question 11

What is a culture?

Answer 11

A culture is a set of shared norms, rules and values, beliefs and goals.

Question 12

Functionalists argue that in order to achieve social solidarity society has two main mechanisms, what are they?

Answer 12

Socialisation-Helps to ensure its members internalise the same norms and values, and they feel it right to act in the way that society requires.
Social Control-Mechanisms includes rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance. These ensure that individuals behave in the way society expects.

Question 13

Quote from Durkheim about crime?

Answer 13

‘Crime is normal…an integral part of all healthy societies’.

Question 14

Positive functions of crime?

Answer 14

Boundary Maintenance-The purpose of punishment is to reaffirm society’s shared rules and reinforce social solidarity.
Adaption and Change-For Durkheim all change starts with an act of deviance.

Question 15

For Durkheim why is neither a very high nor a very low rate of crime desirable?

Answer 15

Too much crime threatens to tear the bonds of society apart. Too little means that society is repressing and controlling its members too much, stifling individual freedom and preventing change.

Question 16

Kingsley Davis (1937;1961)

Answer 16

He argues that prostitution acts as a safety valve for the release of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the monogamous nuclear family.

Question 17

Ned Polsky (1967)

Answer 17

He argues that pornography safely channels a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives such as adultery, which would pose as a much greater threat to the family.

Question 18

Albert Cohen.

Answer 18

He says deviance is a warning that an institution is not functioning properly.

Question 19

Kai Erikson (1966)

Answer 19

He argues that if crime and deviance perform social functions, then perhaps it means society is actually organised as so to promote deviance. Agencies of social control are there to maintain a certain level of crime not get rid of it.

Question 20

Summary of Functionalism (Positive)

Answer 20

It is useful in showing the ways in which deviance is integral to society. It provides an important and interesting analysis that directs attention to the ways in which deviance can have hidden or latent functions for society-Not everything that is bad is bad for society!