Functionalist Theories of Crime

Question 1

An action that breaks a written law of society.

Answer 1

Crime

Question 2

An action that breaks the norms and values of a particular society.

Answer 2

Deviance

Question 3

Methods used to persuade or force people to behave in socially accepted ways.

Answer 3

Social Control

Question 4

Expected ways of behaving in society.

Answer 4

Norms

Question 5

Beliefs about what is right and wrong.

Answer 5

Values

Question 6

Believe that society is based upon value consensus.

Answer 6

Functionalism

Question 7

Shared rules of behaviour become less clear.

Answer 7

Anomie

Question 8

Society is made up of various institutions - they all need to be functioning properly for society to function.

Answer 8

Organic Anaology

Question 9

A shared agreement about what is right and wrong.

Answer 9

Value Consensus

Question 10

Shared morality/moral code.

Answer 10

Collective Conscience

Question 11

Making individuals feel a part of something.

Answer 11

Social Solidarity

Question 12

The shared beliefs and norms passed on through social institutions shapes and constrains the behaviour of the individual.

Answer 12

Structural Consensus Theory

Question 13

Deviance facilitates social change. If people never deviated from a society’s norms and values, then society would never change.

Answer 13

Adaptation and Change

Question 14

Crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members against the wrongdoer and reinforcing the commitment to the value consensus.

Answer 14

Boundary Maintenance

Question 15

Some deviance allows people to ‘let off steam’ in relatively harmless ways - allows people to de-stress.

Answer 15

Safety Valve

Question 16

When crime/deviance occurs, it sends a message to us that society’s social order is breaking down. This prompts the government to do something about the problem.

Answer 16

Warning Light

Question 17

People experience ‘strain’ because of blocked opportunities for reaching the American dream.

Answer 17

Merton’s Strain Theory

Question 18

Response to strain theory - Individuals accept the money success goal but use illegitimate means to achieve it. This is typical of those who lack legitimate opportunities.

Answer 18

Innovation

Question 19

He argues that lower class people are frustrated because they want to be successful but they lack the qualifications and skills to do so, leaving them at the bottom of the ‘status hierarchy’.

Answer 19

Cohen’s Status Frustration Theory

Question 20

Illegitmate opportunity structure - Not everyone gets the same chance to be criminal, different neighbourhoods provide different illegitmate opportunities.

Answer 20

Cloward and Ohlin

Question 21

Established criminal networks focused on utilitarian crime.

Answer 21

Criminal Subculture

Question 22

Exist in areas with high population turn over, have limited access to opportunity structures.

Answer 22

Conflict Subculture

Question 23

Formed where people have failed to succeed in both opportunity structures and are therefore ‘doube failures’.,

Answer 23

Retreatist Subculture

Question 24

He suggests that working class boys are socialised into a number of distinct values that together meant they were more likely than others to engage in delinquent or deviant behaviour (exictement, toughness, smartness, autonomy, fate).

Answer 24

Miller’s Focal Concerns