Functionalist view of crime Flashcards
Who says crime is inevitable and why? (first explanation)
- Durkheim argues that crime is a “normal and integral part of all healthy societies”
- not everyone is socialised effectively into the collective norms and values in society, so some people will naturally deviate
Who says crime is inevitable and why? (second explanation)
- modern societies have a diversity of lifestyles and values.
- Different groups develop their own subcultures that mainstream society may deem as deviant.
- Modern societies lean towards anomie, the rules governing behaviour become weaker
- meaning people become increasingly different from one another which weakens the collective conscience and results in higher levels of deviance.
who says crime has a postive function of boundary maintenance?
`* Durkheim argues that crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in condemnation of the wrongdoer and reinforcing their commitment to the shared norms and values of society
* Purpose of punishment is to affirm society’s shared values and reinforce social solidarity
* reaffirm difference between right and wrong behaviour
who says crime acts as a safety valve and how?
- Davis
- Deviance allows people to ‘let off steam’ in a relatively harmless way
- De-stress and remain functional
- Prositution - allows for sexual expression without changing monogamy of the family
who says crime acts as a warning
- Cohen
- Acts as a warning for when an insitution is not operating effectively
- Eg; high rates of truancy may reveal that there are issues within the education system
- High crime rates - problems within society
strain theory as an explanation for crime
- Merton
- People are unable to achieve society’s goals by legitimate means
- Deviance is the result of a strain between: the goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve & what the insitutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately
How does the American dream support strain theory?
- Americans are expected to pursue this goal by legitimate means: self discipline, educational qualifications, and hard work in a career, the ideology of the American dream tells Americans that their society is meritocratic where everyone has equal opportunities
- However, many disadvantaged groups are denied chances to achieve goals legitimately eg; discrimination in the job market
- The resulting strain between the cultural goal of money success and lack of legitimate opportunities produces frustrations, and this creates pressure to resort to illegitimate means such as crime and deviance (calls this pressure to deviate the strain to anomie)
Evaluation of Merton
- Cohen
- Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain and ignores the fact that most deviance is committed by groups, especially amongst the young
subcultural strain theory as an explanation for crime
- Cohen - status frustration
- L/c boys begin with goal of success but cultural deprivation leads to academic failure an dead-end job
- Cannot acheive status by legitimate means
- Become frustrated at their lack of opportunites to achieve success
- In response, they join others and reject mainstream values of society
- Achieve status from their peers in the same position by flouting mainstream values - truancy
evaluation of cohen
- Assumes all working class boys start off by sharing middle class goals of success, ignores possibility that they never shared these goals in the first place
- Willis - study of 12 working class white boys who attended one boys only secondary school
- education institution which was irrelevant to their lives as 15-16 year olds because they didn’t need qualifications to move into the manual work they perceived as superior to academic work.
How does Willis’ study show that not all working class boys share middle class values
- Instead of internalizing middle-class values, Willis’s “lads” reject the school system entirely
- status frustration may not universally apply, as some working-class boys are not striving for middle-class status
- but instead embrace their working-class identity
Who says subcultures form? & why?
- Cloward & Ohlin
- Working class youths are denied legitimate opportunites to achieve success and their deviance stems from the way they respond
- Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of opportunities
1st subculture outlined by who?
Cloward & Ohlin
Criminal subculture - offers youths an ‘apprenticeship in crime’ Neighbourhoods with longstanding criminal culture with established hierachy, allows youths to associate with older, more experienced criminals
2nd subculture outlined by who?
- Cloward & Ohlin
- Conflict subculture - neighbourhoods with high population turnover
- Results in high levels of social disorganisation and prevents a stable professional criminal network developing
3rd subculture
Retreatist - arises in any neighbourhood, not everyone aspires to be a professional criminal or succeeds at being one.
‘Double failiures’ - failed at school and failed at being a good criminal so resort to use of drugs
evaluation of cloward & ohlin
- social disorganisation theory
- Park & Burgess
- Changes such as rapid population turnover and migration create instability, disrupting family and community structures
- These become unable to exercise social control over people, resulting in deviance
evaluation of cloward & ohlin (criticism)
- Miller
- Lower class has its own independent subculture, seperate from mainstream culture, with its own values
- Does not value success, so members are not frustrated by failiure
Miller’s theory - how it challenges cloward and ohlin
challenges the assumption that all working-class individuals resort to subcultures out of frustration from failing to achieve mainstream success. According to Miller, the lower class has its own independent subculture that is not shaped by a desire for mainstream goals, like financial or educational success, in the first place
recent strain theories
Dawes and Hansen
study of crime rates and welfare spending in 18 countries
lower rates of imprisonment in societies that spent more money on welfare
What are some deviant adaptations to strain?
Merton
Conformity - accept goals of success and accept the legitimate means of achieving them, most typical response
Innovation- accept the goals of success and not the means, uses illegitimate methods
Ritualism - do not accept goals but accept means
Retreatism - reject both the goals and the means
Rebellion - replace existing goals with a desire to bring about revolutionary chance and create a new means of achieving them
