SOC - Functionalism & Crime

Question 1

Functionalism

Answer 1

• society is a stable system based on shared values.
• Crime and deviance disrupts this stability. Nevertheless, functionalists recognise that crime is both inevitable functional for society.

Question 2

Key theories linked to functionalism

Answer 2

• Anomie and the functions of crime
• Strain Theory
• Subcultural Theory

Question 3

Durkheim

Answer 3

• laws reflect the shared values of society. (Value consensus)
• Anomie
• Boundary Maintenance
• Adaption and change

Question 4

Anomie

Answer 4

State of normlessness
- as societies become so large, industrialised and urbanised… there was a risk that individuals could lose sight of the values that unite them. major cause of suicide
EG London Riots

Question 5

Durkheim’s Overview of crime as inevitable

Answer 5

• Not everyone is equally effectively socialised into shared norms and values, so some individuals will be prone to deviate.
• Different subcultures develop their own norms and values. What is normal to them may be deviant to the mainstream society.
• In a society of saints, the slightest slip would be regarded as highly deviant.

Question 6

Boundary Maintenance ( functional )

Answer 6

• Crime produces a reaction from society.

- The wrongdoer is stigmatised, reaffirming what is right and wrong to the test of society.

Question 7

Adaptation and Change ( functional)

Answer 7

-Crime sends a message that people’s values no longer align with the law.
-This way the law can be adapted to reflect societies changing values.
EG gay marriage

Question 8

Durkheim Evaluation

Answer 8

• Feminists argue how domestic violence and crimes against women are functional
• Fails to ask ‘Functional for whom’. ignores victims (Left Realism)

Question 9

Robert Merton

Answer 9

Strain Theory

Question 10

Strain Theory

Answer 10

In western societies, there is much emphasis placed on the value of material wealth. However, the gap between the cultural goals and the institutionalized means of achieving them puts strain on individuals.

Question 11

How do individuals respond to the strain of western society?

Answer 11

• Conformity
• Innovation
• Ritualism
• Retreatism

Question 12

Conformity

Answer 12

• conforming to both the same goals and the conventional/legal means of achieving them. why stability and continuity of a society is maintained

Question 13

Innovation

Answer 13

when people still value the cultural goals but reject the institutionalized means of achieving them. Thus, individuals are free to obtain the goals by the most efficient means necessary, which can often be crime (e.g., stealing, prostitution, drug dealing)

Question 14

Retreatism

Answer 14

Occurs when people reject both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means. Can include the activities of psychotics, psychoneurotics, drug addicts, and alcoholics

Question 15

Merton Evaluation

Answer 15

• takes official statistics at face value. For others, they are nothing more than a social construction (Cicourel).
• Can only account for utilitarian crimes for monetary gain. It cannot explain crimes such as violence, vandalism or state crimes such as torture, genocide etc.

Question 16

Hirschi

Answer 16

• Social Control Theory/Bonds of attachment theory

Question 17

Hirschi Overview

Answer 17

• Crime is most common amongst individuals who are detached from society
  Four types of attachment – Commitment, Involvement, Attachment, Belief
  Correlation between truancy, single parent households, unemployment and crime

Question 18

Four Bonds of attachment (Hirschi)

Answer 18

• Commitment (career)
• Involvement (School activities, religious groups, community organisations)
• Attachment ( Family, friends, community)
• Belief ( tolerance ,fairness)

Question 19

Hirshi Evaluation

Answer 19

Can’t explain elite crimes, elites are attached (Marxism)

Question 20

Davis

Answer 20

• Prostitution

- Crime is Functional

Question 21

Kinsley Davis Overview

Answer 21

• SW acts as a safety valve for the release of men’s sexual frustrations without threatening the monogamous nuclear family.

Question 22

Davis Evaluation

Answer 22

• Feminists argue that prostitution is not functional for women, though the debate over whether sex work empowers or degrades women remains contentious. - fails to account for crime not committed by men in monogamous nuclear families, as well as specific crimes like fraud or theft

Question 23

Albert Cohen

Answer 23

• Both agreed and disagreed with Merton
• Structural Theory
• Alternative status hierarchy

Question 24

Cohen’ Alternative status hierarchy Overview

Answer 24

In working-class areas, boys must solve the problem of not being able to obtain middle-class status. Can achieve financial success through crime; however, cannot achieve other aspects of middle-class status (e.g., respect) through crime. Thus, lower- and working-class boys adapt to their goal blockage by setting up a deviant subculture, such as a gang, in which they can achieve status through delinquent means.

Question 25

Cohen Evaluation

Answer 25

• explains what Merton can’t about group delinquency rather than individual delinquency.
• Explains non-utilitarian crime as its status frustration and rejection of values
• Not all WC boys commit crime

Question 26

Cloward and Ohlin

Answer 26

Subcultural Theory

• suggest three different types of subculture responses which are given rise to by varied social circumstance.
• Criminal subcultures
• Conflict subcultures
• Retreatist subcultures

Question 27

Cloward and Ohlin Overview

Answer 27

• agree with Merton and say that WC boys are denied the legitimate ways to achieve and they delinquency stems from this as a strain,but Cloward and Ohlin try to identify why all of the WC boys don’t become rebellious, like the 4 different groups .
• also suggest that Cohen doesn’t explain why there is diversity in subculture responses.

Question 28

Criminal subcultures

Answer 28

• give WC boys the opportunity to participate in utilitarian crime (crime for gain), and most likely occur in neighbourhoods which already have crime links to professional crime and a stable adult criminal structure which can act as a profession to WC boys who will be taught by the criminal adults.

Question 29

Conflict Subcultures

Answer 29

area’s of great population turn over (moving in and out) where there cannot be established a stable criminal culture and rely on violent crimes as a source of frustration release and status

Question 30

Retreatist Subcultures

Answer 30

This third group are made up of those who have failed to be successful either way, ‘double failure’ at both illegitimate and legitimate means and goal. They drop out of society and turn to drugs abuse and alcoholism, funded mainly by small crimes for each hit.

Question 31

Cloward and Ohlin Evaluation

Answer 31

• exaggerates the differences between the subcultures, and like most things they actually overlap. For instance utilitarian crime is present in all three subcultures
• Like Merton, Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin both forget the crimes of the wealthy, and the wide power structure, and over represent working class crime.