Functionalism

• Value consensus: Agreement among societies members about which values are important, a shared cuture.
• Culture: All the things learnt by society or a group, transmitted from generation to generation through socialisation.
• Two key mechanisms that are used to achieve solidarity: Socialisation and social control.
• Socialisation: Instils shared culture into its members, helps ensure individuals internalise same values.
• Social control: The means by which society tries to ensure that all its members behave as others expect. E.G. peer pressure and police.
• Durkheim gave two functions for crime: Boundary maintenance and Adaption/change
• Boundary maintenance: Crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in condemnation of the criminal.
• Adaption/change: For society to adapt and change crime must be committed. Change begins with deviance and we need it to challenge norms.
• • For Durkheim neither too much or too little crime is desirable.
  • Too much crime threatens to tear bonds of society apart.
  • Too little crime means society is too controlling, stifling individuals freedom and preventing change.
• Anomie: When the norms and values of society are unclear, people become confused about how to behave. Social order is threatened and people don't feel their behaviour is constrained by norms – a feeling of normlessness.
• Davis (1937): Prostitution acts as a 'safety valve', allowing men to take out their sexual frustrations without harming the nuclear family.
• Polsky (1967): Pornography safely channels sexual desires away from alternatives such as adultery, which would pose a greater threat to the nuclear family.
• Cohen : Deviance acts as a warning that an institution is dysfunctional. E.G. high levels of truancy means something is wrong in the education system.
• Erickson: Society may be organised so that it promotes deviance, police may not be trying to get rid of crime but rather sustain it to a certain level.
• Erikson: There is no boundary function for the elite because the value consensus is definiens by the elite, this shows that the boundary function is to oppose the working class
• Criticisms of Durkheim:

  • Society doesn't actually create crime in advance with the intention of these functions, They aren't why crime exists.
  • It ignores how crime may affect other certain individuals. E.G prostitution may help the nuclear family but it doesn't help the woman who was illegally trafficked into becoming a sex worker.
  • Crime doesn't always promote solidarity, e.g. women may stay inside in fear of being attacked but men doesn't understand why they are scared.
• Merton has two explanations for deviance: Structural and cultural factors.
• Structural factors: Society has an unequal opportunity structure.
• Cultural factors: The strong emphasis on success goals and the weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve them.
• Merton's strain theory: When everyone has the same goals but not the same legitimate means of achieving it causing crime to occur so all can achieve it.
• American dream (Merton): Society is meritocratic where anyone who makes an effort can get ahead with opportunities for all.
• Five groups who react to strain (Merton): Conformists, ritualists, retreatists, innovators, rebels.
• Merton's strain theory-Conformists:

  • Individuals accept culturally approved goals and want to achieve them legitimately.
  • Typical response
  • Most likely middle class people
• Merton's strain theory - Innovation:

  • Accept the culturally approved goals of money and success.
  • Use illegitimate means such as theft to achieve them.
  • Most likely working class people.
• Merton's strain theory - Ritualism:

  • Given up on trying to reach the goals but have internalised legitimate means.
  • Follows rules for their own sake.
  • Typically lower to middle class office worker with a dead end job.
• Merton's strain theory - Retreatism:

  • Individuals reject both the goals and legitimate means to reach them.
  • Could turn to becoming a drug addict for example.
• Merton's strain theory - Rebellion:

  • Individuals reject existing societies goals and means.
  • Replaces them with new ones in a desire to bring about change and create a new kind of society.
  • These include political radicals and counter-cultures such as hippies.
• Criticisms of Merton:

  • It takes official crime statistics at face value which over represents the working class causing the theory to ignore other classes.
  • Marxists argue that it ignores the ruling class to make and enforce the laws in ways that criminalize the poor.
  • It assumes there is value consensus and everyone has the same goals.
  • Only accounts for utilitarian crime.
  • Ignores group role.
• Strengths of Merton:

  • Explains patterns of crime statistics.
• Subculture: A group of people within society who share norms and values that are different from mainstream culture. Deviant subcultures are often seen as forming in reaction to a failure to achieve mainstream goals through the legitimate opportunity structure.
• Cohen criticizes Merton as he only looks at the individual response to strain, ignoring group reactions and he focuses on utilitarian crime such a theft, ignoring assault and violent crime.
• Cohen argues that lower class boys experience status frustration as a result of being unable to achieve status by legitimate means. They resolve this frustration by rejecting mainstream values and instead turn to each other to form deviant subcultures.
• Status frustration: When working class boys are unable to achieve status through legitimate means, causing them to turn to others in the same position to gain status from them through commiting crimes.
• Cohen said that in deviant subcultures their values are the exact opposite of mainstream society. E.G. they praise violence and crime due to gaining respect from the others in the same subculture.
• Cohen said that a function of deviant subcultures is that it allows working class boys a chance at gaining status in a hierarchy they can achieve.
• Evaluation of Cohens status frustration - Strengths:

  • Offers an explanation for non-utilitarian deviance.
  • Looks at the group response to strain.
• Evaluation of Cohens status frustration - Limitations:

  • Like Merton he assumes that working class boys start off by sharing middle class goals, only to reject them once they fail. Ignores the possibility that they may not have shared these goals in the first place.
• Cloward and Ohlin: Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of legitimate opportunities. They attempt to explain why these different responses occur.
• Cloward and Ohlin say the key reason for different subcultures is the idea that there isn't equal opportunities to access both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures.
• Cloward and Ohlin state that different neighborhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people.