Strain Theories of Crime and Deviance

• Strain theory argues the reason people engage in crime is because they can't achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means
• Socially Approved Goals include money and success
• Legitimate means refer to education and job opportunity
• Merton theorised Strain Theory
• Merton says that deviance is a combination of both unequal opportunities for all of societies members and a set of cultural goals with less emphasis on achieving success legitimately
• The American Dream promotes meritocracy but the reality is many disavantaged groups are denied opportunities
• The contradiction of the American Dream leads to strain between cultural goals and the lack of legitimate opportunities to achieve them, causing frustration
• Merton argues that the frustration from the strain of the American Dream leads to 'the strain to anomie'
• The pressure to deviate further increases because American Culture puts more emphasis on achieving success at any cost
• Merton identifies 5 different ways people can adapt to strain
• The five ways Merton found peoples can adapt to strain include;

  • Conformity
  • Innovation
  • Ritualism
  • Retreatism
  • Rebellion
• Conformity as an adaptation to strain means someone accepts cultural goals and institutional means, typically these people are middle class
• Innovation means people only accept cultural goals (success/money) so may commit drug relate offences
• Ritualism means someone only accepts institutional means (Education/Job) so will join a dead end job
• Retreatism means someone rejects both cultural goals and institutional means so may become homeless
• Rebellion means someone may create new cultural goals and new institutional means, such as a revolutionary
• Merton is criticised as he only focusses on utilitarian crime
• Merton can be seen as too deterministic
• Merton assumes there is value consensus for all people, such as everyone striving for money success at first