functionalism, strain & subcultural theories

• Durkheim 


  The inevitability of crime.

  Two reasons why crime and deviance are found in all societies:

  • Socialisation - Not everyone is equally and effectively socialised into society’s shared norms and values so are likely to deviate.

  • Weakened collective conscience leads to increased crime and deviance.

  Crime has two positive functions for society:

  • Boundary maintenance - Punishment reaffirms society’s shared rules and reinforces social solidarity.

  • Adaptation and change - eg Jamie Bulger case.
• Davis


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


  Pornography safely channels a variety of sexual desires away from alternatives such as adulatory, which would pose a much greater threat to the family.
• Erikson


  The true function of agencies of social control, such as the police, may actually be to sustain a certain level of crime, rather than to get rid of it.
• Sowing your wild oats


  Societies sometimes manage and regulate deviance rather than seeking to eliminate it entirely.

  E.g. Festivals.
• Criticisms of Durkheim

  How much is the right amount of crime?

  Ignores the effect of crime on the individual.

  Ignores the causes of crime.

  Crime can cause social isolation - eg fear.
• Conformity


  Accept culturally approved goals and strive to achieve them legitimately
• Innovation


  Accept goal but achieve through illegitimate means
• Ritualism


  Give up on achieving goals but still use legitimate means
• Retreatism


  Reject both goals and legitimate means and become dropouts
• Rebellion


  Reject society’s goals and means and replace them with new ones
• Merton

  Strain theory:

  Strain between structural (society’s unequal opportunity structure) and cultural (strong emphasis on success and weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve them) factors. People unable to achieve legitimately innovate and achieve illegitimately. E.g. American dream.
• Merton: an individuals position in society affects how they adapt or respond to strain to anomie


  • conformity

  • innovation

  • ritualism

  • retreatism

  • rebellion
• Cohen


  Status frustration

  Focus on deviance among working class boys:

  • Cultural deprivation - lack skills to achieve, leaving them at the bottom of the hierarchy.

  • Status frustration - reject mainstream m/c values and form subcultures.

  • Alternative status hierarchy - delinquent subculture inverts values of mainstream society.
• Cloward & Ohlin

  3 subcultures:

  criminal - provide youths with an apprenticeship into utilitarian crime.

  conflict - loosely organised gangs in which violence provides a release for young mens’ frustration.

  Retreatist - double failures (fail in both illegitimate and legitimate means).