Crime topic 1

• Functionalist theory


  Society is based on value consensus and shared norms among members of society
• Functionalist theory


  • Socialisation into the shared culture and social control mechanisms (rewards for conformity, punishments for deviance) help to ensure individuals behave in the way society expects
• Anomie


  Normlessness - the rules governing behaviour become unclear
• Positive functions of crime

  1. Boundary maintenance - crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members in condemnation of the wrongdoer and reinforcing commitment to shared norms and values

  2. Adaptation and change - all change starts with an act of deviance, which challenges existing norms and values and allows society to adapt and change
• A very high or very low level of crime is undesirable, as each signals some malfunctioning of the social system</b>
• Strain theory


  People engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means
• Merton's strain theory


  • Combines structural factors (society's unequal opportunity structure) and cultural factors (strong emphasis on success and weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve it)
• Types of adaptation to the strain to anomie

  • Conformity
  • Innovation
  • Ritualism
  • Retreatism
  • Rebellion
• Merton's theory explains patterns of deviance found in society, with individuals' position in the social structure affecting how they adapt or respond to the strain to anomie
• Subcultural strain theories see deviance as the product of a delinquent subculture with different values from those of mainstream society, providing an alternative opportunity structure for those denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means
• A.K. Cohen's subcultural strain theory sees deviance as resulting from 'status frustration' - the inability of lower-class youths to achieve the status and respect they desire through legitimate means
• The theory is criticised on several grounds
• It takes official crime statistics at face value. These over-represent working-class crime, so Merton sees crime as a mainly working-class phenomenon
• It is too deterministic - the working class experience the most strain, yet they don't all deviate
• Marxists argue that it ignores the power of the ruling class to make and enforce the laws in ways that criminalise the poor but not the rich
• Subcultural strain theories


  See deviance as the product of a delinquent subculture with different values from those of mainstream society. They see subcultures as providing an alternative opportunity structure for those who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means, mainly those in the working class. Subcultures are a solution to a problem and therefore functional for their members, even if not for wider society
• A.K. Cohen: status frustration

  Deviance is largely a lower-class phenomenon, resulting from the inability of those in the lower classes to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as educational achievement. Cohen criticises Merton's explanation of deviance on two grounds: Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the fact that much deviance is committed in groups, especially among the young; and Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain, such as theft or fraud, ignoring crimes such as assault and vandalism, which may have no economic motive
• Cohen focuses on deviance among working-class boys. He argues that they face anomie in the middle-class dominated school system, suffering from cultural deprivation and lacking the skills to achieve
• Cohen's theory explains how deviance results from individual response to the strain of anomie, but ignores the role of group deviance, such as delinquent subcultures
• Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures


  Criminal subcultures provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime, arising only in neighbourhoods with a longstanding and stable criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adult crime. Conflict subcultures arise in areas of high population turnover, resulting in high levels of social disorganisation, where violence provides a release for young men's frustration at their blocked opportunities. Retreatist subcultures are based on legal drug use
• Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton and Cohen that most crime is working-class, thus ignoring crimes of the wealthy. Similarly, their theory over-predicts the amount of working-class crime
• Cloward and Ohlin, like Merton and Cohen, ignore the wider power structure, including who makes and enforces the law
• Strain theories have been called reactive theories because they explain subcultures as forming in reaction to the failure to achieve mainstream goals. They have been criticised for assuming that everyone starts off sharing the same mainstream success goal
• Walter B. Miller argues that the lower class has its own independent subculture separate from mainstream culture, with its own values, so its members are not frustrated by failure to achieve mainstream goals
• David Matza claims that most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subculture, as strain theories suggest, but merely drift in and out of delinquency
• Recent strain theorists argue that young people may pursue a variety of goals other than money success, such as popularity with peers, autonomy from adults, or the desire of some young males to be treated like 'real men'. Failure to achieve these goals may result in delinquency
• Institutional anomie theory


  Messner and Rosenfeld's theory focuses on the American Dream and its obsession with money success and 'winner-takes-all' mentality, which exert pressures towards anomie by encouraging an 'anything goes' mentality in pursuit of wealth. In societies based on free-market capitalism and inadequate welfare provision, such as the USA, high crime rates are inevitable
• Downes and Hansen found that societies that spent more on welfare had lower rates of imprisonment, backing up Messner and Rosenfeld's claim that societies that protect the poor from the worst excesses of the free market have less crime
• Savelsberg applies strain theory to post-communist societies in Eastern Europe, which saw a rise in crime after the fall of communism in 1989, attributing this to communism's collective values being replaced by new western capitalist goals of individual money success