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Fucntionalist Theory on Crime and Deviance - Coggle Diagram
Fucntionalist Theory on Crime and Deviance
Durkheim
Every society shares a set of core values (Collective conscience)
The greater the behaviour different from these values was likely ot be more deviant.
Strong collective conscience and fair legal system compensated those harmed by deviant behaviour, forming the basis of social order.
Positives and Negatives to Crime
Positive side helped society change and remain dynamic
Reaffirming boundaries: every time a person breaks the law and is taken to court,, the publicity publicly reaffirms values. Especially evident if prosecution is public.
Changing values: People set out to break laws because they believe they are wrong. (Functional rebels) aiming to change the collective conscience, such changes will help society function better. (E.g Nelson Mandela)
Social cohesion: when particularly horrific crimes occurs, the entire community draws together in shared outrage, which strengthens the sense of belonging.
Safety valve: Davis
Allowed minor criminality to avoid bigger problems.
The institution of marriage could be protected and stabilised by some men buying the services of prostitutes.
Employment: Cohen
Crime could boost employment and thus the economy by creating jobs for the police and others who work in criminal justice.
Crime is an early working mechanism that institutions in society are going wrong. This means that they can be corrected before too much harm is done, then crime is brought back under control.
Negative side saw too much crime causing social disruption
Anomie occurs during times of immense social change or unrest.
Old norms and values may come under challenge without new ones becoming established.
Here, there is uncertainty over what is acceptable, where people are partially freed from the social control imposed by collective conscience.
Egoism occurs when the selfishness of individuals exceeds the weakness of collective conscience.
Occurs in industrialised societies where such specialist jobs means people have very different roles in society, with different values to carry out their role correctly.
Occurs if socialisation of collective values is insufficient.
Evaluation
Newburn argues that Durkheim has been central to sociological thinking of crime
First to suggest some level of crime is normal
Crime is linked to the values of society.
A criticism is that he was vague in determining what crimes were beneficial for society, as crimes such as marauder and sex crimes are far from beneficial, with no highlighting or remorse for the victim.
Merton
Strain Theory
Disagreed with many functionalists saying that all aspects of society are beneficial- they can become dysfunctional.
Crime and deviance was the difference between socially accepted goals and the socially approved means.
Unlike subculutral theorists, forced on individual not group responses to strain.
Writing in the USA, main goals of wealth and power, claiming even th poorest had opportunity to succeed, but Merton was aware this was not true.
In an unequal class based society, higher classes had more opportunity.
Lower classes grew a disenchantment with society sought alternative ways to achieve these goals.
Identified 5 adaptations to strain.
Conformity
Individual continues to adhere to both goals and means , typical of most people.
Innovation
Acceots the goals using different means, includes criminal behaviour, more common is lower social classes.
Ritualism
IMmersed in daily routine and regulations yet retains none of the goals to get promoted for instance.
Retreatism
Rejects both goals and means as they fail to achieve success, may become dependent on drugs or alcohol.
Rebellion
Socially sanctioned goals and means are rejected, with different substitutions such as political activism.
Evaluation
Valier: criticises the existence of common goals in society, such as altruism over financial success.
Taylor, Walton and Young: Underestimates middle and upper class crime while overestimating working class crime.
Fails to explain non utilitarian crime.
Reiner: contemporary examples of 2011 London Riots and Parliamentary expenses scandal.
Cloward and Ohlin
Illegitimate Opportunity Structure
Development of Merton.
Merton failed to mention the parallel opportunity structure. There were subcultures in society, recognised illegal means to obtain society’s goals . Organised crime meant young people could look to crime for a successful career,
3 Possible adaptations or subcultures:
Criminal: Young offenders can work their way up to successful role models.
Encouraged young people s it was relatable to see people from the same background achieve success. Prove themselves to be good ‘employees’ through loyalty and responsibility to achieve promotions.
Conflict: no local criminal subculture but territorial gangs exist .
Violence is a means of achieving respect when recruited which could become a substitute for qualifications .
Retreatust: Individuals have no opportunity to engage in either.
This way they are a double failure. , retreating into drug/alcohol dependence.
Evaluations
Large scale organised crime is not a big issue in the UK, it is more loose-knit networks, where individuals see themselves as individual entrepreneurs rather than employees.
There is no neat distinction into one of the subcultures in real life, as there is an overlap for instance with criminal and retreating subcultures, heroin addicts are most responsible for crime in any neighbourhood.
Cohen
Status frustration and subculture
Most offending behaviour was not economically motivated therefore did not fit into the ‘innovator’ ideals.
Much delinquent activity was group activty.
Lower class boys strive to emulate middle class values and aspirations.
Status frustration is a sense of personal inadequacy.
they invert these mc values by behaving badly and engaging in a variety of antisocial behaviours
They gain status from their peer group who have adopted similar values.
Evaluation
Box suggests may only apply to minority of offenders who originally accept the mainstream values.
Miller says it is because working class culture does not correspond to the mc environemtn of school.