- The functions of crime;

1. Boundary maintenance - crime produces a reaction that unites society members against he wrongdoer.
2. Social change - individuals with new ideas must challenge existing norms and values. 3. Safety value - e.g. prostitution acts to release men's sexual frustrations without threatening the nuclear family.
3. Warning light - deviance indicates that an institution isn't functioning properly.
   

The four possible deviant ways of adapting to societal strain:

• Innovation - innovators accept the goal but find illegal ways of achieving it.
• Ritualism - give up striving for success.
• Retreatism - dropouts who reject both goals and means, 'vagrants, drunkards and drug addicts'.
• Rebellion - reject existing goals and means, replacing them with new ones with the aim of changing society.
  

Definition - functionalists see society as a stable structure based on shared norms, values and beliefs about being right and wrong.
However crime is inevitable in some societies because some individuals in every society is deviant.

Robert K. Merton implies root cause of crime lies in the unequal structure of society.
Focus on USA, American society values 'money success' as the goals through education and career.
However, not everyone has an equal chance of success due to unequal society.
Working class opportunities blocked by poverty which creates strain.

Definition - labelling theory states that no act is deviant or criminal in itself. It only becomes so when we create rules and apply them to others.

Self-fulfilling prophecy; - Primary deviance - acts that have not been publicly labelled.

• Secondary deviance - results from labelling.
  People may treat the offender in terms of their label (master status).

Differential enforcement of the law - social control agencies e.g. the police label certain groups as criminal. This results in differential enforcement i.e. where the law is enforced more against one group than another.

The deviance amplification theory - the attempt to control deviance leads to it increasing.
E.g. Mods and Rockers

• Media exaggeration - caused growing public concern.
• Moral entrepreneurs - police responded by arresting youths.
• Negative labelling - of mods and rockers as 'folk devils'.