Sociology Year 2 Revision Notes
Durkheim (Functionalism): crime is functional and boundary maintenance
- Crime and Deviance separate things
- Social construct
- Keywords- social solidarity, norms, values, social cohesion, collective conscience,
organic analogy
- Crime is inevitable, universal, relative (what is seen as criminal varies between
cultures), functional (benefits society), a form of social control
- Uses Nelson Mandela as example (his deviance caused societal change)
- Crime reinforces boundaries (Boundary maintenance)
- Crime is necessary (positive deviants change society + helps it to move with the
times)
- Too much crime= anomie e.g. the looting in London
- Problem if too little/too much crime
- Evaluations- ‘Rose tinted’, how much is too much/little?, wrong to reinforce crime,
not all crime functional
Merton’s Strain theory (functionalism)
- Everybody wants to achieve ‘American dream’
- 5 parts of strain theory (5 ways people achieve American dream)
- Conformity- conform to goals of ‘American Dream’ and do it legit
- Innovation- mainly working class, have the goals but do it illegitimately (using crime)
- Ritualism- lower-middle class, give up on goals but try to achieve as much
legitimately as possible
- Retreatism- give up on goals and legitimate ways of achieving, become alcoholics,
drug addicts
- Rebellion- reject goals, want to replace with different goals and different ways of
achieving
- Evaluations- considers every type of citizen, shows motives of crimes, doesn’t show
motivation for crime like rape and graffiti
Subcultural theory- functionalism (Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin)
- Influenced by Merton
- Deviance is a collective solution rather than individual
- Cohen- youth groups originally accept goals, then realise societal status and reject
goals, create new and deviant goals forming a delinquent subculture. Young men
force themselves into a subcultures purely because it is wrong according to cultural
norms
- Cloward and Ohlin- depends on life choices, some people are offered both
legitimate means of achieving goals and illegitimate ways (like crime), some lack the
criminal way, double-failures occur who retreat to violence and drug + alcohol
abuse, 3 subcultures: Criminal (stable working-class areas, status gained through
gang membership), Conflict (not criminal, but antisocial, violent and aggressive
behaviour), retreatist (alcohol and drugs)
, - David Matza (1964) found that not all working class youth dismissed societal goals
(survey with 100 youths), found delinquents drift in and out of delinquency
Marxism
- Criminogenic capitalism- in-built part of capitalist society, compliments self-interest,
greed, personal gain, relative poverty is emphasised (some struggle to survive and
are excluded from consumer society)
- Selective law enforcement- official statistics suggest that crime is a working class
phenomena but Marxists believe law is not applied equally (selective reinforcement),
certain types of crime are dealt with more rigorously than others
- Chambliss (1976)- US and UK laws protect land owners (ruling class) and criminal
justice system is set up to control working class
- Graham (1976)- used Chambliss theory, found ‘war on drugs’ was only punished if it
did benefit the bourgeoisie
- Media allows the attention to be centred on local, celebrity and shocking news
stories rather than institutions
- Threat of violence from institutions such as the police control outbreaks of cultural
mishaps
- Ruling class decide what is wrong, causing harm to somebody is worth prison time
yet destruction of water sources in India is worth a fine
- More police in inner city where working class live, unequal distribution of law
enforcement
- Box- capitalist organisations convince public that corporate crime is less serious
(mystification), shows official statistics don’t include enough corporate crimes
- Evaluations- challenges dominant views, give solution to crime (communist society),
instrumental in theory developments, ignores individual motivation for crime
(deterministic), the theory is contradictory, focus on intra-class large crimes, Marxist
societies still have high crime rates even though Marxists say communism is the
solution
Neo-Marxism
- Agree that there is an unequal relationship between power and wealth in society
- However, believe that relationship between society and deviance is not simple
- Influenced by Marxism but different
- ‘Policing the Crisis’ Stuart Hall- study about the moral panic with ‘mugging’ in the
1970s, mugging is a concept brought in from US in the 1970s stereotypically done by
Caribbean-African men, Hall believes that the ‘Black mugger’ was like a scapegoat for
the ills of the time period (economic crisis)
- ‘There ain’t no black in the union jack’ Paul Gilroy- describes the relationship
between African-Caribbean’s and the criminal justice system, suggests there is a
myth of black criminality, ethnic minorities are defending themselves against an
unjust system, rioting is a way of taking a stand against the system, says ethnic
minorities are not more likely to commit a crime
- Hegemony
- ‘a fully social theory of deviance’ Taylor, Walton and Young (1973)- when considering
any deviant act, they argued that Marxists should consider: structure of society +
where power resides, the structural ‘macro’ background to the deviant act,
Durkheim (Functionalism): crime is functional and boundary maintenance
- Crime and Deviance separate things
- Social construct
- Keywords- social solidarity, norms, values, social cohesion, collective conscience,
organic analogy
- Crime is inevitable, universal, relative (what is seen as criminal varies between
cultures), functional (benefits society), a form of social control
- Uses Nelson Mandela as example (his deviance caused societal change)
- Crime reinforces boundaries (Boundary maintenance)
- Crime is necessary (positive deviants change society + helps it to move with the
times)
- Too much crime= anomie e.g. the looting in London
- Problem if too little/too much crime
- Evaluations- ‘Rose tinted’, how much is too much/little?, wrong to reinforce crime,
not all crime functional
Merton’s Strain theory (functionalism)
- Everybody wants to achieve ‘American dream’
- 5 parts of strain theory (5 ways people achieve American dream)
- Conformity- conform to goals of ‘American Dream’ and do it legit
- Innovation- mainly working class, have the goals but do it illegitimately (using crime)
- Ritualism- lower-middle class, give up on goals but try to achieve as much
legitimately as possible
- Retreatism- give up on goals and legitimate ways of achieving, become alcoholics,
drug addicts
- Rebellion- reject goals, want to replace with different goals and different ways of
achieving
- Evaluations- considers every type of citizen, shows motives of crimes, doesn’t show
motivation for crime like rape and graffiti
Subcultural theory- functionalism (Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin)
- Influenced by Merton
- Deviance is a collective solution rather than individual
- Cohen- youth groups originally accept goals, then realise societal status and reject
goals, create new and deviant goals forming a delinquent subculture. Young men
force themselves into a subcultures purely because it is wrong according to cultural
norms
- Cloward and Ohlin- depends on life choices, some people are offered both
legitimate means of achieving goals and illegitimate ways (like crime), some lack the
criminal way, double-failures occur who retreat to violence and drug + alcohol
abuse, 3 subcultures: Criminal (stable working-class areas, status gained through
gang membership), Conflict (not criminal, but antisocial, violent and aggressive
behaviour), retreatist (alcohol and drugs)
, - David Matza (1964) found that not all working class youth dismissed societal goals
(survey with 100 youths), found delinquents drift in and out of delinquency
Marxism
- Criminogenic capitalism- in-built part of capitalist society, compliments self-interest,
greed, personal gain, relative poverty is emphasised (some struggle to survive and
are excluded from consumer society)
- Selective law enforcement- official statistics suggest that crime is a working class
phenomena but Marxists believe law is not applied equally (selective reinforcement),
certain types of crime are dealt with more rigorously than others
- Chambliss (1976)- US and UK laws protect land owners (ruling class) and criminal
justice system is set up to control working class
- Graham (1976)- used Chambliss theory, found ‘war on drugs’ was only punished if it
did benefit the bourgeoisie
- Media allows the attention to be centred on local, celebrity and shocking news
stories rather than institutions
- Threat of violence from institutions such as the police control outbreaks of cultural
mishaps
- Ruling class decide what is wrong, causing harm to somebody is worth prison time
yet destruction of water sources in India is worth a fine
- More police in inner city where working class live, unequal distribution of law
enforcement
- Box- capitalist organisations convince public that corporate crime is less serious
(mystification), shows official statistics don’t include enough corporate crimes
- Evaluations- challenges dominant views, give solution to crime (communist society),
instrumental in theory developments, ignores individual motivation for crime
(deterministic), the theory is contradictory, focus on intra-class large crimes, Marxist
societies still have high crime rates even though Marxists say communism is the
solution
Neo-Marxism
- Agree that there is an unequal relationship between power and wealth in society
- However, believe that relationship between society and deviance is not simple
- Influenced by Marxism but different
- ‘Policing the Crisis’ Stuart Hall- study about the moral panic with ‘mugging’ in the
1970s, mugging is a concept brought in from US in the 1970s stereotypically done by
Caribbean-African men, Hall believes that the ‘Black mugger’ was like a scapegoat for
the ills of the time period (economic crisis)
- ‘There ain’t no black in the union jack’ Paul Gilroy- describes the relationship
between African-Caribbean’s and the criminal justice system, suggests there is a
myth of black criminality, ethnic minorities are defending themselves against an
unjust system, rioting is a way of taking a stand against the system, says ethnic
minorities are not more likely to commit a crime
- Hegemony
- ‘a fully social theory of deviance’ Taylor, Walton and Young (1973)- when considering
any deviant act, they argued that Marxists should consider: structure of society +
where power resides, the structural ‘macro’ background to the deviant act,
