FUNCTIONALISTS ON CRIME AND DEVIANCE
FUNCTIONALISTS ON DEVIANCE:
- Deviance disrupts social stability. It is inevitable, but beneficial for a society.
- Erikson: society may be organised to promote deviance. Enforcement agencies sustain
and create a certain level of crime, rather than rid society of it.
+ For example, the police officer that killed Sarah Everard.
FUNCTIONALISTS ON CRIME:
- Threatens social order, but not completely negative.
- Too much crime destabilises society. Too little crime means a lack of freedom and
homogeneity.
DURKHEIM - POSITIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Boundary maintenance: united condemnation of crime/criminal. Reinforces norms and
values. Punishment reaffirms social solidarity.
+ For example, the murder of George Floyd (BLM).
- Adaptation and change: change may be considered deviant (must follow the status quo).
Stifled by social control. New cultures emerge through change and without this, society
would stagnate.
+ Galileo was marginalised for his astronomical discoveries.
OTHER POSITIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Safety valve: Davis says prostitution releases men’s sexual frustrations without
threatening a monogamous nuclear family. Polsky said that pornography prevents
alternatives like adultery.
- Warnings: Cohen says that crimes provide warnings that there is an issue with the
system.
+ For example, most students from pupil referral units grow up to become
criminals.
DURKHEIM - NEGATIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Anomie (normlessness): weakening of rules of behaviour due to complex and diverse
society. Uncertainty of norms and values means that there is no collective conscience.
- Egoism: selfish desires come before collective values and society. Individuals resort to
crime to benefit themselves. This allows crime rates to become excessive.
EVALUATION OF DURKHEIM - STRENGTHS:
- Shows that crime and deviance have hidden functions.
- Global examples of boundary maintenance and collective outcry when heinous crimes
are committed.
EVALUATION OF DURKHEIM - WEAKNESSES:
- No explanation of how much deviance is the ‘right amount’.
- Implies that society creates crime with the intention of strengthening social solidarity.
This is not true.
- Ignores how crime and deviance affect different social groups. Who is the crime
functional for?
MERTON’S STRAIN THEORY:
- Merton: crime is a result of frustration of not being able to obtain a goal legitimately.
, - Merges Durkheim’s anomie with these elements:
+ Structural factors: unequal opportunities in societal structure (inequality).
+ Cultural factors: strong societal emphasis on success and weaker emphasis on
legitimate means to achieve them (privilege).
- There is a strain between goals that culture encourages and the structure of society that
allows them to achieve legitimately.
+ For example, the Wall Street Crash of the New York stock market that caused
The Great Depression and high unemployment.
THE AMERICAN DREAM:
- Says society is meritocratic, when in reality, disadvantaged groups are denied
opportunities.
- Legitimate means include self-discipline, studying, qualifications and hard work.
- Strain causes them to turn to crime and deviance.
+ For example, the Varsity Blues Scandal where winning the game of life became
more important than rules.
STRAIN THEORY:
1. Individual creates a goal (e.g: buy a house) based on social norms.
2. Individual has limited educational qualifications to get a well paying job.
3. Individuals find themselves struggling to achieve their goals through legitimate systems
and feel frustrated.
4. Individuals turn to crime as a method of obtaining wealth, power and influence.
DEVIANT ADAPTATIONS TO STRAIN:
- Conformity: accept goals of success of the American Dream and obtain them through
legitimate means. Usually middle class or Americans.
- Innovation: accept goals of success but use illegitimate means to achieve these goals.
Usually those of lower class.
- Ritualism: reject the goals of success of the American Dream but continue to achieve
success through legitimate means. These are usually people in dead end jobs.
- Retreatism: reject the goals of success of the American Dream and use illegitimate
means to obtain success. Usually includes drug addicts and outcasts.
- Rebellion: reject society’s goals and means, and replace them with new ones with desire
to bring revolutionary change. Includes political radicals such as Karl Marx and Martin
Luther King Jr. Known as ‘visionaries of their time’.
EVALUATION OF MERTON - STRENGTHS:
- Merton shows how normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream
goals.
+ For example, innovators and conformists both chase monetary success but
legitimately and illegitimately respectively.
- Explains patterns of crime in official statistics (e.g: most crime is property based because
American society values wealth).
EVALUATION OF MERTON - WEAKNESSES:
- Takes official statistics at face value (overrepresentation of the working class in crime).
- Too deterministic.
- Accounts for utilitarian crimes, but not violent, street and state crimes.
,COHEN - STATUS FRUSTRATION:
- Working class children turn to deviance to achieve mainstream goals.
- The problem is the anomie in the middle class education system (lack working class
norms and values).
- Suffer from cultural deprivation and lacking in skills.
- Status frustration faced when this happens and working class reject middle class values
to join delinquent subcultures.
WORKING CLASS RESPONSES TO STATUS FRUSTRATION:
- Spite, malice, hostility and contempt for outsiders.
- Invert values of mainstream culture and see this as a form of revenge on society and the
education system.
- For example, society values punctuality. These boys gained status from truanting and an
alternative status hierarchy was gained.
EVALUATION OF STATUS FRUSTRATION - STRENGTHS:
- Unlike Merton, Cohen focuses on group mentality and impact on individuals as a
response to strain.
- Cohen explains the deviance of non-utilitarian crimes like vandalism and anti-social
behaviour (no economic motive).
EVALUATION OF STATUS FRUSTRATION - WEAKNESSES:
- Assumes the working class all start off with middle class goals, but simply reject them
because they cannot achieve them.
CLOWARD AND OHLIN - THREE SUBCULTURES:
- Criticise Cohen’s cultural explanation of crime.
- Inequality in accessing legitimate and illegitimate opportunities between classes, gender
and race.
- Criminal subcultures:
+ Crime: apprenticeships for youths in utilitarian crime.
+ Neighbourhood: longstanding and stable criminal culture.
- Conflict subcultures:
+ Crime: social disorganisation, stable professional crime networks.
+ Neighbourhood: areas of high population turnover.
- Retreatist subcultures:
+ Crime: illegal drug use.
+ Neighbourhood: any.
+ These people fail using both legitimate and illegitimate means.
EVALUATION OF THREE SUBCULTURES:
- South: categories are too rigid. Found that drug trade is both conflict and criminal
subculture depending on the style of the gang (being disorganised or mafia).
- Overrepresentation of working class crimes, ignores the crimes of the wealthy.
- Ignores wider power structures such as institutional racism.
MILLER - FOCAL CONCERNS:
- Working class youth are socialised into a set of lower class values or ‘focal concerns’.
- Some working class youths conform to lower class values because they can gain status
amongst their peers by getting into crime and deviance.
, - Some factors include:
+ Smartness: use wit that may include ‘smart’ remarks.
+ Fate: they believe their fate is predetermined and they cannot change it.
+ Toughness: wish to prove that they are tough/’hard’.
RECENT STRAIN THEORIES:
- Theorists may argue that young people pursue a variety of goals other than monetary
success. This may include autonomy from adults.
- Institutional anomie theory:
+ Messner and Rosenfield: focus on the American Dream. Its pressure for people
to achieve success pushes people towards crime.
+ Savelsberg: observed the strain theory in communist societies in Eastern
Europe. There was a rise in crime after the fall of communism. Communist values
are replaced with western capitalist goals.
FUNCTIONALISTS ON DEVIANCE:
- Deviance disrupts social stability. It is inevitable, but beneficial for a society.
- Erikson: society may be organised to promote deviance. Enforcement agencies sustain
and create a certain level of crime, rather than rid society of it.
+ For example, the police officer that killed Sarah Everard.
FUNCTIONALISTS ON CRIME:
- Threatens social order, but not completely negative.
- Too much crime destabilises society. Too little crime means a lack of freedom and
homogeneity.
DURKHEIM - POSITIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Boundary maintenance: united condemnation of crime/criminal. Reinforces norms and
values. Punishment reaffirms social solidarity.
+ For example, the murder of George Floyd (BLM).
- Adaptation and change: change may be considered deviant (must follow the status quo).
Stifled by social control. New cultures emerge through change and without this, society
would stagnate.
+ Galileo was marginalised for his astronomical discoveries.
OTHER POSITIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Safety valve: Davis says prostitution releases men’s sexual frustrations without
threatening a monogamous nuclear family. Polsky said that pornography prevents
alternatives like adultery.
- Warnings: Cohen says that crimes provide warnings that there is an issue with the
system.
+ For example, most students from pupil referral units grow up to become
criminals.
DURKHEIM - NEGATIVE FUNCTIONS OF CRIME:
- Anomie (normlessness): weakening of rules of behaviour due to complex and diverse
society. Uncertainty of norms and values means that there is no collective conscience.
- Egoism: selfish desires come before collective values and society. Individuals resort to
crime to benefit themselves. This allows crime rates to become excessive.
EVALUATION OF DURKHEIM - STRENGTHS:
- Shows that crime and deviance have hidden functions.
- Global examples of boundary maintenance and collective outcry when heinous crimes
are committed.
EVALUATION OF DURKHEIM - WEAKNESSES:
- No explanation of how much deviance is the ‘right amount’.
- Implies that society creates crime with the intention of strengthening social solidarity.
This is not true.
- Ignores how crime and deviance affect different social groups. Who is the crime
functional for?
MERTON’S STRAIN THEORY:
- Merton: crime is a result of frustration of not being able to obtain a goal legitimately.
, - Merges Durkheim’s anomie with these elements:
+ Structural factors: unequal opportunities in societal structure (inequality).
+ Cultural factors: strong societal emphasis on success and weaker emphasis on
legitimate means to achieve them (privilege).
- There is a strain between goals that culture encourages and the structure of society that
allows them to achieve legitimately.
+ For example, the Wall Street Crash of the New York stock market that caused
The Great Depression and high unemployment.
THE AMERICAN DREAM:
- Says society is meritocratic, when in reality, disadvantaged groups are denied
opportunities.
- Legitimate means include self-discipline, studying, qualifications and hard work.
- Strain causes them to turn to crime and deviance.
+ For example, the Varsity Blues Scandal where winning the game of life became
more important than rules.
STRAIN THEORY:
1. Individual creates a goal (e.g: buy a house) based on social norms.
2. Individual has limited educational qualifications to get a well paying job.
3. Individuals find themselves struggling to achieve their goals through legitimate systems
and feel frustrated.
4. Individuals turn to crime as a method of obtaining wealth, power and influence.
DEVIANT ADAPTATIONS TO STRAIN:
- Conformity: accept goals of success of the American Dream and obtain them through
legitimate means. Usually middle class or Americans.
- Innovation: accept goals of success but use illegitimate means to achieve these goals.
Usually those of lower class.
- Ritualism: reject the goals of success of the American Dream but continue to achieve
success through legitimate means. These are usually people in dead end jobs.
- Retreatism: reject the goals of success of the American Dream and use illegitimate
means to obtain success. Usually includes drug addicts and outcasts.
- Rebellion: reject society’s goals and means, and replace them with new ones with desire
to bring revolutionary change. Includes political radicals such as Karl Marx and Martin
Luther King Jr. Known as ‘visionaries of their time’.
EVALUATION OF MERTON - STRENGTHS:
- Merton shows how normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream
goals.
+ For example, innovators and conformists both chase monetary success but
legitimately and illegitimately respectively.
- Explains patterns of crime in official statistics (e.g: most crime is property based because
American society values wealth).
EVALUATION OF MERTON - WEAKNESSES:
- Takes official statistics at face value (overrepresentation of the working class in crime).
- Too deterministic.
- Accounts for utilitarian crimes, but not violent, street and state crimes.
,COHEN - STATUS FRUSTRATION:
- Working class children turn to deviance to achieve mainstream goals.
- The problem is the anomie in the middle class education system (lack working class
norms and values).
- Suffer from cultural deprivation and lacking in skills.
- Status frustration faced when this happens and working class reject middle class values
to join delinquent subcultures.
WORKING CLASS RESPONSES TO STATUS FRUSTRATION:
- Spite, malice, hostility and contempt for outsiders.
- Invert values of mainstream culture and see this as a form of revenge on society and the
education system.
- For example, society values punctuality. These boys gained status from truanting and an
alternative status hierarchy was gained.
EVALUATION OF STATUS FRUSTRATION - STRENGTHS:
- Unlike Merton, Cohen focuses on group mentality and impact on individuals as a
response to strain.
- Cohen explains the deviance of non-utilitarian crimes like vandalism and anti-social
behaviour (no economic motive).
EVALUATION OF STATUS FRUSTRATION - WEAKNESSES:
- Assumes the working class all start off with middle class goals, but simply reject them
because they cannot achieve them.
CLOWARD AND OHLIN - THREE SUBCULTURES:
- Criticise Cohen’s cultural explanation of crime.
- Inequality in accessing legitimate and illegitimate opportunities between classes, gender
and race.
- Criminal subcultures:
+ Crime: apprenticeships for youths in utilitarian crime.
+ Neighbourhood: longstanding and stable criminal culture.
- Conflict subcultures:
+ Crime: social disorganisation, stable professional crime networks.
+ Neighbourhood: areas of high population turnover.
- Retreatist subcultures:
+ Crime: illegal drug use.
+ Neighbourhood: any.
+ These people fail using both legitimate and illegitimate means.
EVALUATION OF THREE SUBCULTURES:
- South: categories are too rigid. Found that drug trade is both conflict and criminal
subculture depending on the style of the gang (being disorganised or mafia).
- Overrepresentation of working class crimes, ignores the crimes of the wealthy.
- Ignores wider power structures such as institutional racism.
MILLER - FOCAL CONCERNS:
- Working class youth are socialised into a set of lower class values or ‘focal concerns’.
- Some working class youths conform to lower class values because they can gain status
amongst their peers by getting into crime and deviance.
, - Some factors include:
+ Smartness: use wit that may include ‘smart’ remarks.
+ Fate: they believe their fate is predetermined and they cannot change it.
+ Toughness: wish to prove that they are tough/’hard’.
RECENT STRAIN THEORIES:
- Theorists may argue that young people pursue a variety of goals other than monetary
success. This may include autonomy from adults.
- Institutional anomie theory:
+ Messner and Rosenfield: focus on the American Dream. Its pressure for people
to achieve success pushes people towards crime.
+ Savelsberg: observed the strain theory in communist societies in Eastern
Europe. There was a rise in crime after the fall of communism. Communist values
are replaced with western capitalist goals.
