Durkheim's Functionalist Theory of Crime and Deviance

Vocabulary flashcards covering Emile Durkheim's functionalist perspective on crime, social cohesion, anomie, and the positive functions of deviance.

Value consensus

A shared culture into which people are socialised, enabling society to integrate individuals to work collectively towards shared goals and meet societal needs.

Socialisation

A key mechanism identified by functionalists that instils the shared culture into individuals, ensuring they internalise common norms and values and act as society requires.

Social control

Societal mechanisms that include rewards for conformity and punishments for deviance (negative sanctions) to ensure individuals behave in the way society wishes.

Inevitability of crime

Durkheim's assertion that crime is normal and an integral part of all healthy societies, existing in every known society due to inadequate socialisation and diversity of values.

Anomie

A state of normlessness in modern societies where the rules governing behaviour become weaker and less clear due to a complex, specialised division of labour.

Collective conscience

The shared norms, values, and culture of a society that are weakened when individuals become increasingly differentiated from one another in modern society.

Boundary maintenance

A positive function of crime that produces a societal reaction, uniting members in condemnation of the wrongdoer and reinforcing their commitment to shared norms and values.

Function of punishment (Durkheim)

The role of punishment in reaffirming society's shared rules, reinforcing social solidarity, and healing wounds done to collective sentiments, rather than merely reforming the offender.

Dramatisation of evil

A concept examined by Stanley Cohen (1972) whereby media coverage and courtroom rituals publicly shame and stigmatise deviant behaviour, reinforcing the values of the law-abiding majority.

Folk devils

Groups or individuals stigmatised and demonised by media coverage of crime and deviance, as examined by Stanley Cohen (1972).

Adaptation and change

A positive function of crime where acts of deviance challenge existing norms and introduce new ideas, preventing society from stagnating and allowing culture and morality to evolve.

Division of labour (Durkheim)

The complex, specialised differentiation of roles in modern societies that causes individuals to become increasingly different from one another, weakening shared culture.