Functionalist - Durkheim & Merton

Durkheim Key Ideas

Boundary maintenance - Crimes that make society unit against each other: For example, protests against the police

Social change - For society to progress, individuals with new ideas much challenge existing norms and values which will first be seen as deviance: For example, attitudes towards homosexuality

Safety valve - Harmless institutions that allow people to express their societal pressure such as prostitution which does not threaten the nuclear family.

Warning light - institutions that have high deviance rates that shows they are not working properly. For instance high truancy rates in school

Define Anomie

Loosing the norms of society - society is falling apart (normlessness)

Evaluate Durkheim

Strengths:

He is the first to recognise that crime can have a positive function for society such as reinforcing boundaries between right and wrong

Limitations:

He doesn’t actually look at what the cause of crime might be

Argues that a certain amount of crime/deviance is healthy for society but does not indicate how much is the right amount

He ignores the issues of class, gender, ethnicity etc.

What is Merton’s strain theory

Deviance occurs when a society does not give all its members equal ability to achieve socially acceptable goals. For instance, being apart of the working class, they have high chances of poverty and inadequate schooling compared to the opposite of the middle class, not giving a fair chance for the working class.

What was Merton’s 5 ways people may respond to strain

1. Conformity: members of society conform the norms of society. They achieve success through the normal means

2. Ritualism: They reject the goals of success (revision will get you a good job) but still do what is meant to be done

3. Innovation: Accept the goals but do it in their own ways (sometimes illegal such as utilitarian crimes)

4. Retreatism: dropouts who reject both goals and means of society.

5. Rebellion: people who try to replace societies goals and means with their own ones.

Evaluate Merton’s theory

Strengths

Merton shows how both normal and deviant behaviour arise from the same goal - conformists and innovators pursue ‘money success’ but by different means (one legal, another illegal)

The working class crimes rates are higher because they have less opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately.

Limitations:

Ignores the crimes of the wealthy and over predicts the crimes of the working crime

Focuses on utilitarian crimes and ignores other crimes with no financial motives.