Sociological Positivism - 14/01/25

Social structure and crime

Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Concerned with explaining the complex changes between pre-modern and modern

• Crime is a social phenomenon

• The organisation of society determines the nature of crime and the regulation of criminal behaviour

  • A clear relationship between structure and values

• Societies can be defines by the type and intensity os ‘solidarity‘

  • Mechanical solidarity

  • Organic solidarity

• 2 elements are key in both formations

  • Integration

  • Regulation

• Crime is functional to social solidarity

  • Moral outrage and the collective conscience

Cohen (1966) and Erikson (1966) crime and deviance:

1. Unite broader society against difference and promotes solidarity around shared values

2. Highlights the boundaries of the permissible

3. Highlight the virtue of conformity

4. Clarify rules and reinforce their validity

5. Provides a safety valve for social pressure

• Dysfunction in organic solidarity

  • If an imbalance occurs (too much or too little) anomic tension is created

• Anomie — a collapse of social solidarity

  • Disintegration

  • Ineffective regulation

Key points

• Notions of Integration and Re-regulation connect with classical philosophy

  • Man as individualistic and hedonistic

• The important shift is connecting such ideas with social structure

  • Harmonises with Marx’s work on Capitalism

• Central premise is that crime occurs when individual desire is stimulated but the division of labour and/or the regulation of desire is insufficient

  • Anomie is the product of weak integration and weak regulation

  
  

Anomic strain

Merton (1938,1957)

• Builds upon the ideas of Durkheim, Marx and the Chicago school

• Presents a sociology of deviance based on both culture and structure

• Primarily focused on the criminogenic potential of capitalism

• American dream

• Concentration of crime not only in lower class urban areas but in all minority groups

• Heavily influenced by Durkheim’s conception of social integration

  • An integrated society maintains a balance between social structure and culture

  • Anomie is a disassociation between cultural goals and legitimate means

• Cultural focus on success

  • Competitiveness is fostered in school, media and passed on from generation to generation

  • This is supposed to be achieved through honest effort

    • Educational success, hard work

• Discrepancy between means and ends:

  • Modern society promotes the ideal that equal opportunity to success is available

  • Society is heavily structured and stratified

  • Hypothesises that America has a higher crime rate than other advanced economies because of higher levels of anomic disintegration within the normative means and ends

• Deviancy is not the result of limited opportunity

  • High levels of social stratification

  • High levels of wealth inequality

• Strain is not precipitated by deprivation but relative deprivation

• Crime and deviance are normal adaptations to abnormal circumstances

• This Anomic condition produces strain on the individual

• A cultural argument and a structural argument

• 5 modes of adaptation

  1. Conformity

     • Cultural goals: Accept

     • Institution means: Accept

  2. Adaptation

     • Cultural goals: Accept

     • Institution means: Reject — substitution

  3. Rebellion

     • Cultural goals: Reject — substitution

     • Institution means: Reject — substitution

  4. Retreatism

     • Cultural goals: Reject — Abandon aspirations

     • Institution means: Reject — Abandon

  5. Ritualism

     • Cultural goals: Reject — Accepting limited aspirations

     • Institution means: Accept

• The typology is vague and encouraging subjective classifications

• Largely ignores between individual differences

• Aspects appear tautological

  • Does addiction result in anomie or does anomie result in addiction

• Presents a structuralist view attuned to notions of monolithic culture

  • Not one culture but a plurality of options (Presser and Sandberg, 2015)

Key Points

• Builds on early notions of anomie to produce a distinct social theory of crime

• Recognises both social ideas [culture] and social structure [hierarchies]

  • Cultural goals and institutional means

• Argues that crime occurs when cultural ideals and the means of achieving them
  become unbalanced

  • Crime is an adaptation to Anomie

Subcultural Strain

• Cohen (1955) Status deprivation and delinquent subculture

• Blocked goals remain the focus of anomic tension and anomic tension remains casual

• Shifts focus from material success to status success

  • Anomic strain cannot explain the non-utilitarian responses of delinquents

• Status remains keyed to structural and cultural arrangements

  • Focus on the most pervasive norms

• Dominant values enforced by education system

  • ambition, responsibility, suppression of aggression, respect for authority

1. Status deprivation

   • Children from low economic socioeconomic groups are handicapped

2. Status fristration

   • Emotional and developmental trauma

3. Reaction formation

• Subculture based on malicious value formations (Merton, 1938, p.25)

• Short-term and hedonistic (Cohen, 1955)

• Collage boys

  • Accept the dominant values and compete on these terms

• Corner boys

  • Accept the values but recognise that outcome of competition will be limited

• Delinquent boys

  • Reject dominant values and engage in non-utilitarian and negativistic coping

Key point

• 
  Subcultural strain shifts the focus from adult offending to delinquency

• Builds on the work of Merton and broader Chicago School

• Delinquency seen as a reaction to strain

  • Structural

  • Demographically specific

• Reaction formations dependent upon individual status requirements and available opportunities

  
  

General Strain

• Robert Agnew (1992)

  • Seeks to address the subcultural/individual imbalance

  • Also responds to criticisms levelled at anomic and status theories

• Identifies four areas strain theory must address:

  1. Class dynamics

  2. Goal complexity

  3. Individual structural barriers

  4. Variation in strain outcome

1. Failure to achieve goals

2. Removal of positive stimuli — actual or anticipated

   • Privileges, opportunities, relationships, resources

3. Exposure to negative stimuli — Actual or anticipated

   • Events and/or relationships that are toxic

• The greater the extent of the strain (impact and duration) the greater the risk of offending

• Crime is not an inevitable outcome but some strain conditions increase the risk

• Central proposition is that certain stressors increase the risk of offending via:

  1. Negative emotional responses

  2. Negative conditions

• Crime is also a utilitarian response to strain

  1. Coping

  2. Reducing

  3. Escaping

• Individual exposure to strain

• Negative emotive and/or cognitive patterns

  • Ability/access to legitimate coping

  • Cost of criminal coping

  • Individual disposition

• Criminal coping/criminal outcomes

• Criminal responses are likely when

  1. The strain is perceived to be unjust

  2. The strain is high in magnitude

  3. The strain is linked to low social control

  4. The strain increases the likelihood of criminal coping

• Agnew (2006) identified a number of high risk strains

• Such strains tend to cluster and be cumulative

• Unemployment

• Homelessness

• Discrimination

• Negative School experiences

• Abusive peer relationships

• Child abuse/neglect

• Relationship breakdown

• Failure to achieve

• Exposure to harsh/erratic discipline

• Parental rejection Criminal victimisation

• Unstable working practices
  

Key points

• A significant advancement on traditional strain Models

• Addresses four key weaknesses of Strain theory:
  1. Class dynamics
  2. Goal complexity
  3. Individual/structural barriers
  4. Variation in strain outcome

• A macro and micro explanation

• Tests well and integrates well