Functionalism - Topic 1

Durkheim Functionalist theory of crime:

  • Social control mechanisms include reward and punishment

  • Crime is inevitable and universal

  • Two positive functions of crime are..

    • Boundary Maintenance

    • Adaption and Change

  • EV: Functionalism assumes crime performs positive functions for society as a whole, however it ignores the possibility of negatively affecting individuals, such as victims

  • Critics of Durkheim could include…

    • Durkheim claims society requires a certain amount of deviance to function but offers no way of finding the right amount

    • Durkheim explains crime in terms of its function, but just because it does these things it doesn’t answer the question of why it happens to start with.

Merton’s Strain Theory:

  • Merton argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when they can’t achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means

  • His concept highlights the structural and cultural factors which lead to individuals following deviant paths

  • Merton suggests there are 5 adaptions to the '‘American Dream’ which suggests everyone can make it through talent and hard work

    • Conformity - Accepting goals and means

    • Innovation - Accepting goals and not the means

    • Ritualism - Follow the rules and just go through the motions (The 9-5)

    • Retreatism - Reject the goals and the means, becoming addicts/impoverished etc.

    • Rebellion - Rejecting the rules and actively seeking to change them

  • Merton’s approach is well received as it explains the patterns in official statistics, and also shows how normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream

A.K. Cohen - Status Frustration":

  • Cohen agress that deviance results from the lower class’ inability to socialise and follow the american dream.

  • He criticises Merton in that he only looks at individual responses to strain, not group deviance of delinquent subcultures

  • Merton also only focuses on material crime (Utilitarian) and ignores non-economic crime

  • Cohen notes that when working class boys are culturally deprived and haven’t got the necessary skills to achieve, they suffer status frustration, and turn to illegitimate means of gaining status from peers.

Cloward & Ohlin - 3 subcultures

  • Cloward & Ohlin agree with Merton that working class youths are denied legitimate opportunities by turning to crime.

  • However they argue that not everyone turns to the same subcultures, and that 3 types of subculture exists.

  • Criminal Subcultures provide youths with an apprentiship in money making crime, they arise in neighbourhoods where there is longstanding, stable criminal culture. Adult criminals train those youths and provide them the opportunity

  • Conflict subcultures arise in areas of high population turnover that prevent a stable proffesional criminal network developing. Violence often provides a release for frustration at blocked opportunities and an alternative source of status by winning ‘turf’ (EG: Bloods vs Crips in LA)

  • Retreatist subcultures are the double failures who fail both legitimately and illegitimate opportunity structures and often turn to drugs, alcohol and a downward spiral

  • Critics of Cloward and Ohlin suggest the following

    • Cloward and Ohlin ignore crimes of the wealthy and wider power structure, over-predict the amount of working class crime

    • Draw too sharper boundaries between the different type. Often subculture characteristics are more than one ‘type’

    • Cloward & Ohlin’s theory is reactive - they explain deviant subcultures as forming in reaction to failure. This assumes that everyone wants to achieve the goals to start with, which is untrue