Lecture 3: Group Theories

Conflict Perspective

• Basic Premise: Deviance arises from structural inequality; the bourgeoisie (powerful) exploit the proletariat (less powerful) and manipulate legal systems.

• Turk's Model of Criminality:

  • Social conflict emerges from cultural value differences between authorities and less powerful, especially when the less powerful are organized.

  • Increased conflict leads to more behaviors deemed criminal.

  • Official sanctioning is more likely when law enforcement views the offense as significant and for "blue-collar" (less powerful) versus "white-collar" (more powerful) crimes.

• Quinney's Social Reality of Crime:

  • Dominant class defines behaviors as criminal to control working masses.

  • Criminality by the disadvantaged is inevitable; elite crimes are often disregarded or handled civilly.

• Thio's Power Theory of Deviance:

  • More power correlates with engagement in lower consensus deviance (less serious, more profitable/sophisticated, less likely to be labeled).

  • The powerful influence criminalization and divert attention from their own deviance.

  • Powerful typically commit lower consensus deviance; the powerless commit higher consensus deviance.

  • The powerful have more opportunities for sophisticated economic crimes and commit disproportionately more crime.

  • Powerful's deviance induces deviance in the powerless, which then justifies the powerful's self-serving deviance.

Functionalist Perspective

• Focuses on a social phenomenon's contribution to social order.

• Durkheim: Crime is a natural, useful part of society for social integration and regulation.

• Classic Strain Theory – Merton (1938):

  • Anomie: Discrepancy between valued cultural ends (e.g., monetary success) and legitimate societal means.

  • American society creates this disjuncture by emphasizing success goals without equal emphasis on approved means, and through class-based unequal access to means.

  • Strain causes blocked groups to seek illegitimate means.

  • 5 modes of adaptation: Conformity, Innovation, Rebellion, Retreatism, Ritualism.

• Classic Strain Theory – Cohen (1955):

  • Focuses on delinquent subcultures among lower-class male adolescents.

  • Strain arises from inability to gain STATUS and ACCEPTANCE by middle-class standards, leading to "status deprivation" and "status frustration."

  • Delinquent subculture is a "reaction formation" against middle-class norms.

• Classic Strain Theory – Cloward & Ohlin (1960) – Differential Opportunity Theory:

  • Combines Merton, Cohen, and Sutherland.

  • Argues blocked individuals do not automatically have access to illegitimate opportunities; motivations require specific "learning environments" (differential access to illegitimate roles).

  • Predicts specialization of crime based on available opportunities.

• General Strain Theory (Agnew, 1985, 1992):

  • Focuses on negative relationships leading to crime/delinquency due to negative affect (e.g., anger).

  • Three types of strain (negative relations):

    • Preventing achievement of positively valued goals (gap{aspirations-expectations}, gap{expectations-achievements}, inequity_{just outcomes-actual outcomes}).

    • Removing or threatening to remove positively valued stimuli.

    • Presenting or threatening to present noxious/negatively valued stimuli.

  • Anger is the most critical emotional reaction.

  • Adverse events are more influential if they are: greater in magnitude, more recent, of long duration, or clustered in time.

  • Coping strategies include cognitive (minimize adversity), behavioral (maximize positive/minimize negative), and emotional (manage negative emotions).

  • Strain can have a cumulative effect, and various adaptations explain why some do not turn to crime.

Matza's Neutralization Theory

• Premise: Justifications/excuses (techniques of neutralization) precede and enable delinquent acts.

• Techniques of Neutralization:

  • Denial of responsibility (e.g., beyond his control).

  • Denial of injury (e.g., no real harm).

  • Denial of victim (e.g., victim deserved it).

  • Condemnation of the condemners (e.g., hypocrisy).

  • Appeal to higher loyalties (e.g., group demands outweigh larger societal norms).

Social Disorganization Theory

• Premise: Inability of local communities to achieve common values or solve problems.

• Concentric Zone (Shaw & McKay, 1929):

  • Crime-prone zones near central business districts due to industrial decay and flight of affluent residents.

  • Crime caused by:

    • Low Socioeconomic Status (poverty) as an indirect effect.

    • Racial and Ethnic Heterogeneity (impedes communication).

    • High Residential Mobility (hinders internal and informal social control).

  • Rapid social change leads to breakdown of informal social control, decreasing costs of deviation and increasing crime rates.

• Cultural Transmission Theory: Deviant values are passed from adolescents to new residents in neighborhoods.

Differential Association/Social Learning Theory

• Differential Association Theory (Sutherland, 1947):

  • Criminal and deviant behaviors are learned.

  • Greater interaction with those who advocate law violation increases the likelihood of learning and carrying out criminal motives, rationalizations, and techniques.

• Social Learning Theory (Akers, 1998):

  • Combines Differential Association with Differential Reinforcement.

  • Behaviors with higher probabilities of reward are repeated.

  • Learning also occurs through imitation of admired behaviors.