Functionalism and Crime
For functionalists, crime and deviance is normal, inevitable and it’s also partially a good thing in society. This is because crime and deviance performs functions that benefit society to a certain extent. However they would argue that higher levels of crime are dysfunctional to society where as minor rates of lower levels of crime slightly benefit society.
Emile Durkheim- Explains how crime and deviance is normal and an integral part of healthy societies and that it only becomes threatening to society beyond a certain level. This level is when it starts to threaten status quo or social stability. Durkhiem also argues that people are reminded of their norms and values through degraduation ceremonies that is when they perform crime these ceremonies such as criminal trials and public punishment to reinforce social solidarity. This is because people are constantly reminded about the law and what to follow so they conform. (Function of Punishment) (Degraduation Ceremonies)
Crime is also likely to increase during periods of rapid social change characterized by anomie (normlessness). This is because the mainstream norms are changing and there is cultural confusion.
Kingley Davis- Crime and Deviance acts as a safety valve for society. This is because it prevents serious crimes or triggering events that could disrupt aspects of society such as the family. For example, Prostitution can be seen as a mechanism for providing sexual satisfaction without threatening the family as an institution. (Safety Valve)
Polsky- Pornography channels sexual desires in a way that prevents adultery and rape acting as an alternative. This breaks norms but prevents worse norms being broken. (Safety Valve)
Clinard- Crime and Deviance acts as a warning function that there is some defect in the social organisation of society. It thus gives an opportunity for the social control of society to change under the circumstances. This means new laws can be made to adapt to the defect or fix the problem. For example Truancy indicates the need for changes in the educational system. (Warning Function)
THE STRAIN THEORY EXPLANATION (Merton)
This explains that people are more likely to react and commit crime due to certain strains that are put on people in society and their lifestyle. This creates a gap between cultural goals so normal means of obtaining those goals are broken. Things that can cause strain on people range from employment, education, family life, consumerism, conforming to norms. There are two types of strain:
Structural Strain- The process by which the way society is structured and organises causes people stress resorting to crime.
Individual Strain- The process by which the way the individual perceives society resorts them to criminal acts.
ORIGIN- Durkheim’s concept of anomie (normlessness). Instead Merton’s strain theory suggests that society is always in a state of normlessness.
However, Merton explains that crime breeds in the gap between what people want to achieve and what they are able to achieve. For Merton there are 4 adaptations people take on in society related to crime:
§ Conformity- The most common, people accept cultural goals and the normal means of obtaining such goals. (Career based jobs like Lawyer/Doctor)
§ Innovation- People manages to accept cultural goals but don’t conform to the normal means of obtaining such goals. (May resort to crime, drug trafficking)
§ Retreatism- Reject the cultural goal and the normal ways of obtaining them.
§ Ritualism- People accept the rules of the cultural goals but abandon goals of success.
§ Rebellion- These are people who decide to create a new success and bring in new rules. A revolutionary attempt to change society.
Evaluating, Merton’s strain theory is basically more focused on the ideology of money, social class and relative deprivation. This is why it can be criticized for not exploring concepts such as the fact people commit crime for thrill seeking purposes or if it’s due to genetics.
Q1) What is the key strain that acts on people that leads to crime?
Q2) What are the 2 types of strain Merton identifies?
Q3) What are the 5 adaptations that people make to deal with this strain?
Q4) Evaluate with adaptations are most harmful to society.
Q5) Evaluate the usefulness of strain theory as a means for understanding why people commit crime.
MARXISTS VIEWS OF CRIME AND DEVIANCE
This is a theory that sees capitalist society as being divided into two classes, the working class and the ruling class who own the means of production. The working class are exploited because their alienated labour is used for the interests of profit. For traditional Marxists, the structure of society explains crime. Marxists emphasize that crime is an inevitable part of capitalist society. This is because capitalist society is criminogenic and alienates the working class. This alienation leads to frustration and aggression which resorts to crime. They view crime as having 3 elements:
· Criminogenic Capitalism- The nature of capitalism in society causes crime.
· The State and Law Making- That M/C have the power to change laws for their own benefit and the W/C end up committing crimes because these benefits exploit them.
· Ideological functions of Crime and Law- Used to appear for the benefit of the W/C through false class consciousness but it is rather for the protection of capitalism and to blind them from the truth.
Chambliss- The Marxist thinker illustrates the ideology of control over the laws from the capitalist class. For example, when British colonies were in Africa forcing them to do labour work they created new laws for taxes. Not working on plantations for the capitalist class meant no wage not paying taxes which was a criminal offence.
Reinman- (Book)“The Rich Get Richer and the poor Get Prison” shows that crime committed by higher class people is less likely to be treated as a criminal offence and the CJS seem to be more lenient towards them. For example a person committing violence/murder is more likely to get more years that a person who committed fraud/corporate crime. (Health and Safety Violations, Tax Evasion is taken more leniently by the CJS)
NEO MARXIST THEORY OF CRIME(Critical Criminology)
Also referred to as radical criminology, the neo Marxist views of crime is more up to date combining traditional Marxist views with other approaches such as labelling theory. This is because the original theory was too deterministic seeing its workers as driven to commit crime out of economic necessity or because of being deprived. The theory also rejects concepts that claim crimes are caused by external factors such as subcultures, anomie or labelling. Rather, it takes a more voluntaristic view to crime and deviance.
Taylor et al- Taylor, Walton and Young take a more voluntaristic view to crime and deviance. They see crime as a meaningful action and conscious action by the individual. This means that it is left up to the individual to commit crime having free will and using rationality as they are not puppets shaped by capitalism. They also argue that to criminals crime is a political motive that can re-distribute the wealth of the rich to the poor.
The theory has often been criticized for not being practical as it purely focuses on describing the situations around deviance rather than providing any solutions. (Solutions were provided by radical criminologists such as Jack Young creating a new theory called left realism.)
INTERACTIONIST THEORY
Labelling theorists argue that it is not the nature of the act that makes it deviant but by society’s reaction to the act which deems it as criminal. They take the bottoms up approach more concerned with why some people perform actions that are labelled as criminal and deviant and what effect this has on those who are labelled. They regard official statistics as not being hard facts about crime in society but as social constructs which creates labels in the first place. They argue that crime is the product of the interactions between suspects and the police rather than the result of wider external factors such as blocked opportunity structures or master status attachments since childhood. 3 common types of deviance labelling theorists have used to study society are:
· Primary Deviance- Which refers to deviant acts that have not yet been publically labelled. (Becker)
· Secondary Deviance- This is the result of the social reaction to a deviant act. It stigmatizes and labels those caught engaging in such acts. (See case of Hippies, by Jock Young)
· Deviance Amplification- The process when the attempt to control deviance in society actually leads to an increased level of it. More and more control produces more and more deviance.
(Social Construction of Crime) Becker- Argues that social groups create deviance by creating the rules that have to be followed which when broken constitutes deviance. The rules need to be applied and people who don’t follow them are labelled as outsiders. For Becker, a deviant is simply someone who the label has been successfully applied to and deviant behaviour is behaviour that people identify and label.
(Secondary Deviance) Jock Young- In his studies of the Hippy culture, drugs were initially peripheral to a hippies lifestyle, however persecution and labelling by the control culture (police) led the hippies to increasingly see themselves as outsiders in society. Thus they retreated into closed groups where they began to develop longer hair and drug use became a central activity inviting further attention from the police. Thus, secondary deviance took place as the social reaction from the police managed to label them as deviants.
(Deviancy Amplification) Stanley Cohen- Did studies of societal reactions to Mods and Rockers as “Folk Devils” because of the disturbances involving groups of youths at the seaside resort of Clacton at Easter 1964. The media published over exaggerations of the reports causing a moral panic in the society with growing concern. The more attention the media gave provoked more public concern. This also led to further conflict between the social groups. (The idea is similar to Lemert’s idea of secondary deviance.)
