Crime and Deviance Topic 1 · Deviance is a result of the strain an individual feels when ... This means that they face a sense of strain and anomie (normlessness), as the ... collar

Crime and Deviance

Topic 1 Crime, Deviance, Social order and Social

control

Functionalist and

subcultural theories of

crime and deviance

1

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand Durkheim’s functionalist theory

Explain the difference between strain theory and subcultural

theory

Evaluate functionalist, strain and subcultural theories of Crime

and Deviance

Develop exam technique + APPLY knowledge to AQA

examination questions

PLC ( PERSONALISED LEARNING CHECKLIST )

Understood

Tick if yes

Cross if no

FULL

Revision

notes made

Application to

AQA question

Durkheim’s

functionalist

theory +A03

Difference btw

strain and

subcultural

theory +A03

In pairs discuss;

What do Functionalists believe about how society operates?

How might these ideas apply to crime?

2

DURKHEIM’S FUNCTIONALIST THEORY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmvo68wAkqc

Durkheim believed that Sociology

is a stable system based on value

consensus. Society has two key

measurements to help bring social

solidarity

Socialisation

&

Social control

He saw crime as an inevitable, normal and even necessary part of society. Although crime

disrupts social stability, it also performs some positive functions.

1.BOUNDARY MAINTENANCE

Crime produces a reaction from society, uniting its members against the wrong-doer

and reinforcing their commitment to the value consensus.

The function of punishment is to reaffirm shared rules and reinforce social

solidarity.

Publicised legal proceedings help to remind everyone of the boundaries between right

and wrong. For example, sensationalised reporting in the media of incidents of child

abuse has the effect of reinforcing social control against child abusers and

improving the protection of vulnerable children

3

TASK: Which functions are performed by the following;

• Failure to protect a child from abuse

• Paedophilia

COHEN argued that deviance acts as a ‘warning light’ that something

isn’t working.

For example high truancy rates may indicate problems within the

education system that need changing. High rates of suicide, drug

addiction, divorce and crime point to underlying social problems that need

solving before serious threats to social order develop.

2.ADAPTATION AND CHANGE All change starts as deviance as new ideas must challenge existing

norms and values.

If this is suppressed then society will stagnate. Protests can be

supportive of deviant behaviour which eventually leads to a change in

society’s norms.

4

DAVIS also suggests that deviance can act as a safety valve.

Some deviant acts may allow people to release their urges without

harming society. For example prostitution acts to relieve men’s sexual

frustrations without threatening the nuclear family.

CRITICISMS OF DURKHEIM A03 –HOT With a partner - explain WHY this is an issue and expand the boxes

1. Durkheim fails to explain just how much deviance is required for society to function.

2. He also fails to distinguish between types of crime – some acts will be more harmful to

society than others.

3. Durkheim claims that crime has positive functions but this doesn’t explain why there is

a crime in the first place- people don’t usually commit deviant acts in order to make

society better.

4. This theory also fails to consider who crime is functional for-it may help society to

function but this does not consider the perspective of victims of crime- they would

not consider acts against them as functional.

5

MERTON’S STRAIN THEORY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fsTFx6xZ2M

Merton argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when

they cannot achieve socially approved goals by legitimate

means

Deviance is a result of the strain an individual feels when

they cannot achieve legitimately

This explanation combines 2 elements.

1. Structural factors – society’s unequal opportunity structure

2. Cultural factors- society’s greater emphasis on success goals

over using legitimate means to achieve them.

Merton uses the idea of the American dream to illustrate

The American dream emphasises money and success. Americans are expected to pursue

this through legitimate means i.e. education and hard work.

However, poverty and discrimination means that opportunities are blocked for many

individuals

The resulting strain leads people to resort to illegitimate means instead .Merton argues

that not all individuals have the same opportunity of realising these goals by approved

means because of things such as unemployment, low pay, racism or lack of educational

success. This means that they face a sense of strain and anomie (normlessness), as the

dominant rules about how to achieve success don’t meet their needs.

This pressure is increased by the culture of success in America; winning is seen as more

important than playing by their rules.

6

THERE ARE 5 RESPONSES TO STRAIN

1.CONFORMITY

Accept the means

Accept the goals

The non-deviant, non-criminal conformist citizen.

Individuals accept the culturally approved goals and strive to achieve them

legitimately.

2.INNOVATION

Accept the means

Accept the goals

Factors like poor educational qualifications or unemployment mean some can’t

achieve goals by approved means so turn to crime as an alternative. Goals of

success are accepted but individuals use illegitimate means to achieve them.

I have qualifications, a steady job

& I’m straight!

http://www.clker.com/clipart-16341.html

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3.RITUALISM

Accept the means

Accept the goals

Give up on achieving goals but stick to means

e.g. teachers who give up caring about student

success, or office workers who have abandoned

hopes of promotion and they are just marking

time until they retire.

4.RETREATISM

Accept the means

Accept the goals

Drop outs like drug addicts or tramps who give up altogether. Individuals

rejectboth goals and legitimate means and drop out of society.

http://www.clker.com/clipart-16341.htmlhttp://www.clker.com/clipart-16341.htmlhttp://www.clker.com/clipart-16341.html

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5.REBELLION

Accept the means

( )

Accept the goals

( )

Reject existing social goals and means,

but substitute new ones to create a new

society, like revolutionaries or members

of some religious sects.

The aim is to bring about social change.

Activity:

1. Explain ,with examples, how deviance and crime might be important as a source of

social change.

2. Classify each of the following as one of Merton’s five modes of adaptation, and

explain your reasons.

A successful banker

A drug-dealer

A monk living in a monastery

A person cheating in exams

A shoplifter

An alcoholic

An indifferent Jobcentre clerk.

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EVALUATION OF MERTON A03 -HOT

Extend each A03 point !!

1. The theory shows how both normal and deviant behaviour can arise

from the same mainstream goals.

2. Merton’s idea explains the trends shown in official statistics. For example that crime

rates tend to be higher amongst the working class as they have the least opportunity to

obtain wealth legitimately.

3. It also helps to explain why most crime in America is property crime because material

wealth is so valued by American society.

1. Merton has been criticised for taking official statistics at face

value. Interactionists would argue that crime figures are a social

construct.

2. His theory is also too deterministic. Not all working class people deviate.

3. Marxists would argue that Merton fails to consider the power of the ruling class to make

and enforce laws, oppressing the working class.

4. Merton focuses on the individual response to strain .He doesn’t consider the influence of

groups such as delinquent subcultures. He does not recognise there is a social pattern of

crime and deviance affecting whole groups of people linked to social class, age, gender

and ethnicity.

10

SUBCULTURAL STRAIN THEORIES

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Gn4ibhRLM

COHEN –STATUS FRUSTRATION.

Working –class youths cannot achieve mainstream goals by legitimate

means due to being culturally deprived.

They experience strain as status frustration.

However, Cohen disagrees that this is just an individual response to

strain.

They resolved their status frustration by rejecting middle-class values

and joining/forming a subculture of others in the same position.

This gives them an alternative status hierarchy where they can win status

through delinquent action. They develop an alternative distinctive set of

values- a delinquent subculture

Mainstream values are inverted. What society praises (e.g. respect) is

condemned by the subculture and vice versa. For example stealing

replaces hard work, vandalism replaces respect for property, and

intimidation and threats replaces respect for others.

This improves Merton’s theory as it explains non-utilitarian crime such as

vandalism which has no economic gain. Cohen identifies elements of

revenge in this subculture, to get back at the society that has denied

them status. This element of revenge helps to explain why a lot of

juvenile offences, such as vandalism,joy-riding,fighting and general anti-

These ideas both criticise and build on Merton’s strain theory.

Their theories focus on the position of groups in the social structure rather than just

on individuals, and how these groups adapt in different ways to the strain facing them in

achieving social goals.

Delinquent subcultures are seen as a way for lower class members to gain status that

they can’t achieve legitimately.

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social behaviour ,are not motivated by a desire for a financial gain, but

rather by a desire for peer group status by being

malicious,intimidating,having a laugh at the expense of others, and

generally causing trouble.

CLOWARD AND OHLIN; THREE SUBCULTURES.

Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton that working class youths face blocked

opportunities. But they note not everyone adapts to strain in the same way.

For example:some subcultures adopt violence or drug use rather than

utilitarian crime.

They argue that this is because individuals have access to different opportunity

structures.

Different neighbourhoods can provide different illegitimate opportunities to

learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers.

Criminal subcultures provide youths with an apprenticeship in utilitarian crime.

They arise in neighbourhoods where there is an established criminal culture and

an organised hierarchy of professional crime.

HOMEWORK ; DEFINE UTILITARIAN CRIME.

12

Conflict subcultures arise in areas of high population turnover that prevent

development of a stable criminal network.

Illegitimate opportunities are found through loosely organised gangs where

violence provides a release for frustration and an alternative means of gaining

status through winning turf wars.

Retreatist subcultures are formed by those who fail in both legitimate and

illegitimate opportunity structures. They are ‘double failures’

These dropouts form a subculture based on drug addiction and alcoholism based

on petty theft, drug-dealing, shop lifting and prostitution.

13

MILLER – FOCAL CONCERNS

Subcultural theories can be criticised because they assume that deviant

behaviour is the result of a failure to achieve mainstream goals.

Walter Miller argues that deviant youths actually never share these goals.

Instead they have their own set of norms, values and goals known as focal

concerns.

Lower class youths are socialised into having a set of values including toughness,

smartness and excitement. They gain status in their peer group through showing

these characteristics through delinquent behaviour. For example fighting in

school confers status by showing toughness. It is therefore over-conformity to

lower working-class subculture, rather than the rejection of dominant values,

that explain working –class delinquency.

14

CRITICISMS OF FUNCTIONALIST BASED EXPLANATIONS OF

CRIME AND DEVIANCE

A03 - HOT

1. They assume that there is some initial value consensus but Taylor et al (1973) say that it

is wrong to assume this because not everyone is committed to mainstream goals. For

example job satisfaction may be more important to some workers than career

progression, financial success and lots of consumer goods.

2. Subcultural explanations only explain working-class delinquency ,and do not explain white

collar (middle-class) and corporate crimes

3. They rely on a pattern of crime shown in official crime statistics. However a lot of crime

is never reported and a lot of offenders are never caught. This makes it difficult to

know who the real offenders are, so subcultural explanations are inadequate as they are

based on an unrepresentative sample of offenders.

4. Matza found that delinquent behaviour is not widespread and most working class youths

don’t engage regularly in illegal acts, and those who do give it up in early adulthood.

5. Matza stresses that delinquents hold the same values as those in mainstream society and

they are not different from other people. They show feelings of outrage about crime in

general similar to other people .Techniques of neutralisation rooted in mainstream

values are used to explain away their actions as justifiable ( “I was only shoplifting

because I wanted to get my Mum a birthday present and I didn’t have any money”)

15

INVOLVEMENT

People are involved with and

kept busy with sports

teams, school activities,

community and religious

group’s .They have no time

or opportunity for crime.

CONTROL THEORY:

HIRSCHI’S SOCIAL BONDS THEORY OF CRIME AND

DEVIANCE

4 SOCIAL BONDS Hirschi identifies four social bonds which pull people

away from crime and towards conformity

COMMITMENT

People are committed to

conventional activities like

working, getting educated,

raising a family and building for

the future. They have a stake in

conformity and have no wish to

risk this through crime and

delinquency.

BELIEFS

People share moral beliefs such

as respect for rights of others

and need for obedience to the

law.

CRIME

Social bonds pull

people away from

crime they would

otherwise commit ATTACHMENT

People are attached to those

around them like family,

friends and those in their

local community and sensitive

to and interested in their

needs and wishes

Control theory takes the opposite approach from other theories in criminology.

Instead of asking what drives people to commit crime, Hirschi asks why most people do not

commit crime.

Control theorists argue that all humans suffer from weaknesses which make them unable to resist

temptation and turn to crime, but there are social bonds with other people that encourage them

to exercise self-control .if these social bonds with other people are weakened or broken, their

self-control is weakened and they will turn to crime.

16

Some functionalist sociologists argue that crime and deviance are caused by the

inability of some people to gain the rewards of society, for example because of educational

underachievement. Those members of society whose opportunities are blocked cannot

achieve the goals of society by socially approved means.

Item B

In pairs;

Think of a film or TV show about crime in which the offender is caught and brought to

justice, or suffers an early death – how would functionalists explain this?

Can you think of any programmes where this doesn’t happen – where the police are

often shown as unsuccessful, or the criminals usually get away with their crime?

According to functionalists, why would this make viewers uncomfortable?

Homework

Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.

Applying material from Item B and your knowledge, evaluate the usefulness of

functionalist approaches in understanding crime and deviance’ (30 marks).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2PiZ-vNp-0

EVALUATION OF CONTROL THEORY A03 –HOT 1. It recognises the importance of socialisation and social control in maintaining a

cohesive society and the idea of social integration through social bonds is well

established in functionalist theory.

2. It doesn’t explain why some have weaker bonds than others and why ALL those

with weaker bonds don’t turn to crime.

3. It doesn’t recognise that it is possible to be deviant and have tight social bonds, as

for example among well –integrated middle-class drug users or white-collar

criminals with successful careers.

You tube – Hirschi’s theory of social control (social bonds theory)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq25tRL0Iqw