Carrabine, E., Cox, P., Lee, M., Plummer, K. and South, N. (2009) Criminology: a sociological
introduction (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. CHAPTER 5
Key issues:
1. How did the early sociologists study crime?
2. What is the functionalist approach to crime?
3. What role did the Chicago school play in developing Criminology?
4. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each theory?
The Functionalist Perspective of Crime – ‘the Normality of Crime’ - Durkheim
- Emile Durkheim 1858-1917 – made the claim that there is nothing abnormal about
deviance – it is in all societies and therefore should be seen as a normal part of
society.
- Durkheim suggests crime and deviance perform 4 functions essential to society:
Deviance is indispensable to the process of generating and sustaining morality – no
justice without crime the way there is no good without evil
Deviance outlines social boundaries; outlines the right to wrong
Deviance promotes social unity – collective outrage to something seriously deviant
Deviance encourages social change – pushes society’s moral boundaries so creates
alternative framework of desirable behaviour in that society – todays deviance is
tomorrow’s morality sometimes – some deviance may be viewed positively and be
used in future in a more accepted way for example Rock N Roll music with youth
- Functionalist theory teaches us that deviant isn’t always disruptive; it may contribute
to a social system and underlie the operation of society. We will always have to live
with deviance suggests Durkheim as it is bound up with the conditions of social
order.
- Deviance is necessary for social change.
Problems with functionalism
- Highlights how societies are integrated, how there are shared values. Although this
may be true of simple societies, as societies become more industrialized, fragmented
and post-modern, it hard to say and see that there is a shared agreement on
morality in society – there isn’t same perspectives and thoughts everywhere.
- Durkheim’s theory has elements of truth, but it doesn’t explain the whole frame –
people don’t always commit crime for the purpose of social change.
, The egoism of crime in Capitalist society – Marxist theory and Conflict theory
- Engels: In short, everyone sees in his neighbour a rival to be elbowed aside, or at
best a victim to be exploited for his own ends.
- Crime occurs due to a social war between individuals – if demoralisation of a worker
passes beyond a certain point then it is just natural that he will turn into a criminal –
‘as inevitably as water turns into steam at boiling point’
- Working-class life; if a worker is in poverty, why would he not steal from a rich man?
What reason is there not to if he is starving slowly, killing himself quickly?
- Marx: hostility between the individual man and everyone else, produces a social war
of all against all – notably among uneducated people, assumes a brutal form – crime.
Communist societies eliminate this contradiction between the individual man and all
others.
- Willem Adrian Bonger 1876-1940 – Marxist dutch sociologist/criminologist who
committed suicide rather than submit to the Nazi’s – PhD thesis was published in
1916 – Criminality and Economic Conditions
- Major shifts in crime come with the emergence of capitalism – for Bonger, it was
capitalism that generated an egoistic culture with capitalists being greedy and
workers demoralized.
- 4 different types of crimes linked to economic conditions: vagrancy and mendacity,
theft, robbery and homicide for economic reasons (by poor), fraudulent bankruptcy,
adulteration of food etc.
Problems with Marxism
- Marx’s major predictions have not come true as well known.
- Whole theory has been discredited in many eyes.
- Too strong a deterministic streak in the theory- being poor drives you into crime –
we know the vast majority of poor people never commit serious crime.
- A lurking pejorative sense that working-class life is miserable, wretched and
immoral; value claims imported into the theory.
