Crime and Deviance
AN INTRODUCTION TO CRIME AND DEVIANCE
Definitions
Crime- An act which breaks the criminal laws of society.
Deviance- refers to the behaviour which is disapproved of by most people in society
and which does not conform to society's norms and values.
TOPIC 1: FUNCTIONALIST, STRAIN AND SUBCULTURAL THEORIES
Durkheim's functionalist theory:
Socialisation and Social control are two key mechanisms which allow social solidarity
to occur in society.
The inevitability of crime:
Functionalists see too much crime as destabilising society.
They also see crime as inevitable and universal- Durkheim, 'crime is normal... an
integral part of all healthy societies.'
There are two reasons why C&D are found in all societies;
1. Not everyone is equally effectively socialised into the shared norms and values.
2. Different groups develop their own subculture and what the members of the
subculture regard as normal, mainstream culture may see as deviant.
Durkheim also discusses that in modern societies there is a tendency towards
anomie (normlessness). The diversity of modern societies means that the collective
conscience is weakened, and this results in higher levels of C&D.
The positive functions of crime:
For Durkheim, crime also fulfils two important functions; boundary maintenance and
adaptation.
Boundary Maintenance- In Durkheim's view, the purpose of punishment is to
reaffirm society's shared rules and reinforces social solidarity, this is done through
the rituals of the courtroom which dramatises the wrongdoing and stigmatises the
offender. This reaffirms the values of the law-abiding majority and discourages others
from rule breaking.
Cohen: media coverage of crime and deviance often creates ‘folk devils’
Adaptation and change- For individuals that want change, there must be some
scope for them to challenge and change existing norms and values which is
deviance. However, in the long run their values may give rise to a new culture and
morality. If those with new ideas are suppressed, society will stagnate and be unable
to make necessary adaptive changes. Thus for Durkheim, neither a very high nor a
very low level of crime is desirable.
Other functions of crime:
Davis: prostitution acts as a safety value for the release of men’s sexual frustration
without threatening the nuclear family
, Polsky: pornography safely channels sexual desires away from alternatives such as
adultery which has a greater threat for the family
Cohen identifies another function of deviance; a warning that an institution is not
functioning properly.
Functionalists such as Erikson build on Durkheim's point and argue that if crime and
deviance perform positive social functions, then perhaps it means society is actually
organised so as to promote deviance.
Criticisms:
Durkheim doesn't explain how much of deviance is needed for society to function
successfully.
It can be argued that functionalists explain the existence of crime in terms of its
supposed function but this doesn't mean society actually creates crime in advance
with the intention of strengthening solidarity.
Functionalism looks at what functions crime serves for society as a whole and
ignores how it might affect different groups or individuals within society. - Is solidarity
reinforced within the victim?
Crime doesn't always promote solidarity. It may have the opposite effect leading to
people becoming isolated e.g. forcing women to stay indoors for fear of attack.
Hirschi: 'Control Theory'
Developed Durkheim's idea of shared values into the idea of social bonds.
According to Hirschi, there are four types of social bonds:
1. Attachment- we care about others?
2. Commitment- what would we lose?
3. Involvement- has time for crime?
4. Belief- believes in obeying rules?
If shared bonds are not strong, it will lead to crime and deviance.
According to Hirschi, the family is crucial in developing the strength/weakness of
social bonds. This was reinforced by the study conducted by Farrington and West.
They carried out a longitudinal study of working class males between 1953 to the late
1980s. 6% of their sample did 50% of the crime.
There as a direct correlation between crime and poor parenting, with the parenting
more likely to be both poor and single parent.
Merton's strain theory:
Strain theory argues that people engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable
to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. Merton adapted Durkheim's
concept of anomie to explain deviance. Merton's explanation combines two
elements:
Structural factors- society's unequal opportunity structure.
Cultural factors- the strong emphasis on success goals and the weaker emphasis
on using legitimate means to achieve them.
For Merton, deviance is the result of a strain between two things;
1. The goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve.
2. What the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately.
,The American Dream
The ideology of the 'American Dream' tells Americans that their society is a
meritocratic one where there is opportunity for all. However, in reality many
disadvantaged groups are denied opportunities e.g. inadequate schooling.
The resulting strain produces frustration and this in turn creates a pressure to resort
to illegitimate means such as crime. Merton calls this pressure to deviate, the strain
to anomie. The pressure to deviate is further increased by the fact that American
culture puts more emphasis on achieving success at any price that upon doing it by
legitimate means.
To summarise, the goal creates a desire to succeed, and lack of opportunity creates
a pressure to adopt illegitimate means, while the norms are not strong enough to
prevent some from succumbing to this temptation.
Deviant adaptations to strain
Merton argues that an individual's position in the social structure affects the way they
adapt and respond to the strain to anomie. Logically, there are five different types of
adaption:
Conformity- Individuals accept the culturally approved goals and strive to achieve
them legitimately. This is most likely amongst the middle class.
Innovation- Individuals accept the goals of money success but use ‘new’, illegitimate
means such as theft to achieve it.
Ritualism- Individuals give up on trying to achieve the goals, but have internalised
the legitimate means and so they follow the rules for their own sake.
Retreatism- Individuals reject both the goals and the legitimate means and become
dropouts.
Rebellion- Individuals reject the existing society’s goals and the legitimate means,
but replace them with new ones in a desire to bring about revolutionary change and
create a new kind of society.
Evaluation of Merton:
He explains patterns shown in official crime statistics; e.g. most crime in property
crime because American society values material wealth so highly.
His theory is criticised as it takes official statistics at face value. These over-represent
working-class crime, so Merton sees crime as a mainly working-class phenomenon.
Marxists argue that it ignores the power of the ruling class to make and enforce the
laws in ways that criminalise the poor but not the rich.
It assumes there is value consensus- that everyone strives for ‘money success’ –
and ignores the possibility that some may not share this goal.
It only accounts for utilitarian crime for monetary gain, and not crimes of violence,
vandalism etc. It is also hard to see how it could account for state crimes such as
genocide.
It explains how deviance results from individuals adapting to the strain to anomie but
ignores the role of group deviance, such as delinquent subcultures.
Subcultural strain theories:
, Subcultural strain theories see deviance as a product of a delinquent subculture with
different values from those of mainstream society.
A.K. Cohen: Status Frustration:
Cohen agrees with Merton that deviance is largely a lower-class phenomenon.
However, Cohen criticises Merton’s explanation of deviance on two grounds:
1. Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the fact that
much deviance is committed in or by groups, especially among the young.
2. Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain. He largely ignores
crimes such as assault, which may have no economic motive.
Cohen focused on deviance among working class boys and argued that they faced
anomie because of a middle class dominated school system. Their inability to
succeed in this middle class world leaves them at the bottom of the status hierarchy.
In Cohen’s view, they resolve their frustration by rejecting mainstream middle class
values and they turn instead to other boys in the same situation, forming or joining a
delinquent subculture.
Alternative status hierarchy:
According to Cohen, the delinquent subculture inverts the values of mainstream
society- turns them upside down. What society condemns, the subculture praises.
The subculture’s function is that it offers the boys an alternative status hierarchy in
which they can achieve, having failed in the legitimate opportunity structure.
A strength of Cohen’s theory is that it offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance
among the working class. Cohen’s ideas of status frustration, value inversion and
alternative status hierarchy help to explain non-economic delinquency such as
vandalism.
However, Cohen assumes that working class boys start off sharing middle-class
success goals, only to reject these when they fail. He ignores the possibility that they
didn’t share the goals of the middle class and so never saw themselves as failures.
Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures:
Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton that working class youths are denied legitimate
opportunities to achieve ‘money success’, and that their deviance stems from the
way they respond to this situation.
Cloward and Ohlin attempt to explain why different subcultures respond in different
ways to a lack of legitimate opportunities. In their view, the key reason is not only
unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure but unequal access to
illegitimate opportunity structures.
Cloward and Ohlin argue that different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate
opportunities for young people. They identify three types of deviant subcultures that
result:
Criminal subcultures provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian
crime. They arise in neighbourhoods where there is a longstanding and stable local
criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adult crime.
Conflict subcultures arise in areas of high population turnover. This results in high
levels of social disorganisation and prevents a stable professional criminal network
