Topic 1 - Functionalist, Strain and Subcultural Theories
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- Created on: 16-06-17 09:20
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- Topic 1 - Functionalist, Strain and Subcultural Theories
- Durkheim's Functionalist theory
- Inevitability of crime
- Not everyone is equally effectivley socialised - prone to deviate
- In complex modern socieities, different groups develop different deviant norms
- Positive functions of crime
- Boundary matinence - punishment doesn't function to cause suffering, but to reinforces shared commintment to norms
- Adaptation and change - all change starts with an act of devience (e.g. prosecution of reilgious visionaries)
- Other Functions of crime
- Poltsky: *********** and prostitution safely 'channels' seexual desires and avoids distruction of monogomous nuclear family
- Cohen: acts as warning that an institution is not functioning properly
- Criticisms
- Society doesn't create crime in advance with the intention of strengthening society - function not causation
- Crime doesn't benefit everyone - especially the victim - and can weaken social solidarity (e.g. forcing women to stay indoors)
- Inevitability of crime
- Merton's Strain theory
- The American Dream
- Americans expected to persue their goals through legitiate eans, yet many disadvangaed groups are denied these oppotunities, so seek them through illegitimate means
- Deviant adaptation to strain
- CIRRR: Conformity, Innovation, Ritualism, Rebellion, Retreatism
- Evaluation
- Assumes that everyone has the same value consensus - the persuit of monatry gain
- Only accounts for utillitarian crime and individual crime
- The American Dream
- Subcultural strain theories
- Cohen: status frustration
- Accounts for individual crime and non-utillitarian crime
- Status frustration occured in working-clas boys in a middle-class habitus school
- Alternative status hierachy
- Inverting original norms and values to form a subculture in which its goals are attainable for its members
- Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures
- Drew on different subcultures from Chicago school study: Criminal subcultures, conflict subcultures, retreatest subcultures
- Criticism: over-predicts and only focuses on working-class crime
- Cohen: status frustration
- Durkheim's Functionalist theory
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