Functionalist Perspective on Crime & Deviance (AQA GCSE Sociology)

The functionalist approach to crime and deviance

Durkheim (1858-1917)

• Since crime occurs in every society, according to Durkheim, it must have a purpose

• It isn't possible to define crimes as simply actions that are harmful to society, as what different societies see as criminal varies

• According to Durkheim, crime serves essential functions in all healthy societies, including:

  • reminding everyone of the boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour

  • reinforcing the values and beliefs that the majority of people in society hold

    • By binding people together in this way, crime contributes to social cohesion

• When there is too much or too little crime, it becomes harmful to society

Criticisms of Durkheim

• Durkheim's explanation of the functions of crime, according to critics, is more applicable to small-scale societies than to large-scale modern societies

• It is unlikely that many crimes will strengthen shared values and beliefs because they hurt victims and communities

• Some Marxists contend that Durkeim overlooks the unequal distribution of power in society because the law serves the interests of powerful groups

• Interactionists argue that the negative impact of labelling pushes individuals into a deviant career

  • This undermines rather than protects social order and increases costs for society (such as policing and imprisonment)

Key thinker: Merton's (1968) anomie theory of crime

• Writing from a functionalist perspective, Merton's structural theory suggests that crime and deviance result from the structure and culture of society

• He argues that people's aspirations are determined by the values of their culture

  • E.g., The American Dream—that anyone can achieve financial success through hard work—is ingrained in the culture of the United States

• However, Merton felt that people did not have the same opportunity to achieve these socially approved goals because they have different positions in the social structure

  • Most working-class individuals may have limited access to education and employment opportunities

    • This could be due to their lack of wealth, status or social contacts

• This means that people experience strain between the socially approved goals they have been socialised into reaching and socially approved means of achieving them

  • This can lead to crime due to the condition of anomie (normlessness)

    • This is where the norms regulating behaviour break down and people turn to illegitimate means to achieve material success (i.e. money and goods)

    • With anomie come high rates of crime (theft and fraud) and delinquency (particularly among the working class)

Response to success goals

• Merton argued that there are five ways an individual can respond to the strain of needing to succeed in society

Criticisms of Merton

• According to Albert Cohen (also a functionalist), the driving force behind juvenile delinquency is status frustration

  • Working-class individuals have the same goals as the wider society, but they don't achieve them because of educational failure

• Merton's theory does not explain why some people who experience anomie follow the rules while others do not

• The notion that society is based on consensus is rejected by conflict theories like those of Marxists and feminists

• According to some Marxists, Merton, like Durkheim, ignores the unequal distribution of power in society and fails to look at who creates laws and who gains from them

• Merton fails to explain why women have a lower rate of officially recorded crime than men