Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to episode three of Crime and Deviants
Speaker 1: for the Sociology Show podcast. In this episode, we will
Speaker 1: look at functionist explanations for crime and deviance. We'll consider
Speaker 1: how crime can have both positive and negative functions, why
Speaker 1: most people do not commit crime, and how functionists explain
Speaker 1: crime and deviance as a whole. So before functionism, much
Speaker 1: early criminology was obsessed with finding biological explanations for crime.
Speaker 1: Some criminologists even carried out empirical studies in prisons to
Speaker 1: look at the physical characteristics of criminals and to determine
Speaker 1: if you were born bad. Functionists discounted these biological ideas
Speaker 1: and attempted to find social explanations for crime levels. As structuralists,
Speaker 1: functionists believe that the structures or agents of socialization influence
Speaker 1: our behavior, but they choose to believe on the whole
Speaker 1: that this is positive because society is based on what
Speaker 1: we call consensus. So remember, consensus refers to the shared
Speaker 1: agreement that exists within society on norms and values. It's
Speaker 1: not that functions don't recognize conflict. It's just that they
Speaker 1: believe that the majority of the time people get along
Speaker 1: for the benefit of society and do not commit crime.
Speaker 1: So let's start with the main person for functionism and meal,
Speaker 1: dirt Heime. Dirkhim believes that crime is inevitable in society
Speaker 1: and in many ways necessary to its harmony. He argues
Speaker 1: that crime can have both positive and negative aspects. Dirkheim
Speaker 1: argued that at the core of society was a set
Speaker 1: of shared values which guide our actions. This value consensus
Speaker 1: shape society's collective conscience and distinguish between actions which are
Speaker 1: acceptable and those which are not. The problem for any
Speaker 1: society is that the boundaries are sometimes not clear, and
Speaker 1: they can also change over time. One of the positive
Speaker 1: functions of crime, according to Dirkhime, is that it reaffirms
Speaker 1: social boundaries. Every time that a person breaks a law
Speaker 1: and is taken to court, the resulting court ceremony and
Speaker 1: the publicity in the newspapers reaffirms the public opinion and
Speaker 1: the existing values. For example, in twenty twenty four, the
Speaker 1: race riots in England were quickly condemned by the government
Speaker 1: and national media, and those participating in what the government
Speaker 1: classified as criminal behavior were quickly exposed. This publicity condemns
Speaker 1: a person's actions in a public arena and broadcast the
Speaker 1: boundaries of unacceptable behavior by warning others not to breach
Speaker 1: the laws, therefore reaffirming society's social boundaries value, consensive and
Speaker 1: collective conscience. These markers are particularly clear in societies where
Speaker 1: public punishments take place, where the offender is executed or
Speaker 1: even punished in public. This publicity shows everyone else where
Speaker 1: society's boundaries are and what will happen when these boundaries
Speaker 1: are crossed. Therefore, crime must be seen to be punished
Speaker 1: to reaffirm the social boundaries for everyone. In support of Dirkham,
Speaker 1: we have Albert Cohen and Cohen suggested that carrying out
Speaker 1: deviant acts can be functional for members of anti school
Speaker 1: subcultures because these will give each other status for deviant
Speaker 1: behavior thanks to the way they have inverted the traditional
Speaker 1: values of the school. For example, working class often lack
Speaker 1: the status of cultural material on social capital which support
Speaker 1: the educational success. This, alongside a lack of elaborated speech
Speaker 1: codes that the middle class obtain and teacher of Meyer,
Speaker 1: can lead working classes to being placed in the bottom
Speaker 1: sets at school and suffering from what he calls status frustration. So,
Speaker 1: by being deviant within an anti school subculture allows these
Speaker 1: working classes to gain their own status. For example, disrespecting
Speaker 1: school rules going against the teacher and other pupils heightens
Speaker 1: their sense of status. Therefore, deviances functional for the individual
Speaker 1: and group sense of self, but can also be a
Speaker 1: major contribute to educational failure. What about the negative aspects
Speaker 1: of crime, where Dirkhim does also recognize these, Dirtkiin stress
Speaker 1: that a limited amount of crime performed positive functions for society,
Speaker 1: but too much crime, on the other hand, has negative consequences.
Speaker 1: According to Dirkheim, society is based on people sharing common
Speaker 1: values what he calls the collective conscience, which form the
Speaker 1: basis for actions. However, in periods of great social change
Speaker 1: or stress, the collective conscience may be weakened. In this situation,
Speaker 1: people may be freed from the social control imposed by
Speaker 1: the collective conscience and start to look after their own
Speaker 1: selfish interests rather than adhering to social values. Dirkhim called
Speaker 1: this situation animey. A state of normlessness describes the brief
Speaker 1: period in which norms are suspended and previously unaccepted acts
Speaker 1: or behavior are displayed. For example, the London riots in
Speaker 1: twenty eleven quickly escalated into looting, an arson and the
Speaker 1: police had to deploy and a mass scale. Before the riots,
Speaker 1: many people would have walked past these shops day in,
Speaker 1: day out and not even think about stealing goods from
Speaker 1: the shops. Yet, for that small period of time when
Speaker 1: animey occurred, some people thought it was acceptable, and so
Speaker 1: onto our next functionist theorist Robert Merton and Robert Merton
Speaker 1: introduces what's called strain theory. This is where people turn
Speaker 1: to crime when experiencing strain. Merton developed Dirtkhim's theory of
Speaker 1: enimey to explain why some individuals are more likely to
Speaker 1: turn to crime than others. Mertz suggests that people commit
Speaker 1: crime because of a strain between society's goals and the
Speaker 1: means of achieving them. For Merton, most people have the
Speaker 1: societal goal of wanting what he called the American dream.
Speaker 1: This is the nice house, the car, the family, the dog, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: The problem is not everybody has the right skills, qualifications,
Speaker 1: and opportunities to achieve this legitimately. This means legally through jobs.
Speaker 1: This creates what Merton calls a strain to anime meaning.
Speaker 1: This strain causes people to deviate from society's norms and
Speaker 1: use illegitimate means, such as committing crime, in order to
Speaker 1: be successful. Merton argues that it's functional for those experiencing
Speaker 1: strain to turn to deviant or criminal acts in order
Speaker 1: to achieve their goal. Some groups are more likely to
Speaker 1: be blocked from the American Dream, and these groups are
Speaker 1: much more likely to deviate. For Merton, the response to
Speaker 1: strain is individual and categorize five possible adaptations. These are
Speaker 1: the different ways in which people respond to strain. Firstly,
Speaker 1: we have conformity. This is most of the population who
Speaker 1: want the goal of success or the American Dream and
Speaker 1: achieve it legitimately or legally. We then have innovation. This
Speaker 1: is a criminal approach. These are people who want the
Speaker 1: goal of success but cannot achieve it legitimately, so must
Speaker 1: commit crime in order to achieve the goal. Drug dealers
Speaker 1: and armed robbers are good examples of this. We then
Speaker 1: have ritualism, which is deviants. These people are devas because
Speaker 1: they reject the goal of success but use legitimate means,
Speaker 1: and a good example of this is a person who
Speaker 1: is in a dead end job that they don't like
Speaker 1: but isn't willing to do anything to change it. We
Speaker 1: then have retreatism, which takes both a criminal and deviant approach.
Speaker 1: These people are deviant because they reject the goal of
Speaker 1: success and use illegitimate means. A good example of this
Speaker 1: may be an alcoholic, a drug taker, or a homeless person.
Speaker 1: And finally we have rebellion, again taking a deviant or
Speaker 1: criminal approach. These people are deviant because they reject the
Speaker 1: goal of success, but in favor of an alternative, they
Speaker 1: use illegitimate means to achieve this. Carl Marx or Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King are good examples because they rejected society's goals
Speaker 1: for alternatives, which required using illegal methods such as protest
Speaker 1: and revolution to bring these about. Another example of rebellion
Speaker 1: could be something like terrorism. We can then move on
Speaker 1: to Clowd and Olin and Cloud. And Olin's key term
Speaker 1: is illegiti opportunity structures. And Cloud and Olin argue there
Speaker 1: is a greater pressure for working class youths compared to
Speaker 1: middle class US to deviate from mainstream norms and values
Speaker 1: because they have less opportunity to succeed within what they
Speaker 1: call legitimate opportunity structures. That means doing something legally. By this,
Speaker 1: they mean using education, jobs, careers in order to move
Speaker 1: up the structure in society and to get money. Cloud
Speaker 1: and Olin suggest that the working class youths are more
Speaker 1: likely to have access to a parallel opportunity that they
Speaker 1: called illegitimate opportunity structure. By this, they mean that for
Speaker 1: some subcultures in society, a regular illegal career was available
Speaker 1: with recognized illegal means of obtaining society's goals. You may
Speaker 1: have heard of, for example, the mafia, or in South
Speaker 1: America we have the narcos. In Japan we have the yakuza,
Speaker 1: or in China we have the triads. These are all
Speaker 1: examples of illegal groups that many people end up working for.
Speaker 1: Egal opportunity structure had three possible adaptations or subcultures. Firstly,
Speaker 1: the criminal. This adaptation is where there is a thriving
Speaker 1: local criminal subculture with successful role models, young offenders can
Speaker 1: work their way up the ladder within the criminal hierarchy.
Speaker 1: We then have conflict here there is no local criminal
Speaker 1: subculture to provide a career opportunity. Groups brought up in
Speaker 1: this sort of environment are far more likely to turnd
Speaker 1: to violence, usually against each other or other similar groups.
Speaker 1: Cloud and Olin give the example of violent gang warfare.
Speaker 1: We then have the retreatise. This tends to be more
Speaker 1: individual response and occurs where the individual has no opportunity
Speaker 1: or ability to engage in either of the other two subcultures,
Speaker 1: and so they are seen as a double failure, and
Speaker 1: this may result in retreatism into something like drugs or alcohol.
Speaker 1: The type of subculture individuals joined would depend on their availability.
Speaker 1: If a criminal subculture existed in their neighborhood, then there
Speaker 1: is an opportunity likely for that individual to join. If, however,
Speaker 1: the local subculture was based on fighting, they could join
Speaker 1: a conflict subculture only as a last resort. Could an
Speaker 1: individual join a retreat to subculture, as this reaped the
Speaker 1: least reward. Cloward and Olin are considered to be functionalist theorists,
Speaker 1: as they suggest that joining a subculture can be functional
Speaker 1: for the individual and it allows opportunities to develop. The
Speaker 1: last functionist that we consider is severe Venkotsh and Venkotsh
Speaker 1: conducted a piece of research called Gang Leader for a Day,
Speaker 1: and he said that crime can be functional for individuals.
Speaker 1: If you've heared a Venkotsh before, you'll know that he
Speaker 1: did a piece of research in Chicago looking at gang lifestyle.
Speaker 1: Studying a group called the Black Kings who were involved
Speaker 1: in drug dealing, and he observed what he called outlaw capitalism,
Speaker 1: by which he meant that an alternative opportunity structure existed.
Speaker 1: Venkotsh argued that his sample of working classmen from ethnic
Speaker 1: minoritized backgrounds had few opportunities since the level of unemployment
Speaker 1: in that area of Chicago was eighty percent. Therefore, they
Speaker 1: adopted a gang lifestyle since it offered an income, daily work,
Speaker 1: a fraternity, a hierarchy, and possibilities for promotion just like
Speaker 1: a legitimate job. So Vencatas shows that illegal drug selling
Speaker 1: gangs may serve a very sensible function for gang members
Speaker 1: who need these elements in order to function and just
Speaker 1: to survive. Where regular services have been withdrawn e g.
Speaker 1: Banks wouldn't lend anyone any money, the gang stepped in
Speaker 1: to provide services such as high interest loans. So this
Speaker 1: shows that some crime can actually be functional for the
Speaker 1: individual and so for functionism. The key sociologists that you
Speaker 1: need to know are A. Meal Dirkheim, Albert Cohen, Robert Merton,
Speaker 1: Cloud and Olin, and Sdir Venkotsh. There are, of course,
Speaker 1: many criticisms of the functionist viewpoint. Remember, functionism was written
Speaker 1: a long, long time ago, and so much of their
Speaker 1: ideas are quite outdated, particularly from a postmodern angle. Marxists
Speaker 1: also say that they often ignore the problems of capitalism
Speaker 1: that drive people towards crime in the first place. Likewise,
Speaker 1: functionists often look at the positives of crime, but really
Speaker 1: often ignore many of the major implications and problems and
Speaker 1: negatives that criminality provides. Feminists also argue that functionalist theories
Speaker 1: fail to explore female victimization and don't focus enough on
Speaker 1: how women are disadvantaged by the criminal justice system, which
Speaker 1: is dominated by men in the patriarchal society. In counter
Speaker 1: argument to functionism, you should also consider other theories. So
Speaker 1: we've mentioned Marxism, we've mentioned feminism, postmodernism. Also consider how
Speaker 1: the new right, left realists and right realists would criticize
Speaker 1: the functionist viewpoint. Thank you for listening to episode three
Speaker 1: of Crime and Deviance for the Sociology Show. If you've
Speaker 1: not yet listened to episodes one and two, then please
Speaker 1: do go back and listen now. Thank you