Functionalism And Crime

Question 1

Why do people commit crime?

Answer 1

Anomie, don’t agree with norms and values of society, poor socialisation, unjustly rewarded

Question 2

Nature of society

Answer 2

Consensual

- based on a mutual agreement and unity

Question 3

Durkheim’s collective consciousness

Answer 3

The core values shared by society that help to maintain order

Question 4

What does Durkheim highlight within a class-based society?

Answer 4

Some can achieve more than others - useful because all roles in society are filled

Question 5

The ‘normative’ approach

Answer 5

Provides a normative definition of crime and deviance

• an action which involves a violation of social norms
• the further away behaviour is from our core values, more likely to be it is to be considered deviant

Question 6

Sociological implications for the ‘normative’ approach

Answer 6

Explains why only some people act in a deviant manner
- focuses on how dysfunctional behaviour within social institutions make some people criminals/ deviants - people who conform have been ‘properly socialised’

Question 7

What does Durkheim say about crime?!

Answer 7

‘Crime is normal…an integral part of all healthy societies’

Question 8

How is crime and deviance actually good for individuals?

Answer 8

Shows us what not to do

• will be punished if we act in this way
• creates job opportunities for police
• draws a distinction between things that are good and bad
• punishments - boundary maintenance

Question 9

Functions of crime

Answer 9

• reinforce value consensus and social solidarity
• behaviour is governed by positive and negative sanctions - if you commit a crime you are punished
• draw communities together

Question 10

Safety Valve

Answer 10

Albert Cohen (1961) deviance allows people to ‘let off steam’ in a relatively harmless way - de-stress and stay functional

Question 11

Reinforces boundaries

Answer 11

Boundaries of acceptable behaviours are made known by the arrest of those who transgress
- public opinion on crime acts like a gauge and can cause change in the law

Question 12

What was the reason for disclosure and barring system and safeguarding?

Answer 12

Murder of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman - abducted and murderer by caretaker

Question 13

PC Andrew Harper

Answer 13

Killed in the line of duty by teenagers

- petition for Harper’s law, giving sentence to anyone who kills an emergency worker

Question 14

Warning device

Answer 14

Clinard: when crime and deviance occurs it sends a message that society’s social order is breaking down
- prompts governments to do something about an issue

Question 15

Crime is a particular

Answer 15

Problem of modernity (transformation into an industrialised society)

Question 16

Social change can cause crime as individuals

Answer 16

May become unsure of norms and rules and are more at risk of breaking them

Question 17

What does social change mean?

Answer 17

Weaker collective conscience of shared values to guide actions - anomie develops people to look after their own interest

Question 18

Why does crime happen (reason one beginning with A)

Answer 18

Anomie

• people experience inequality and barriers to life chances
• turn to crime and deviance to get things they have been prevented from achieving
• anomie, and the resulting deviant behaviour breaks down social solidarity and weakens value consensus

Question 19

Why does crime happen?( reason two beginning with E)

Answer 19

Egoism

• collective conscience becomes too weak to make people ignore selfish desires
• happens if there are too many specialist roles in society, or if people have not been successfully socialised to accept collective values

Question 20

Why is crime inevitable?

Answer 20

Not everyone is effective socialised

- in complex modern societies, lifestyles and values are diverse- subcultures develop

Question 21

What does deviance help society to do in the eyes of Durkheim?

Answer 21

Evolve and review the way it does things ‘yesterday’s deviance must become today’s normality’
- leads the way to progress - if the collective sentiments are too strong they crush revolutionary spirits

Question 22

What does Durkheim say about crime rates?

Answer 22

Too little crime= society with stagnate

Too much crime= leads to social disorganisation and chaos, threatens to tear the bonds of society apart

Question 23

Strengths of the functionalist view

Answer 23

Newburn: Durkheim was the first to suggest crime was positive or even useful in society
- links time to values of society and explains how they can change
a explains reason for unhealthy levels of crime which could be altered by social engineering

Question 24

Negatives of functionalist views

Answer 24

Is crime really beneficial?
‘Ideal level of crime’ is vague, what is it supposed to be?
- doesn’t give individual motivations for committing

Question 25

What does the functionalist perspective on crime not explain?

Answer 25

Individual motivations and how only some people commit crime

Question 26

What does the functionalism perspective on crime ignore?

Answer 26

Whether the interests of particular groups are served by the creation of legal norms and definitions of crime

Question 27

What does the functionalist perspective exaggerate?

Answer 27

The degree of consensus within society

Question 28

What might the functionalist perspective on crime result in?

Answer 28

A pessimistic approach regarding the control of crime eg. Harsher sentences

Question 29

How is functionalism structurally deterministic?

Answer 29

It ignores the amount of free will that people have in choosing to commit a crime

Question 30

Taylor, Walter and Young

Answer 30

Crime is not functional for society - the publicising of crime and public punishment is