Evaluate contributions of strain theories on our understanding of crime and deviance. (30) PDF

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Evaluate contributions of strain theories on our understanding of crime and deviance....

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Evaluate contributions of strain theories on our understanding of crime and deviance (30) Strain theories argue that people engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means. For instance, if someone is unable to get a job to earn money they may resort to stealing to achieve their goals. Merton argues that deviant behaviour stems from society’s unequal opportunity structure and emphasis on success goals. Merton’s theory has been developed to form new strain theories. For instance, Cloward and Ohlin’s theory differentiates between three types of subcultures that result from strain. The first strain theory was developed by Merton, a functionalist who adapted Durkheim’s concept of anomie to explain deviance. For Merton, deviance is a result of strain between the goals of mainstream society and what the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately. Merton uses the example of the American Dream to demonstrate his theory. The American Dream is the idea that any individual (regardless of their class background) can achieve material success if they work hard enough. Thus, American culture greatly values ‘money success’. Citizens are expected to achieve this goal through legitimate means. For instance, by going to school which is meritocratic and attaining qualifications that will allow them to get a good job. However, in reality this is not always possible. The unequal structures of society deny many disadvantaged groups the means to succeed. For example, poverty, discrimination and inadequate schools may put ethnic minorities at a disadvantage. The resulting strain between the cultural goals and the lack of legitimate opportunities to succeed creates frustration. This in turn creates a pressure to resort of illegitimate means in the form of utilitarian crime such as theft. Merton calls this pressure to deviate the ‘strain to anomie’. He argues that an individual’s position in the social structure affects the way they adapt or respond to the strain to anomie. There are 5 different adaptations: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. These depend on whether an individual accepts or rejects or replaces approved cultural goals and the legitimate means of achieving them. Merton’s theory is useful because it allows us to see how both normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream goals. Multiple groups can be pursuing the same goal of money success but one legitimately and one illegitimately. Moreover, this theory helps explain patterns shown in crime statistics. Most crime is property crime because American culture values material wealth so greatly. Also, lower class crime rates are higher because they have the least opportunity to succeed legitimately. However, the theory is criticised by Marxists who argue that it ignores the power of the ruling class to make and enforce the laws in ways that criminalises the poor but not the rich. Moreover, Cohen criticises the theory for seeing deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring deviance committed by groups. Also, he points out that Merton focuses on utilitarian crime and ignores crimes such as assault and rape which may have no economic motive. Cohen builds on Merton’s theory, focusing on deviance among working class boys. He argues that they suffer from cultural deprivation and lack of skills to achieve. Their inability to succeed in middle class school systems leaves them at the bottom of the status hierarchy. This results in the boys suffering ‘status frustration’, being unable to face the low status they are given by society. Cohen argues that they resolve their frustration by rejecting

mainstream values and turn to others in the same situation, forming a delinquent subculture. For Cohen, the subculture functions to offer an alternative status hierarchy in which they can achieve. They create their own illegitimate opportunity structure in which they can win status from their peers through their delinquent actions. One strength of Cohen’s theory is that it offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance. Also, it shows how strain can result in group deviance through the formation of subcultures that invert the values of mainstream society. However, like Merton, Cohen’s theory is too deterministic. He assumes that working class start off sharing middle class success goals. He ignores the possibility that they didn’t share these goals to begin with so never saw themselves as failures in the first place. Not all working class resort to committing crime. Cloward and Ohlin put forward an alternative theory on strain and deviance. They agree 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 argue that not everyone in this situation turns to utilitarian crimes. Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of legitimate opportunities; Cloward and Ohlin attempt to explain why. In their view, the key reason is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures. They argue that different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers. They identify 3 types of deviant subcultures that result: criminal, conflict and retreatist. Criminal subcultures provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime in neighbourhoods with long standing criminal culture. Conflict subcultures are where a professional criminal network does not develop thus the only illegitimate opportunities are available within loosely organised gangs. The last is the retreatist subculture in which ‘double failures’ – those who couldn’t succeed legitimately or illegitimately turn to drugs as a solution. Cloward and Ohlin’s theory is useful because unlike Cohen they provide an explanation for different types of working class deviance in terms of different subcultures. However, their theory over predicts the amount of working class crime; they ignore the wider power structures, including who makes and enforces the law. Moreover, Matza claims that most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subcultures, they merely drift in and out of delinquency. Also, Miller argues that the lower class has its own independent subculture separate from mainstream culture. Their subcultures does not value success in the first place and therefore they aren’t frustrated by failing or don’t feel like failures. In conclusion, although all these theories are reasonable, recent strain theories are more convincing since they build on the earlier theories while adding things they don’t account for. Recent strain theorists have argued that young people may pursue a variety of goals other than money success; for example, popularity with peers, being treated like ‘real men’, etc. Like previous strain theories they argue that failure to achieve these goals may result in delinquency. They also argue that middle class too may have issues achieving such goals thus offering an explanation for middle class delinquency, revealing that crime and deviance is not merely a working class phenomenon....