Merton - strain theory PDF

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Merton’s strain theory Strain theories suggest that people join in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve their goals by legitimate ways e.g., they could be frustrated and restore to criminal means of getting what they want leading lash out of anger or drug use. The first strain theory was developed by functionalist Robert K Merton (1938).He combines two elements. 

Structural factors society’s unequal opportunity structure

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Cultural factors the strong emphasis on success goals and the weaker emphasis on using legitimate means to achieve them.

For Merton, deviance is the result of a strain between two things: 

Two goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve

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What the institutional structure of society allows them to achieve legitimately

E.g. American culture values “money success” individuals’ material wealth and the high The American Dream Americans are expected to achieve this goal by legitimate means such as self-discipline, education and hard work. The American Dream tells people that society is a meritocratic one where anyone can get ahead. But the reality is different ad many disadvantaged groups are denied of opportunities to achieve legitimately e.g. Discrimination in jobs will block opportunities for certain ethnic or calls background. The target of achieving success in combination with lack of opportunities leads to frustration which pushes people into committing crime and deviance. Merton calls this pressure the strain to anomie. Merton claims that the pressure to deviate is increased by the fact that America puts more emphasis on achieving success than by doing it legitimately. The goal crates desire to succeed and lack of opportunity crates a pressure to adopt illegitimate means. Deviant adaptions to strain Merton uses the strain theory to explain the patterns of deviance in society. 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 five different adaptations depending on whether an individual accepts, rejects or replaces approved cultural goals and the legitimate means of achieving them. Conformity. Individuals accept approved goals and strive to achieve the legitimately. Most like amount middle class who have good opportunities to achieve. Innovation. Individuals accept goals of money success but use new legitimate means such as theft or fraud to achieve it. Those at the lower end of the class structure are under greatest pressure to innovate. Ritualism. Individuals give upon their goals but still follow the rules for their own sake. This are usually the lower middle class.

Retreatism. Individuals reject both goals and legitimate means and become dropouts e.g. Tramps, vagrants and drug addicts. Rebellion. They reject the existence of society's goals and replace them with new ones in the hope that they will bring about revolutionary change. Rebels include political radicals such as hippies. Status that goes with it. Evaluation of Merton He shows how both normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same goals. Both conformists and innovators aim from money success one in legal ways and the other in illegal. He explains that patterns shown in official crime statistics: 

Most crime is property crime as American society values material wealth so highly 

Lower class crime rates are higher as they have less opportunities to obtain wealth legitimately

However the theory is criticised on several grounds: 

It takes official crime statistics at face value. These over-represent working class crime so Merton sees crime as a working class phenomenon. It's also too deterministic the working class experience most strain but they don't all deviate.

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Marxism Claim that it ignores the power of the ruling class to make and enforce the laws in ways that criminalise the poor but not the rich.

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It assumes that there is a value consensus where everyone strives for money ignores the fact that others have other goals.

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It only accounts for utilitarian crime and monetary gain and not crimes of violence, it's also hard to see how this will account for state crimes such as torture.

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It explains how deviance results from individuals adapting to the strain to anomie but ignores the role of group deviance such as delinquent subcultures.

Subcultural strain theories Subcultural strain theories see deviance as the product of a delinquent subculture with different values from those mainstream society. They see subculture as offering different opportunities to those who are denied to achieve by legitimate means. Form this view subcultures are a solution to a problem. Subcultural strain theories criticise Merton and build upon his theory. A.K. Cohen: status frustration Albert. Cohen (1955) agree with Merton that deviance is a lower class phenomenon and that is the result of inability of the lower class to achieve by legitimate means. But Cohen criticised Merton's explanation of deviance on two grounds:

1.

Merton sees deviance as an individual response ignoring the fact that much deviance is committed in groups such as the young. 2. Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain such as theft and fraud. He ignores crimes such as assault which have no economic motive. Cohen focuses on deviance among working class boys, he argues they face anomie in the middle class dominated school system. They suffer cultural deprivation and lack the skills to achieve. Their inability to succeed in the middle class world leaves them at the bottom of the hierarchy. As a result they suffer status frustration as they have problems to adjust to the low status they are given in society. In Cohen's view they resolve their frustration by rejecting the middle class values and they turn to other boys in similar situations forming a delinquent subculture. Alternative status hierarchy Cohen claims that subcultures values are malice and hostile for those outside it. Subcultures turn the values of society upside down, what society condemns the subculture praises. E.g. Society upholds school attendance and respect for property while in subcultures boys gain status form vandalising property and truanting. The function of subcultures is to offer boys an alternative status hierarchy in which they can achieve, after failing in the legitimate way they create an illegitimate opportunity structure in which they can win status from peers through delinquent actions. One strength of Cohen's theory is that it offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance. Unlike Merton whose concept on innovation only accounts for crime with a profit motive, Cohen's ideas of status frustration, value inversion and alternative hierarchy help to explain non-economic delinquency such as vandalism. However like Merton, Cohen assumes that working class boys start off sharing middle class success goals only to refer when they fail. He ignores that they might have different goals from the start so never looked at these as failures. Cloward and Ohlin: three subcultures Like Cohen, Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) take Merton’s ideas as the starting point. They agree that working class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve money success and that their deviance stems as a response to this situation. Cloward and Ohlin note that everyone in this situation response to it by turning to innovation- utilitarian crime such as theft. Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of legitimate opportunities. E.g. subcultures described Cohen turn to violence not economic crime. Cloward and Ohlin explain why differ subcultures responses occur in their view the key reason in not only unequal legitimate opportunities but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity. E.g. not everyone fails by legitimate means such as schooling then has an equal chance of becoming a successful safecracker. Just like the apprentice plumber the would be safecracker needs the opportunity to learn their trade and the chance to practise it. Cloward and Ohlin prove that differ neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers. They identify three types of deviant subcultures that result:

Criminal subcultures provide the youth with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime. They arise only in neighbourhoods with a stable criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adult crime. This allows the young to associate with adult criminals who select those with the right abilities and provide them with training and opportunities for employment in the criminal career ladder. Conflict subcultures Aries in areas with high population turnover, Thai result in high levels of social disorganisation and prevent stable professional criminal network developing. Its absence means that the only illegitimate opportunities available are within loosely organised gangs. Violence provides a release for young men's frustration at their blocked opportunities and an alternative source of status that they gain by winning territory from rival gangs. Retreatist subcultures. In any neighbourhood not everyone aspires to be a criminal or a gang leader actually succeeds just as in the legitimate opportunity structure where it everyone gets a well-paid job. Those who fail in both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures. Cloward and Ohlin calm that many turn to a retreatist subcultures based on illegal drug use.

Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin They agree with Merton and Cohen that most crime is working class but ignore the crime of the wealthy. Similarly their theory over predicts the amount of working class crime. They ignore the wider power structure such as who makes the law. They agree with Cohen that delinquent subcultures are the source of much deviance, they provide and explanation for different types of working class deviance in terms of different subcultures. However they draw the boundaries too showery between theses. South (2014) found that the drug trade is both disorganised crime like the conflict subculture and professional mafia style criminal subculture. Also some retreatist users are also professional dealers making a living firm this utilitarian crime. In Cloward and Ohlin's theory it's impossible to belong to more than one of these subcultures. Strain theories have been called reactive theories because they see subcultures as a reaction to failure of achieving goals. They are criticised for believing that everyone has the same goals. In contrast Walter B. Miller (1962) claim he has that the lower class has its own independent subculture separate from mainstream culture with its own values. This subculture does not value in the first place so its members are not frustrated by failure. Miller agrees deviance is widespread in the lower calls, he argues this arises out of an attempt to achieve their own goals not mainstream ones. David Matza (1964) claims most delinquents are not commuted to their subculture as strain theories suggest but merely drift in and out of delinquency. Strain theory had major influence both on later theories of crime and on government policy. 1960s Ohlin was appointed to help develop crime policy in the USA under President Kennedy.

Recent strain theories These have argued that young people pursue a variety of goals other than money success, such as popularity with peers, autonomy from adults or the desire of some young males to be treated like real men. Like earlier strain theorists, they argued that failure to achieve goals

results in delinquency. They also argue that middle class pupils might also have difficulties in achieving such goals offering an explanation for middle class delinquency.

Institutional anomie theory Like Merton's theory, Messner and Rosenfeld's (2001) institutional anomie theory focuses on the American Dream. They argue that the obsession with money success, winner takes all mentality, exert pressures towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment where people are encouraged to Adolfo's and anything goes mentality in pursuit of wealth. In America economic goals are valued the most and this undermines other institutions. E.g. Schools becomes geared to preparing pupils for the labour market at the expense of inculcating values such as respect for others. Messner and Rosenfeld claim that in a society based on fee market capitalism and lack of welfare provision such as USA high crime in inevitable. Downes and Hansen (2006) offer evidence of this view. In welfare survey of crime rates and welfare spending in 18 counties they found societies that spend most in welfare had lower rates of imprisonment. Which back up Messner and Rosenfeld's claim that societies that protect the poor from the worst of the free market have less crime. Savelsberg (1995) applies strain theory to post-communist societies in Easter Europe which saw a rapid rise in crime after the fall of communism in 1989. He attributes this rise to communisms collective values being replaced by new western capitalist goals of individuals’ money success....