Transcript Classical and Positivist Criminology

Anomie and Strain
Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton
Understanding Criminology
11th November 2008
Lecture Outline
• Emile Durkheim
– Functionalism
– Crime as normal
– Anomie
• Robert Merton
– Strain
– Adaptations
Emile Durkheim
• 1858-1917
• Early pioneer of
sociology
• Positivist
• Functionalist
• Macro-level sociology
Social cohesion
• How could society hold together
during a period of fundamental and
rapid social and economic change?
Functionalism
• Societies should be analysed as a organic
whole: each aspect of society should be
analysed with reference to its function for
society as a whole
• Society is essentially consensual
• As deviance was universal across all
societies, it must have a function: crime is
normal
Crime is normal
• What function can crime have to society as
a whole?
• Crime, and the reaction to it:
– Reinforced collective sentiment
• "Crime brings together upright consciences and
concentrates them"
– Defined the boundaries of acceptable
behaviour
• “We must not say that an action shocks the common
consciousness because it is criminal, but rather that
it is criminal because it shocks the common
consciousness”
– Represented a litmus test for legal codes
Functional Analysis of Deviance
• Example: prostitution (Kingsley Davis, 1937)
• Prostitution: a safety valve against sexual
frustration leading to assault
• Prostitution is functional to the nuclear family
• Adultery would threaten an essential societal
institution
• Stigmatisation (informal disapproval) of
prostitution confirms the collective approval of
monogamy
Pathological levels of crime?
• Too little crime?
– Social control is too excessive
– Social stagnation
• Too much crime?
– Society’s capacity to regulate is being
swamped: social cohesion is at risk
• There is, therefore, a functionally desirable
level of crime
How can Durkheim explain the
continued existence of crime?
• Key concept: Anomie (normlessness)
• Anomie as a characteristic of industrial societies
– Unfettered individualism
• Anomie as a characteristic of individuals
– “A process whereby social norms lose their hold over
individual / group behaviour”
• A symptom of underdeveloped division of labour
The Division of Labour
• Mechanical Solidarity
– Pre-industrial
– Simple normative system: a unified, simplified moral code
• Organic Solidarity
– Industrial society (though yet to be achieved)
– Complex division of labour
– Conscious Collective: social cohesion achieved despite
moral diversity
• Anomie: results from the decline of mechanical
solidarity, and the lack of development of regulatory
forces
• Individualism > Social Responsibility
Robert Merton and Strain
• Shared Durkheim’s functionalist concerns
– Esp. Individualism v. Societal Needs
• Anomie: a strain existing between two
powerful sets of normative codes
– Goals – material success, power etc.
– Means of achieving them legitimately
• The vast majority of the (American)
population by definition could not achieve the
goals
F.D.
Roosevelt
Al Capone
Merton’s adaptations to Strain
Response:
Means
Goals
Conformity
+
+
Innovation
-
+
Ritualism
+
-
Retreatism
-
-
Rejects
means
Rejects
goals
Rebellion
Criticisms of Merton
• Unwarranted assumption of shared goals
– Not, though, ignoring the possibility of conflict
• Overly deterministic: everything explained by
socialisation: no conscious choice
• Paradoxically, also underplays the importance of
structural position e.g. the mediation of
expectations in different class positions
• Does not account for different types of
“innovation”
• Subjectivity absent
Criticisms of Functionalism
• Consensus based
– Functional in whose interests?
– Conservative
– Ignores conflict
• Tautological:
Social Cohesion
Deviance
Social Cohesion
• Deterministic: little room for consideration of individual
agency (choices)
• Other structural explanations still possible e.g. Marxism
• Inability to distinguish the functional from the
dysfunctional