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Anomie and Strain Theory
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Sociological Theories of Crime
In this course, Dr Francesca Menichelli (University of Surrey) explores sociological theories of crime. In the first lecture, we consider early approaches to explaining crime, particularly those from a Functionalist perspective, including Émile Durkheim’s concept of anomie and Robert Merton’s strain theory. In the second lecture, we look at subcultural theories, such as Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin’s notion of illegitimate opportunity structures. In the third lecture, we look at the relationship between crime and place through the ideas of the Chicago School and broken windows theory. Next, we examine labelling theory and moral panics – approaches which look less at explaining why people commit crime and more at how crime is defined by society. In the fifth lecture, we outline three theoretical perspectives influenced by Marxism – radical criminology, critical criminology and left realism. In the sixth and final lecture, we explore ideas grounded in rational choice theory, such as Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson’s routine activity theory.
Anomie and Strain Theory
In this lecture, we think about early sociological theories of crime, especially those from the Functionalist tradition, focusing in particular on: (i) Émile Durkheim’s understanding of crime as serving an integrative function; (ii) his concept of anomie as the conditions under which crime occurs; (iii) Robert Merton’s strain theory – that crime results from the strain people feel due to their inability to achieve socially approved goals – and criticisms of this; (iv) Robert Agnew’s general strain theory and the underpinning assumption within strain approaches that crime results from inequality of opportunity.
Hi.
00:00:05My name is Francesca musically,
00:00:06and I'm a lecturer in criminology at the University of Surrey.
00:00:07And in this video, I'm going to talk to you about sociological approaches to crime,
00:00:10Durkin, Merton, strain theory and general Strain theory.
00:00:14You may be confused because I've just said I'm a lecturer in criminology.
00:00:21But yet in this video,
00:00:24I'm going to talk about I'm going to
00:00:26talk to you about sociological approaches to crime.
00:00:27But the reason why I can do this is
00:00:30because criminology and sociology have always had a very,
00:00:31very close relationship with each other.
00:00:35Some people cannot would also say,
00:00:38and I think I am one of those that criminology
00:00:41is essentially an extended form of sociology of deviance.
00:00:43The reason why sociology is really,
00:00:48really important within criminology is
00:00:50because a sociological perspective allows
00:00:51us to move beyond a consideration of the legal,
00:00:54psychological or biological factors that go into criminal behaviour to look at
00:00:59the ways in which society might facilitate or might contribute to crime.
00:01:04The first sociologist that actually looked at crime was a
00:01:12military crime all the way back in the 19th century.
00:01:16Before I talked about him, though, I really need to give you a crush.
00:01:20Course that's going to last.
00:01:24About 30 seconds on functional is, um so functional ism has a really,
00:01:25really long history in criminology and sociology at large.
00:01:30So we've got Dirk. I'm Merton.
00:01:33We're going to talk about him in a second and also target Parsons.
00:01:35There were all functional lists.
00:01:38And what does this mean? So, essentially, they thought of society as a system.
00:01:40Each part of the system
00:01:46has its own function.
00:01:48The system as a whole, as needs
00:01:50in
00:01:52itself. So you can think of society essentially has a human body.
00:01:53So, for example, if you think about your heart or your lungs,
00:01:57they all have specific needs. But taken together,
00:02:01you know, all these different systems allow you to walk, breathe feet
00:02:04and do everything in your life.
00:02:09So the key thing to keep in mind everything that exists in society has a function.
00:02:11So Durkin started from this from this assumption.
00:02:19And so what he observed is that crime exists in
00:02:22all and every society because it was a functional ist.
00:02:26He believed that this meant that crime must have a function
00:02:29in trying to understand
00:02:37In trying to understand what this function is.
00:02:40Dirk Kind looked at the ways in which criminal behaviour and episodes
00:02:43of crime have the capacity to strengthen the bonds of society.
00:02:49And this essentially,
00:02:55what he ended up with was the idea that
00:02:56crime isn't any action or behaviour which offends strong,
00:02:59um, and well defined collective feelings.
00:03:05And in violating these feelings,
00:03:07you know that the outrage that society feels because the
00:03:10rules have been violated will bring society closer together.
00:03:14The function of crime, therefore,
00:03:18is that it has an integrative function and makes society more cohesive.
00:03:20An important concept that their crime developed in trying to
00:03:26understand why and when crime happens is the concept of enemy
00:03:31enemy Essentially means literally means a lack of norm, a lack of rules
00:03:37in his work. So drunk I'm had a quite long and established career.
00:03:43So in his in his career, in his work he developed,
00:03:46he went on to develop slightly different understandings of enemy,
00:03:49but essentially the way he has.
00:03:53The two meanings that he used are number one when society
00:03:55fails to regulate the desire of its members or more,
00:03:59a later one that when there is a state of
00:04:04lack of norms when there is a collective loss of direction
00:04:08and according to to do a time when enemy ensues, then strain manifests.
00:04:12And one of the ways in which strain can
00:04:19manifest is by the emergence of deviant behaviour.
00:04:21This is a really important point because, as we will see in a second for murder,
00:04:26who's the criminologist that most explicitly looks at?
00:04:30Their climb for inspiration? Um changes this relationship quite a bit.
00:04:34So we moved through came France 19th century. We moved to the 20th century us.
00:04:39And we talk about Merton
00:04:44and Murder is famous, is remembered because he developed strange theory
00:04:46and essentially what he said was that
00:04:51for him,
00:04:54crime is the result of the strain experienced by people.
00:04:56He was immersed in American society,
00:05:01and essentially his entire work is a critique of the American dream.
00:05:03So what he observed is that he was living
00:05:08in a society which idolised economic and financial success.
00:05:10However, it was also very unequal society,
00:05:15meaning that access to uh education to good
00:05:18job opportunities was not spread equally across,
00:05:24um,
00:05:28gender lines across ethnicity lines across social class
00:05:28and the difficulties.
00:05:33And this meant that some people were prevented from achieving, uh, you know,
00:05:34the financial and economic success that society told them that they should aim for.
00:05:40And this mismatch between what society was telling people to want
00:05:46and the actual ways and the actual means that society
00:05:51was giving people to achieve those goals is what causes strain
00:05:54now, as we saw as we saw a few minutes ago. What drinkin thought is that when enemy
00:06:00ensues,
00:06:05strain
00:06:06manifests,
00:06:06and what happens is that Merton essentially flips
00:06:08this relationship on
00:06:11its head.
00:06:12When people experienced rain,
00:06:13then
00:06:15enemy
00:06:16ensues.
00:06:17Martin also developed a typology of criminal behaviour of deviant to
00:06:20explain the different ways in which people can react to strains.
00:06:24And essentially, he developed a matrix where we can have
00:06:29where where people can either reject or accept the cultural goals of society,
00:06:33as we said mostly to do with financial and economic success,
00:06:37and whether or not they accept or reject
00:06:42the institutional means that society gives them,
00:06:45uh, to achieve these goals.
00:06:48So this gives rise to four different cultures.
00:06:50There were four different responses, so we've got conformity.
00:06:54Innovation ritual is, um and researches.
00:06:57Merton also developed a new technology for people
00:07:00that have new means of achieving new goals,
00:07:04and this is what it termed rebellion
00:07:08now. This theory was
00:07:11incredibly, I mean, it still is incredibly influential in criminology,
00:07:12but there are lots and lots of problems with it, and, you know,
00:07:16there is a vast body of work that actually criticises merchants work.
00:07:18So first of all, he never really tried to empirically verify his theory.
00:07:22Later. Theorists have also accused him
00:07:30of only assume of assuming that only the lower classes committing crime and latest
00:07:33later studies have also highlighted how the
00:07:40link between strain and crime is spurious.
00:07:42What this means is that this is not a perfect, clean and pure causal relationship,
00:07:46but it means that there are other factors that come into play as well.
00:07:53The most recent elaboration of this idea is general strain theory,
00:07:59which Robert Agnew has been developing for the last 30 years.
00:08:03So I think is first works in these areas where in the early nineties
00:08:07and essentially what he did,
00:08:12he introduced the idea That strain is not only caused by negative experiences.
00:08:13As I said, the mismatch between what society tells us to to wand
00:08:20and the ways in which we can achieve this. We can acquire this. The result.
00:08:25The things that society tells us to to to to seek.
00:08:30But he was also he's also talking about
00:08:36the removal of positive experiences and positive stimuli,
00:08:39and this can cause strain as well.
00:08:43And for him, the greatest extent of the strain,
00:08:46the greater the likelihood that a person will engage in criminal behaviour.
00:08:49The key point to there is a vast body of work.
00:08:57Um,
00:09:01that in recent years has explored and used
00:09:02general strain theory to explain things like terrorism
00:09:05or Buddhism or to explain whether or not
00:09:08there are different gender differences in criminal behaviour.
00:09:12But I think the most important thing to you know,
00:09:16the take home message from these videos that all the theories
00:09:18that we've talked about today so strange general strain theory.
00:09:22They are very much focused on,
00:09:27and they identify as a problem the fact that in society,
00:09:29the resources that we have to achieve our goals
00:09:33are not distributed equally in in one word.
00:09:36They're focused on inequality.
00:09:40We do know that inequality harms society.
00:09:43Um, you know, for example, we know that,
00:09:47um people living in more deprived areas have a shorter life expectancy.
00:09:49Um, the U. N s the Office for National Statistics has data about this.
00:09:55We also know, for example, you know, looking at very recent experience,
00:09:59we know that, for example,
00:10:03covid had higher mortality rate in those in poorer areas of the country.
00:10:04So in a way, we do know it is a fact that inequality harms society.
00:10:10However,
00:10:15when we think specifically at that crime,
00:10:16the relationship becomes a lot more complicated.
00:10:18In the last
00:10:2230 or 40 years, the UK has become a more unequal society.
00:10:24And again, if you look at the Office for National Statistics and their website,
00:10:28you will find a plethora or of data on this.
00:10:32However
00:10:36very much in the same period, we have seen that crime rates have actually gone
00:10:37down.
00:10:42Society is safer, there is less violence, generally speaking,
00:10:44and almost all types of crime have gone down.
00:10:48So what this suggests is that actually, the relationship between strain,
00:10:52inequality and crime is a lot more complicated than, um,
00:10:57strength theorists suggest there are other factors that we need to consider.
00:11:02For example, um, economic regimes of productions,
00:11:06the characteristics of neighbourhoods and these are some of the things that
00:11:10we're going to talk about in the rest of the videos.
00:11:13
Cite this Lecture
APA style
Menichelli, F. (2022, April 29). Sociological Theories of Crime - Anomie and Strain Theory [Video]. MASSOLIT. https://massolit.io/courses/sociological-theories-of-crime
MLA style
Menichelli, F. "Sociological Theories of Crime – Anomie and Strain Theory." MASSOLIT, uploaded by MASSOLIT, 29 Apr 2022, https://massolit.io/courses/sociological-theories-of-crime