The functionalist perspective views society as composed of different parts working together. In contrast, the conflict perspective views society as composed of different groups and interest competing for power and resources.

Functionalist believe that crime is actually beneficial for society – for example it can improve social integration and social regulation. The Functionalist analysis of crime starts with society as a whole. It seeks to explain crime by looking at the nature of society, rather than at individuals.

Marxists argue that the economic system of capitalism itself causes crime. The whole system is based on the exploitation of the working class by the ruling class, leading to the ever-increasing wealth of one class and ever-increasing poverty of the other.

For Marxists, crime is inevitable in capitalism because capitalism is ‘criminogenic’ – this means that the very nature of capitalism brings about the potential for crime. This can be illustrated in four ways: For example, poverty may force the poor to commit crime as a means of survival.

Robert K. Merton

Examples of General Strain Theory are people who use illegal drugs to make themselves feel better, or a student assaulting his peers to end the harassment they caused. GST introduces 3 main sources of strain such as: Loss of positive stimuli (death of family or friend)

General Strain theory (GST) is a part of the social structure theories of crime, which “fit the positivist mode in that they contend that these social forces push or influence people to commit crime” (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2013, p. 266). At the heart of this social structure theoretical vein lies GST.

four theories

44) conceives of anomie as a social condition that promotes “the withdrawal of allegiance from social norms and high rates of deviance.” Thus, Messner reformulates anomie theory to argue that the pressure exerted by the condition of anomie explains the distribution of deviance across society, while the strain theory of …

Classical strain theory predicts that deviance is more likely to occur if one’s culturally determined aspirations for monetary success and the opportunity to achieve that success are not congruent.

When the response to strain is one of just anger, it is more likely the individual will engage in delinquency….

• Conformity.
• Innovation.
• Ritualism.
• Retreat.
• Rebellion.

Reactions to Cultural Goals and Institutionalized Means He found that people adapt their goals in response to the means that society provides to achieve them. He identified five types of reactions: They accept the goals their society sets for them, as well as the institution-alized means of achieving them.

: the attitude of being resigned to abandonment of an original goal or the means of attaining it (as in political or cultural matters)

A homeless person is most definitely an example of retreatism if the person is lacking the institutional means to achieve the goal of living in a home and getting a job to support him or herself and doesn’t feel inclined to try and reach this goal via other means such as stealing.

Ritualism involves the rejection of cultural goals but the routinized acceptance of the means for achieving the goals. Retreatism involves the rejection of both the cultural goals and the traditional means of achieving those goals.

One common example of ritualism is when people do not embrace the goal of getting ahead in society by doing well in one’s career and earning as much money as possible. Many have often thought of this as the American Dream, as did Merton when he created his theory of structural strain.

According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based upon these criteria: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. Structural functionalism argues that deviant behavior plays an active, constructive role in society by ultimately helping cohere different populations within a society.

In sociology, deviance describes an action or behavior that violates social norms, including a formally enacted rule (e.g., crime), as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores).