Sociological Explanations of Crime

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Sociological Factors Affecting Criminal Behaviour

There are many different explanations of crime and deviance, the main ones fall into three categories: biological, psychological and sociological theories.

Socialisation

People’s socialisation can have an effect on their behaviour.
They can either lack socialisation or they can be socialised with the wrong norms and values by having criminal role models.

Peer groups

Peer groups can affect people’s behaviour as human beings need to belong.
To be able to belong people have to follow what their peers suggest in order to be accepted.
If the values of the group differ from the ones of the society then they form subcultures which may lead to criminality.

Relative deprivation

Relative deprivation refers to lacking resources that majority of people have, e.g. the latest gadgets.

Merton's strain theory

Strain theory (Merton):
- Crime comes as a result of the strain people feel when they can’t achieve society’s goals and this is why they turn to different methods to achieve them.

Merton

Merton is a functionalist.
He believed that deviance exists because of the culture and structure of society.
He believed in value consensus, i.e. everyone has the same values.
However, not everyone gets the same chances to realise these goals because of different life chances. E.g. coming from different social classes.

Merton cont.

This might result in anomie, i.e. the breakdown of norms which are seen as accepted.
Everyone wants to live the American dream but not everyone can do so which leads in the search of any possible way to achieve it, legal or illegal.
He argued that there are five possible ways in which individuals could try to succeed in achieving these goals in American society.

Crime comes as a result of the strain people feel when they can’t achieve society’s goals and this is why they turn to different methods to achieve them. He gives five ways individuals try to achieve these goals in American society.

Conformity

Conformity: achieve success by conventionally accepted means.
- E.g. by gaining educational qualifications which in turn give them access to secure, well paid employment.
Other conventional routes to success include talent, hard work and ambition.

Innovation

Innovation: for those who couldn’t succeed using conventionally accepted routes and turn to deviant means, usually crime.
This path is often followed by individuals who came from the lower levels of society and had less chance of gaining the educational qualifications which would ensure secure employment.

Ritualism

Ritualism: for those who abandon conventional success goals because they are unable to innovate as they are conformists and remain stuck in low paid, low status jobs where they may exhibit an enthusiasm for rules.

Retreatism

Retreatism: this describes individuals who ‘drop out’ of society.
- E.g. outcasts of all kinds such as drug addicts who have abandoned success goals and means of achieving them.

Rebellion

Rebellion: for individuals who reject success goals and the usual means of achieving them but replace them with different goals.
They are deviant because they want a new society.
They are seen as members of a ‘rising’ social class who may even try to revolt.

Criticisms of Merton

Power relations

Merton has been criticised for not taking into account power relations in society.
For example by failing to consider who makes the laws and who benefits from them.