Notesale: Turn your study into money

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Applying material from item B and your knowledge, evaluate the contribution of
strain theories to our understanding of crime and deviance
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For example,
Merton argues that American culture emphasises achieving success but an unequal
structure limits some individuals’ opportunity to do so legitimately
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Strain Theory, developed by Merton in the 1930s which suggests that people commit crime
because they become disillusioned by society and its approved set goals which they
cannot achieve through legitimate means, so they to turn to illegitimate means
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However, Merton was criticised by sociologists such as Valler for his
stress on the existence of common goals in society
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In contemporary society, the realisation of
Britain’s multicultural society has meant that it is impossible to suggest one set of common
goals that people subscribe to as there are too many cultures in society to have one
common set
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By this they meant that for some subcultures in society, a regular
illegal career was available
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Cloward and Ohlin described the three
subcultures present in the illegal opportunity structure, criminal which is where young
offenders work their way up the hierarchy, conflict where groups are brought up and turn to
violence in this environment, and retreatist where the individual has no opportunity to
engage in either of the other two
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Also to draw upon Merton’s writings was Albert Cohen (1955) who was interested in the
fact that much of the offending behaviour was not economically motivated, but simply done
for the thrill of the act which is backed up by the evidence that 18% of crimes in Britain
today are vandalism
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This led to status
frustration, a sense of personal failure and inadequacy, and in an attempt to gain status;
they invert traditional middle class values by behaving badly and engaging in a variety of
antisocial behaviours
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One critique of the strain theory is that it overemphasises the role of social class in crime
and deviance
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However, if we examine the wide spectrum of

deviant and criminal acts, strain theory account inadequately for crimes beyond the narrow
scope of street crimes; crimes considered as white-collar crimes are more rampant among
the middle and upper-classes who suffice materially
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Functionalist
and strain theory assume people’s inherent goodness; people are driven by social factors
to crime and deviance
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The control theory balances this
by providing an opposing perspective
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This better explains cases of many highly-educated officials embezzling company funds
thinking they would not get caught; they do not need the money but their motivations are
that of greed
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The working class will always face more
issues than the Upper classes, due to the barriers that come along with poverty, when
attempting to seize success through legitimate means

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