the 1950s can be seen as a period of great prosperity for the people of britain
Assess the usefulness of functionalist approaches in explaining crime. (21 marks)
Functionalists see the source of crime as located within the structure of society and they believe society produces an individual and many of these functionalists also believe that crime serves a positive function in society. Functionalist supporters like Durkheim claim some crimes are inevitable in society and are impossible to vanish completely, and he believes these crimes can become a positive in society because when punishments are handed out to criminals this portrays a stern message that crime is wrong and won’t be tolerated and therefore discourages others in society to commit crimes and ultimately raises awareness of crimes.
However, Merton another functionalist argued that many types of crime exist because society as a whole shares the same ‘American dream’ (i.e. to become rich and successful), but not everyone can achieve these things lawfully, so a strain exists between the goals and ambitions of people and their ability to achieve them. The problem with Merton’s strain theory is that there are many people in society who have not achieved the so called ‘American dream’ but haven’t turned to crime, so it can be argued that crime is committed collectively and maybe because of a lack of socialisation and upbringing.
Albert Cohen’s theory in explaining crime indicates that individuals experience frustration because they cannot achieve status, so young males mainly the working class boys feel a sense of frustration with their position in society and their inability to achieve mainly in schools, so they attempt to replace societies norms with different ones that they are more able to achieve and this therefore leads to crime. The weakness with Cohen’s theory is that he only focused on males and ignored that females can also become frustrated with their position in society. For example females may feel used in society for sexual purposes also they may feel that they get
Functionalists see the source of crime as located within the structure of society and they believe society produces an individual and many of these functionalists also believe that crime serves a positive function in society. Functionalist supporters like Durkheim claim some crimes are inevitable in society and are impossible to vanish completely, and he believes these crimes can become a positive in society because when punishments are handed out to criminals this portrays a stern message that crime is wrong and won’t be tolerated and therefore discourages others in society to commit crimes and ultimately raises awareness of crimes.
However, Merton another functionalist argued that many types of crime exist because society as a whole shares the same ‘American dream’ (i.e. to become rich and successful), but not everyone can achieve these things lawfully, so a strain exists between the goals and ambitions of people and their ability to achieve them. The problem with Merton’s strain theory is that there are many people in society who have not achieved the so called ‘American dream’ but haven’t turned to crime, so it can be argued that crime is committed collectively and maybe because of a lack of socialisation and upbringing.
Albert Cohen’s theory in explaining crime indicates that individuals experience frustration because they cannot achieve status, so young males mainly the working class boys feel a sense of frustration with their position in society and their inability to achieve mainly in schools, so they attempt to replace societies norms with different ones that they are more able to achieve and this therefore leads to crime. The weakness with Cohen’s theory is that he only focused on males and ignored that females can also become frustrated with their position in society. For example females may feel used in society for sexual purposes also they may feel that they get