Like the item says, 'functionalist sociologists focus on how far individuals accept the norms and values of society.' Durkheim blames people not being fully integrated into society’s norms and values as to why they commit crime. So he said once people have served their time for their crime, they should be reintegrated. It’s a strength that Durkheim suggests them being reintegrated as it means they’re less likely to reoffend if they feel they belong to their society and do not look for status through crime. However, interactionists would say that agents of social control cause crime, not the society you are in.
Introductory Criminology Assignment Semester 1 2009/2010 Rhian Williams ‘Our crime problem is socially constructed’ Discuss This essay will look at different theories with regards to crime being socially constructed. It will discuss what makes a crime and how it is different from deviance. Theories such as Howard Becker’s labelling theory and Robert Merton’s adaption of Emile Durkheim’s anomie theory will be discussed to show that society plays a major role in constructing crime. It will also briefly discuss examples of acts that used to be criminal and illegal but now are widely accepted within society as part of socialization. Crime is defined as “an act prohibited and punished by law” (Collins, 2006) but there has been much debate about what ‘crime’ is.
This cycle will keep going unless there is action taken to improve the quality of run-down communities. Kelling and Wilson conclude that in order to know what action to take one must understand the “causal chain,” found in the textbook. “Disorder caused by disreputable people → breakdown in informal control → invasion of predatory criminals → high crime rates in the neighborhood.” The only way to put an end to the cycle is to eliminate the beginning factor, which starts with prohibition of public disorganization. The only institution that can enforce this action, according to Kelling and Wilson, are the police. They are responsible for controlling the deviants and ensuring that appropriate measures are being taken to protect the community from their
(Johnson, 2002) Role of Law Enforcement Crime control model cites to a possibility of criminal justice which places stress on dropping the crime in company by altered law and prosecutorial authority. In counterpoint, the “due process model” centers person liberties and corrects and is concerned with bounding the abilities of authorities. The function those act in the policies is that they are authorities collected curricula. The crime control model is in occupied affirm of such authorities collected curricula to engage consequently. The due process model, however, deficiencies less government interest and more private venture.
The contingency theory is based on the approach to achieve specific goals, such as crime control. This theory would suggest the creation of specialized “task forces” to handle certain crimes committed in the jurisdiction. The downfall with this theory is that a department can become too specialized and broken into different departments that it cannot adapt to changes. The final theory, resource dependency, is as the name suggests. Agencies following this theory would believe that in order to survive they need to adjust their policing efforts to a style that will yield the most money coming in.
Another factor is that it depends on how attractive the target is in that how much will the individual gain from committing the crime or how easily the crime can be implemented such as robbing from a bank will have a high risk factor. Cohen and Felson support these theories through their own on routine activities as offenders and victims are more likely to coincide in certain ways and where there is little formal or informal social control on preventing the crime from happening. As crimes are more likely to happen when there is no ‘guardian’ e.g. police, and at specific times and places e.g. mugging someone returning from work due to the offender having knowledge of their routine walk home.
Labelling theory was developed by Howard Becker, and is primarily concerned with societal reaction to crime; thus straying away from the deviant act and instead looking more closely at how and why certain people become defined as deviant. It suggests deviance is not an inherent act, but instead the result of people negatively labelling those that deviate from the norm. Edwin Lemert put forward a typology of deviance, extremely relevant in terms of highlighting labelling theory. He suggested Primary Deviance was a simple deviant act, not as a result of a label, but instead may result in a label. And Secondary Deviance, he suggested, was the idea criminality is a response to being labelled as deviant.
The psychological perspective sees criminal behaviour as a deviant action which causes hurt or discomfort to other people, whilst in exchange gaining a reward for themselves. Each of these views of an undesirable criminal behaviour need a remedy which will reduce or completely stop behaving in such a way again. When someone breaks the law there are two ways of dealing with them, to treat the offender, or to punish them. The aims of both treating and punishing an offender are the same, to prevent further re-offending. However both of these processes function in completely different ways, and some are more effective than others.
This is taking them out of society and reducing their ability to commit any other crimes. Rehabilitation is the philosophy that society is best served when wrongdoers are not simply punished but to also provide resources needed to eliminate criminal behavioral. These four philosophies provide us with a basic understanding of what the purpose is behind sentencing. Now that we have a basic understanding of what is behind sentencing let’s look at the structure of sentencing. Some of the things that determine sentencing are legislative sentencing authority, judicial sentencing, and administrative sentencing.
It assumes that individuals are fearful of punishment. As a result, attaching punishment(s) to crimes is the surest way of preventing crime. The Theory also concludes that the punishment must be proportional to the crime, a concept commonly called marginal deterrence. More serious offenses, such as rape,