CRJS 4467
Lecture #3
1. Course Administration
• in-class presentations - sign up list
• essays?
• questions?
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2. Institutional - Anomie Theory of Crime
• Quetelet and Guerry as the pioneers of
quantitative criminology - the ‘moral
statisticians’
• Durkheim - social change, normlessness and
anomie - in suicide, he analyses the homicide
rate
• University of Chicago - the ‘social pathology’
approach, crime stemming from social
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disorganization
• Robert K. Merton (1938) - “Social Structure &
Anomie”
- note the critique of the biological/utilitarian
approach here - how do you explain deviations
from otherwise normal patterns of behaviour how do we explain, predict the factors that
bring about large scale departures from
conformity - “social structure”
- social structures ‘exert a definite pressure’ on
some individuals to engage in deviant behaviour
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- two major components of social structure (1) culturally defined goals, purposes and
and interests, and (2) culturally defined
definitions, regulations and control on the means
used to achieve goals
- note that the stress placed on particular goals, and
the availability of means may not always be
in proportion with one another
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Culture Goals
Institutionalized Means
Conformity
+
+
Innovation
+
-
Ritualism
-
+
Retreatism
-
-
Rebellion
+/-
+/5
• conformity is most common in society
• retreatism is the least common
• note that the preponderance of innovation,
ritualism, rebellion will vary at different points
in the development of society, and with the
personality, cultural background of individuals
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• Albert Cohen (1955) “Delinquent Boys: The
Culture of the Gang”
- the development of the delinquent
subculture as a response to status deprivation being confronted by the problem of ‘wanting’
versus ‘able’ to achieve culturally defined
and rewarded statuses
- a group of individuals with similar problems of
adjustment brought together
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- out of delinquent group interaction the
characteristics they do possess are reconceived
as meritorious - as the valid status characteristics
- achievement of status within the group, then, is
accompanied by loss of status outside the group
(not the rudiments of primary and secondary
deviance here)
- repudiation of middle-class standards, substitution
of others
- legitimation of aggression, other behaviours
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• Cloward and Ohlin (1960) “Delinquency and
Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs”
- note the integration of juvenile delinquency with
adult criminality in lower-class neighbourhoods
- the subcultural definition of criminal activity as
legitimate activity, as a means of achieving what
are largely conventional goals - hence, in the
delinquent subculture, many of Merton’s
categories are seen: innovation, retreatism
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- again, deviance perceived as a search for
solutions to problems of adjustment
- note an important point here: if the ‘problem
of adjustment’ is perceived to be more
permanent, then the motivation to deviance
may be much higher
- the social environment provides the pressure, but
not determine the form of deviance (this is
important to keep in mind, sociologically)
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- the greater the discrepancy between means and ends,
the stronger the pressures to deviance
- two types of delinquent responses - the criminal,
and the conflict
- the process of alienation - individual versus social
failure
- illegitimate means and subcultures
- illegitimate opportunties
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• the criminal subculture (integrated)
• the conflict subculture (disorganized)
• the retreatist subculture
• the importance of neighbourhood stability here
• the consequences of urban decline
• “absence of effective guardianship”
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