Functionalist perspective of crime – revision notes with evaluative points
Why does crime occur in the first place? Every society has crime.
- Abnormal levels of crime can occur in times of social upheaval.
- The collective conscience is then weakened, causing a state of anomie (normlessness) to occur as people are just looking after their own interests rather then also taking into consideration others as well.
- Therefore individualism can be a cause of crime and deviance (this links to the postmodern view on crime and deviance).
Criticisms of Durkheim – Evaluative points
(-)He fails to distinguish between types of crime -> some crimes are more harmful than others.
(-) He doesn’t explain why there is crime in the first place; just that it is a function of society -> surely people don’t commit criminal acts to make society better.
(-) The theory fails to consider who crime is functional for -> Marxists would argue that crime only functions for the ruling class.
(-) Not all crimes are positive and functional.
sociologytwynham.com 
Leave a Reply