Siciological Perspectives
1.There are several different sociological explanations from different perspectives: the Functionalist perspective, Labelling perspective, Sub-culture perspective and the Marxist perspective used to explain crime and deviance.2.The main features to each perspective are described below:Functionalists believe that crime is best analysed by looking at society as a whole and that we should not look at the individual person, and that the way society is structured explains the cause of crime. They believe that crime has a function in society and that we need it, even though functionalists feel strongly about shared values and consensus to keep society together. This said they think that the existence of crime brings other parts of society together because, we come together to stop crime e.g. neighbourhood watch or a paedophile moving into a town: all different types of people would get together in the way of marches and the signing of petitions.This therefore helps to promote shared values and social order. Functionalists believe crime has its function, if it did not prisons/punishment and the police would therefore not have a function in society. Theorists who follow this perspective are Durkhe
Strengths to Stanley Cohen's study include: the material used was good secondary date e. This is very hard to get rid of the preverbal leopard never changes it's spots, and the person given the master status believes that it doesn't matter how much or little they drink they will always be labelled a drunk, this creates a 'self fulfilling prophecy'. This theory looks at how those in the ruling class try to cover up deviancy and crimes of those in that class. The problem here is how to cope with parts of society that look like they are out of individual control, especially the uneven allocation of wealth and power and a very low status in the labour market. some groups of criminals may have norms that promote and reward criminal behaviour. Marxists believe that young working classed males are portrayed by the media as the people who commit the most crimes in society, this then reinforces ideas of materialism into people. In many societies there are the opportunities to reaching these goals, but in America the greatest way of becoming wealthy and a success is by getting a good education, working hard, determination and ambition. No trustees, directors or manager of Berling's bank ever got prosecuted for not keeping a system in place, but negligence, sheer greed and profiteering have all been mentioned for the reason it happened and the "rogue trader" was allowed to trade as he did. He showed that there was a connection between crime and the media. They solve the struggle of their situation by leaving behind their goals and the means of achieving them. Events started in Clacton on a cold Easter weekend in 1964, it started with just a few groups scuffling and throwing stones at each other. Rebellion - this is the rejection of any success goals and the means of achieving them. There is also a clear link with talking about power, in that a range of social control measures were proposed, and many actually introduced, to exercise power and punishment over the groups. Showed that goals in the USA are reached at the expense of institutionalised means, this creates a tendency towards anomie. Weaknesses to Cohen's study include: his research results state that these teenage subcultures represented a rejection of the work ethic and they were turned off by dead end jobs but here I believe is a weakness as many of the Mods and Rockers were from middle-classed backgrounds and would not have been able to afford scooters and motorbikes if they had rejected working.
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