Question

Name two theories of crime and causes? Is it possible to blend both theories?

Answer 1

• Biological explanations of crime assume that some people are ‘born criminals’, who are physiologically distinct from non-criminals.
• Sociological approaches suggest that crime is shaped by factors external to the individual: their experiences within the neighbourhood, the peer group, and the family.
• American sociologist Robert Merton (1957) drew on this idea to explain criminality and deviance in the USA. His theory argues that crime occurs when there is a gap between the cultural goals of a society (e.g. material wealth, status) and the structural means to achieve these (e.g. education, employment). This strain between means and goals results in frustration and resentment, and encourages some people to use illegitimate or illegal means to secure success. In short, strain theory posits that the cultural values and social structures of society put pressure on individual citizens to commit crime.
• Linked to strain thoery are concepts of status frustration and differential opportunity.
• Status frustration is associated with the work of Albert Cohen (1955), who conducted research into group offending by young, lower-class men. Cohen argued that lower-class youths could not aspire to middle-class cultural goals and so, frustrated, they rejected them to create their own subcultural system of values. In school, for example, they gain status and respect by meeting the expectations of peers not teachers, engaging in delinquent activities such as smoking,and acting up in class.
• Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) built on these ideas, pointing to the differential opportunity structures available to lower-class young people in different neighbourhoods: criminal (making a living from crime), conflict (territorial violence and gang fighting) and retreatist (drugs and alcohol).