Crime And Deviance 2 Perspectives
COMPARE AND EVALUATE ANY TWO OF THE FOLLOWING PERSPECTIVES ON CRIME AND DEVIANCE
Crime is a word that most of the people can relate to, according to Collins dictionary it means; violation of the law. (Collins 2005) Deviance is a more difficult word to identify , Collins dictionary definition is; people who have diverged from usual or accepted standards of society, especially in social or sexual behaviour. Su Epstein (2005) who has a PhD , describes deviance in cultural societies as; there are no laws about norms, no norm police, but there is social expectation that we'll follow norms and if we do not we are deemed deviant, a rule breaker or a norm violator.(Epstein 2005) Sociologists have many theories on crime and deviance, the two theories that I will be evaluating are Functionalism and Labelling Theory, I shall be looking at how the theories relate to today's society compared with their origination in the mid 20th Century.
Functionalism in crime originated with Emile Durkheim in 1938. He argued that crime is an inevitable and normal aspect of social life,(Haralambos and Holborn) and that deviance is functional in society. How can this be when deviance is usually related to crime and breaking of the rules, how can this be functional?
Durkheim supported his theory by suggesting that;
Societies have to have rules and rules are broken therefore he believes that deviance is normal. He believes that society always has rules and rule breakers and no human being is the same, for that reason there is always someone who behaves differently from others.
Deviance needs to be controlled in order to preserve social order.
Deviance can also be functional for society; a) source of beneficial social changes. b)condemnation and punishment of deviants helps to unify the rest of society (social solidarity) and establish moral boundaries.
Durkheim believed that crime helped society to conform (expectations of a group,...
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