3.7: Sociological Theories

Sociological Theories

Sociologists tend to look at the surrounding society to explain the influence on human behavior. Some sociologists feel that it is the broad structure of society such as the effects of poverty and unequal opportunities that influences the lives of humans. Other sociologists focus on the social process and the socialization experiences as youths mature into adults.

Social Structure

Social structure theorists utilize data such as information derived from the uniform crime reports and the national crime victimization survey which we have discussed in an earlier chapter. By examining this and other data sources they can see that there is an interrelationship between the crime rate and various social factors such as gender, race, age, income, lifestyle, and so on. Their findings seemed to indicate that the United States is what is known as a stratified society this means that rather than members of a society, there are actually different categories such as the upper class, the middle class, and the lower class or those that live in poverty. It is thought that this culture of poverty may be passed on from generation to generation. It would be quite unlikely to see someone who is very wealthy suddenly become very poor just as it would be highly unlikely to see someone who is currently homeless and unemployed suddenly become a multimillionaire. Within the various social structure and theories there are different explanations for why this stratification occurs and why deviance arises.

Cultural Deviance

Some theorists such as Miller are interested why more deviance seems to come from the lower class. His theory is that the things that the different classes value either encourage their members to participate in crime or to stay away from it. For instance these “focal concerns” among the middle-class include the value of a good education, stable employment, working hard, supporting your family, and preparing for the future.

When Miller studied the values or focal concerns of the lower class he found that they valued things such as excitement, smartness, trouble, toughness, autonomy, and fate. For the people in his study he found that they valued street-smarts over education, they thought you built a reputation by getting into trouble not staying away from it, that committing crime was exciting, and standing up for yourself in front of law enforcement or the courts showed your autonomy and however this all turned out was just a matter of fate. I should point out that he did not actually study all lower-class people; he actually sampled a small number of inner-city minority gang members. So perhaps these values are not the values held by all lower-class individuals but interestingly they may be some common values held amongst gang members.

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Anomie and Strain Theory

Another well-known social structure theory was the one developed by Emile Durkheim, known as Anomie. Durkheim felt that normally society guides its people through various rules and norms to help them reach social and financial success. However, during times of rapid social change the government and leaders made it themselves struggling to survive and they do not provide very good guidance on rules for the people to follow. This state of “normlessness” can cause frustration in the people. For instance, people were taught to save their money in banks but during the Great Depression the banking system collapsed and the people lost all their money. People were taught in America to work hard and passed their business and land on to their children, but during the great dust bowl all the crops died and the land was lost since no money could be made for the payments. Does a good parent stay with their hungry cold children where there is no employment to be found or do they leave their family to go somewhere where they might find employment? The time of the Great Depression, the dustbowl, threatening collapse of American economy, as well as World War I and II was a very confusing time. Some people argue that our society is still in a state of anomie given the rapid technological advances and the financial instabilities. Durkheim theorized that during these times of unknown norms and rules, crime would increase.

An American terrorist by the name of Robert Merton developed his theory of Strain. Merton felt that society typically did have norms about the appropriate goals and ways to reach those goals which is known as means that citizens should have and should follow. He theorized that in America the number one goal was money. The legitimate means to achieve this goal were things such as a good education, stable employment, and hard work. The problem comes about when citizens try to follow the legitimate means and they either cannot because of things such as high unemployment or even when they do, they do not achieve very much money—that citizens may turn to crime because of the strain.

Subculture

Some theorists examine the idea of subculture, which is smaller unique cultures that exist within the larger culture. Cohen for instance compared the middle and lower classes. Cohen felt in the middle-class was made better with competition he viewed this competition like game measuring rod that people would use to see if they measured up to their neighbors and coworkers. If their house was not as nice or their clothes were not as new, they would simply try harder so they could achieve these things. Cohen believed that when the lower classes did not measure of they became frustrated and rather than trying harder they would band together and often commit crime to get what they wanted.

The theorists Cloward and Ohlin agreed that subcultures existed and they had important differences. They pointed out that often these differences in values and beliefs may lead to conflict. This conflict does not just take place in the lower-class. That’s crime and a willingness to use violence is not something seen only in the lower-class, it can be found in the middle-class and upper classes as well.

Ecological

The final social structure area is referred to as Ecological. These theorists examine the social forces particularly those found in urban areas where crime rates tend to be higher. These theorists have found that in the high-crime rate areas there tends to be greater levels of what they call social disorganization. Areas experiencing social disorganization often look more run down and dangerous. It is not only how these areas look that contributes to the crime rate but the fact that the people in this area typically are anxious to move out as soon as they can save up enough money and so no one invests in repairing the broken down areas or in providing activities and structure for the community members.

Simply repairing buildings in these rundown areas typically does not reduce the crime rate. It seems that it is not just the condition of the buildings but the mindset of the people. Not all poor people to crime but the crime rate tends to be higher in the poorer neighborhoods. One explanation for this may be the concept of “relative deprivation.” Often students tend to be rather poor but campuses usually do not have high rates of crime. The theory is because the mindset of the students is that their financial future will be better. Many inner-city residents do not have this optimism relatively speaking they feel even more deprived. When some buildings are repaired and theirs is not, they may feel even more angered and desperate than before and may resort to crime.