Analysis Of Merton's Anomie Theory

Gang violence and activity has arisen in the past decades, with exceeding concerns and amongst youth being the primary target. Law enforcement try to gain a better understanding to why people are falling into criminal activity. Throughout the following essay we will be summarizing the background of one of the most notorious gang known internationally, MS-13. In addition, we will also be explaining ways different criminology theorist and theories apply to these particular group of people.

By 1968, Merton was clarifying his strain theory by arguing for a perspective that views socially deviant behavior, including criminal behavior as a product of social structure (Tibbetts and Hemmons, 2010). The social structure, for Merton, had to do with approved social means. While people can put forth an honest effort to attain the American Dream, Americans are more likely to do whatever it takes to get ahead. However, although doing whatever it takes to succeed might lead to criminality, Merton developed five “modes of adaptation” to strain. The first mode of adaptation is conformity. While many, if not most, people

Why do people commit crimes? What goes through their minds before they actually commit a crime? These are questions asked from society to criminologist every time one decides they want to commit a crime. Criminologists has given us different crime causations, theories, to explain the answer to these questions. A theory is a speculation about how phenomena, behavior, or process are caused and what takes place after the cause is determined (Anderson, 2015). There are numerous theories that have evolved over time to explain why crimes are committed. These theories include anomie, strained, social control, and rational choice theory. In this research paper I will be focusing on rational choice theory. Majority of these theories focus on a macro-level, which is the largest, meanwhile some focus on a micro-level, the smaller level, depending on the circumstances. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize how rational choice theory is integrate with different crimes. The crimes included are burglary, white collar crime, and murder.

Two of the most important concepts are the Strain theory by Robert K. Merton and General Strain theory by Robert Agnew. Strain theory describes that society puts pressure on individuals to achieve socially accepted goes such as the American dream. Though they lack the means to have the American dream, which leads to strain, but might lead to the individuals to commit crimes. On the other hand, Robert Agnew’s General theory describes as seeing crime as a coping mechanism to help people deal with socioemotional problems that are generated by negative social relations. Each member of society has similar goals and aspirations. Some have experienced blocked access to their goals producing behavior that is characterized as criminal.

Criminal behaviour has always been an interest for psychologists, for they could never quite come to a conclusion between nature and nurture. Research concerning this topic has been organized for many years and due to the never ending debate, is still being conducted. I have decided to read and write about this myself, for I was genuinely curious about the matter and wanted to be a part of the research, as I felt responsible to do so. I believe that in order to stop something, it must be discussed and scrutinized. What effects do genes have on criminal behaviour, why do peer pressure and habitat influence a person to commit crimes and are men really more violent than women? My paper aims to discuss the three different factors of criminal behaviour, what causes it and why. My essay will examine and focus mainly on the genetic makeup of a person, the environment in which they are raised in and gender differences.

America makes up a total of five percent of the world’s population, but our incarcerated population makes up twenty-five percent of the world’s incarcerated population. I learned this statistic one day prior to our lecture on drugs in my pre-law class while discussing criminal law. The War on Drugs agenda pushed by President Nixon has created barriers for people who are incarcerated because of mandatory minimums in prisons and then the difficulty of rebuilding your life once out. This means that because of a minor drug offense someone can be in prison for a lengthy time leading to overcrowding in prisons and more money for outsourced prison companies who make a profit off of prison labor and the system itself. Before this lecture, I had the very simple view of “Do not commit crimes and you will not get arrested.” However, many are pushed into a life of crime because of inability to provide for their families with the low wages of part time job opportunities. The Illegitimate Opportunity Structure shows how many people are pushed into a life of criminality and must choose to conform, innovate, ritualize, retreat, or rebel. Police profiling was another that was astonishing in this lecture because I had always heard of it in the news but never looked at the statistics about racial profiling.

This difference in the source of crime with Durkheim’s theory naturally means that crime will be detrimental to the society in which it occurs. Individuals who choose to break the law will then do so knowingly with a deeper and darker motive. (Greenberg and Greenberg, 1993) Modern Marxists suggest that societies are an amalgamation of a number of competing sects and this means that those sects have differing interests than others. Due to an unequal distribution of assets and power in such societies, there is the inevitable existence of crime and deviance. (Greenberg and Greenberg, 1993) Capitalism is the root of such crimes and these are negatively affecting the chance for social stability in a community. One such crime which occurs due to political motivations is the recent case of ‘Black Lives Matter’ protests across many regions of the United States of America. Violence and crime due to these protests disrupt social stability instead of upholding

One of the central theories of the juvenile delinquency is the anomie theory that is rooted in the early studies by the sociologist Emile Durkheim. The term "anomie," in this regard, stands for the absence of social regulation (Siegel, & Welsh, 2014). American sociologist Robert Merton emphasized the faulty relationship between the goal of the individual or the group of individuals and the legal means by which it is possible to achieve the goals (Thompson & Bynum, 2016). Robert Merton divided the goals into two distinct categories: the goals defined by culture and the acceptable means. Materialistic goals, such as a search for financial success, fall into the former category, whereas the goals such as education fall into the former (Thompson & Bynum, 2016). The main argument made by Merton is that the goal of achieving success is shared by the majority of people, whereas the seeking opportunities to do this legally through the means of

Those in the authority position of society have control over the limited resources for which everyone is in competition. As a result, these power struggles allow for the social order to be governed by the powerful, rather than the consensus. Moreover, the powerful maintain their dominant positon and safeguard their privilege with their abundant resources. Conflict theorists, therefore, believe that theft is due to economic equality and would justify theft since the underprivileged need the limited resources monopolized by the wealthy in order to survive. Additionally, the laws that dictate punishment are created by those in power positions. According to the conflict theory, the powerful will make laws that benefit them, so the punishment for crime may be exorbitant as the criminal is directly taking from the powerful. The impact of this theft on the community of the powerless classes will most likely cause social strife as they see the forced inequality they must endure. The theft, however, will have no effect on the wealthy as they still have an abundance of

Crime can be dated back to many centuries ago in the history of the United States. Although types and definitions of crime have evolved over time, the crime itself has and continues to be viewed negatively by society. In addition, crime rates are never the same and have varied throughout history. So what factors deter or increase crime? This question has also been asked and studied by several throughout time. For instance, to determine crime rates, the four school of thoughts (the Chicago School, Differential Association/Social Learning, Anomie, and Strain theories) have studied crime rate and factors that surround crime. There are multiple studies conducted on crime but recently this large city that has made dramatic changes to its crime statistic

There are many phenomena that could cause or correlate with crime. In addition to this, there are many characteristics to these phenomena that cause/correlate with criminal behavior. Furthermore, these characteristics can be individual, sociological, or both that could have an effect on criminal behavior. This paper will take the educational avenue on crime. Also, there are numerous ways that education can correlate with crime. The first way of correlation is through an economic scope. This way will take a look at how education can have an effect on an individual’s wages that may deter them from crime. The second way education has an affect on crime is the principles that a school would teach to kids that could keep them from crime. In addition, this section will focus on some key sociological aspects. The next way that crime is correlated with education is that crime could be a barrier to education. Finally, some statistics to present the education and crime correlation. There is a correlation between education and crime that shows the more education an individual obtains, the more opportunity costs, which would reduce the risk of the individual participating in criminal behavior.

There are many theories that suggest that crime is constructed socially, or is a product of the society in which the crime is committed. One such theory, proposed by Robert Merton, is known as strain theory. While strain theory is a useful model for explaining how societal values can drive people to commit crimes, it has several flaws and does not focus on how laws are made and how this contributes to the formation of crime. While Merton suggests that laws are created from consensus within a society, it will be argued that strain theory can also support the idea that laws are a “product of conflict” (Hagan 5).

Why are some successful? Why do some commit crimes? Society has general laws, offenders who break those laws are known as being deviants. Society views robbery, assault, and murder, as deviant acts. Cultural Deviance Theory is a, “branch of social structure theory that sees strain and social disorganization together resulting in a unique lower-class culture that conflicts with conventional social norms” (Siegel, 2018, P. 581). Acts that are viewed as deviant vary between social orders. Deviance can be said to be socially built; the general public chooses what is degenerate, individuals or an individual can be named as aberrance because of their societal position, race, ethnicity

Every day on the news there are all kinds of reports. Crime reports are a major part of today's events. Almost every day there are posts about crimes. The level of crime has risen immensely in every corner of the world. People have tried to understand the causes of crime, but if we look around the world we can see that many of the crimes are caused by people who abuse drugs and alcohol, people who think negatively towards others, and poverty.

Poverty is defined as the state of being unable to fulfill basic needs of human beings. Poverty is the lack of resources leading to physical deprivation. Poor people are unable to fulfill basic survival needs such as food, clothing, shelter. These are the needs of lowest order and assume top priority. Poor people are unknown of their lack of voice, power, and rights, which leads them to exploitation. Poor people being unable to take part in social and cultural norms leads to breakdown of social relation among the people The effects of poverty can be mainly categorized as unemployment, illiteracy, food security, psychological well-being, increased crime rate, child health, homelessness etc.