Anomie And Strain Theory

Strain theories of criminal behaviour have been amongst the most important and influential in the field of criminology. Taking a societal approach, strain theories have sought to explain deficiencies in social structure that lead individuals to commit crime (Williams and McShane 2010). Strain theories operate under the premise that there is a societal consensus of values, beliefs, and goals with legitimate methods for achieving success. When individuals are denied access to legitimate methods for achieving success, the result is anomie or social strain. This often leads an individual to resort to deviant or criminal means to obtain the level of success that they are socialized to pursue. This is the basic premise of strain theory. This

Strain theory and New Deviancy Theory (NDT) are mirror images of those above. Strain theory understands human nature to be socially constructed, where, committing a crime is produced by society not from individual instincts, favouring a deterministic perspective but also recognising that individuals rationalise from inside their determined position to achieve their aspirations. However, methods of innovation, ritualism, retreatism, or rebellion are not included under human rationality. Combining voluntaristic and determinacy is a main feature in NDT, although, they argue that while individuals are born free, they lose their agency in societal frameworks that manage behaviour; the state. The problem with this is that it ignores class conflict and therefore denies the basic causes of crime.

This essay will outline how crime theories are able to assist in recognizing the causes of criminal activity, as well as demonstrating two criminological theories to two particular crimes. Overviews of trends, dimensions and victim/offenders characteristics of both crime groups will be specified. The two particular crimes that will be demonstrated throughout this essay are; Violent Crime (focusing on Assault) being linked with social learning theory and White Collar crime (focusing on terrorism) being linked to General Strain theory. In criminology, determining the motive of why people commit crimes is crucial. Over the years, many theories have been developed and they continue to be studied as criminologists pursue the best answers in eventually diminishing certain types of crime including assaults and terrorism, which will be focused on.

Robert Agnew developed his theory called General Strain Theory based off of Robert Merton’s Classic Strain Theory. Agnew introduced three types of strain. Generally, “the higher the dose of strain that a person experiences the greater the likelihood of the person becoming engaged in crime or in some form of deviance” (Lilly, Cullen, & Ball, 1989). A journal article called “General Strain Theory and Delinquency: the Developmental Process of Robert Agnew’s Works from a Historical Perspective” says that “the strain may result from when others (1) prevent an individual from achieving positively valued goals; (2) remove positively valued stimuli pertaining to individual; (3) present

There are many criminological theories that attempt to explain criminal behavior or crime patterns. For instance, Agnew’s General Strain Theory can be applied to explain why the criminal John Dillinger committed various crimes. Agnew’s General Strain Theory assumes that all individuals experience strain, which, in turn, causes negative emotions that can result in legitimate or illegitimate coping, depending on an individual’s constraints or dispositions. Thus, the continuous criminal behavior throughout John Dillinger’s life can be explained using Agnew’s General Strain Theory in relation to strain, negative emotions, and dispositions.

Causes of crime are arguably criminology’s most important and largest research topic. In this process of research, criminologists and academics have used numerous theories in attempts to explain how and why people resort to crime (Ellis, Beaver, Wright, 2009). The purpose of this paper is to examine a case study first with the use of strain theories (ST), followed by social learning theory (SLT). The first section will involve a summary of the case of R v Mark Andrew HUGHES (2009) NSWDC 404 involving an outline of the offender’s personal life, of his crimes, and his punishment handed down by

"When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw," (Kazi, 2017). The modern societies around the world put a high importance on preventing criminal activity and rectifying behavior that leads to crime. In an ongoing struggle against corruption, many sociologists, and psychologists have done in-depth research to understand what is the cause of crime in our society. Initially, in 1893, Emile Durkheim first came up with the idea called Anomie Theory to explain why offenses take place in our communities. Durkheim reported that crimes took place in our society because there was a lack of ethical norms and social standards within our communities (Walsh, 2018).However, almost half a century later, Robert K. Merton developed Merton's Strain Theory to thoroughly explain why some people in our society are more likely to commit crimes than the others who don’t. Merton’s Strain Theory argues that corruption not only occurs in our communities because we lack norms in our society, but are also caused by the strains that are present among us as individuals which influence people to commit the crime. In his explanation, people will resort to achieving success through illegitimate means when they are blocked from acquiring success through legitimate means (Walsh, 2018). After studying the classical strain theories, I think that Merton’s Strain Theory explains street crimes such as robbery, theft, assault, and drug dealing better than

What causes people to commit crime? This million dollar questions has place many criminologists and researchers searching for answers. In the past decades, people have tried to explain crime by referring to the earliest literature of criminal’s atavistic features to human biology. Recent studies have shows that crime is described in the social environment. While, no one theory can prove the causes of crime, strain theory has gain support in academic research for its five mode of adaptation.

The General Strain Theory (GST) states that people who commit crimes are pressured into them by negative emotions that result from a variety of life strains. Negative emotions cause them to feel in a negative way and thus creating pressure on them to act in a variety of ways, with crime and violence being one possible response. GST has been explored among many different populations, but what has not been explored was its ability to predict crime of murder. The present study focuses on the role that negative emotions play in producing different types of criminal activity and involvement,

Furthermore it states that humans, being conformists readily buy into these notions. However, access to the means for achieving these goals is not equally available to everyone. Some have the education, social network and family influence to attain these goals. The socially and economically disadvantaged do not have the opportunity, education or necessary social network for attaining material wealth and economic or political power. Thus the strain theory predicts that crime occurs when there is a perceived discrepancy between these goals and the legitimate means for reaching them. Individuals who experience a high level of this strain are forced to decide whether to violate laws to achieve these goals, to give up on the goals pushed upon them by society, or to withdraw or rebel.

In the 1980’s, Criminologist, Robert Agnew, presented his theory of general strain, in which he covers a range of negative behaviors, especially how adolescents deal with stresses of strain. General strain theory focuses on the source, such as anything that changes in the individual’s life that causes strain. His theory provides a different outlook on social control and social learning theory for two reasons: the type of social relationship that leads to delinquency and the motivation for the delinquency (Agnew, 1992). He states that certain strains and stresses increase the likelihood for crime such as economic deprivation, child abuse, and discrimination. These factors can cause an increase of crime through a range of negative emotions. For some people it can take a lot of willpower to take a corrective action and try to deter away from committing crime in a way that they can relieve these negative emotions. When people cannot cope with the stresses of the strain, they turn to crime as a coping mechanism. Agnew also states, that not all people that experience the stresses of strain will go forward to committing crime and live a deviant life.

The proposal of Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory in explaining criminal deviance is based on three concepts. The first concept is that people

Merton’s anomie/strain theory was a very popular explanation for crime and deviance during the 1950’s and 1960’s. (Paternoster, Bachman 2001) Its popularity began to diminish in the late 1960’s due to the theories lack of empirical evidence. The theory did

Introduction: Throughout history there have always been many different theories of crime and why people commit crimes. In the late 1930s a new theory rose to the forefront; this theory was called the anomie theory. Anomie means a lack of ethical standards. The anomie theory was proposed by Roberton Merton. It stated that society, as a whole, generally shares the same goals relating to having success in life; whether that is having a family, wealth, power, or just happiness. Society generally agrees that these are things that are to be sought after. Furthermore, Merton proposed that society, as a whole, also has a list of generally accepted ways to achieve such goals (Merton, 1938). Criminal activity, such as robbery, murder, and corruption, are among the things that are not accepted by society as appropriate means to achieve these goals. Merton’s anomie theory was built upon in 1992 by Robert Agnew who developed the general strain theory. General strain theory argues that when members of society are unable to achieve the general goals that society has set forth, they will, in order to avoid further rejection, further alienate themselves from society. Agnew also argued that if these individuals feel as if their shortcomings were a result of their environment failing them they will likely develop very negative feelings towards society, causing them to

Agnew, R. (1992). Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency. Criminology. 30(1), 47-87.