The Contribution of Robert Merton’s Work to Criminological Theory

Many individuals in today’s society wonder what pushes people past a breaking point in which they become involved in actions not accepted by society, such as stripping, prostitution, drug use, alcoholism and more. The reasoning behind this is deviance. Deviance can be either positive (over conforming) or negative (under conforming). When applying the subject of crime to a type of deviance, it falls under the negative category because those who under conform in society have a tendency to reach their goals with non-accepted means. Considering the crime of drunk driving, many factors add up to develop a reason why so many people do it. Merton’s strain theory perspective explains the deviance behind drunk driving very well, using its’ assumptions, key focuses, and root of deviant acts to support it. Before focusing on Merton’s theory relating to the crime of drunk driving, we first have to recognize how sociologists understand the concept of deviance.

There are numerous researches about social strain theory and criminal offending. Robert “Merton states that the study of social strain believes that individual tend to respond to the gap between society’s values and their own

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

1) Conflict theory.- stress that the power elite uses the legal system to control worker and to stabilize the social order, all with the goal of keeping itself in power. The poor pose a threat, for if they rebel as a group they can dislodge members of the power elite from their place of privilege. To prevent this, the power elite makes certain that heavy penalties come down on those who’s crimes could upset the social order.

The theory of General Strain is how the strain on an individual leads them toward criminal activities and behaviors. The main concepts of general strain theory explain how a negative relationship affects the individual and their future in the expansion towards delinquency. Negative or harmful relationships are defined as affiliations with others that are partake in similar criminal activity and how an individual believes they should be treated. The strain theory is broken down into three types: (1) Strain as the failure to achieve positively valued goals (Traditional Strain), (2) Strain as the removal of positively valued stimuli from the individual, and (3) Strain as the presentation of negative stimuli.

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 this essay, the comparison between and contrast between strain theory and labelling theory. The essay will start with the key features of each theory and then it will go into the main comparison of the two theories. It will go into to detail on the similarities and differences between the two theories. Strain theory is the theory developed in 1938 by Robert K Merton. It’s the theory that society puts pressure on people to achieve socially accepted goals. Labelling theory is the theory that the public act in the way that society has labelled them, which gives negative connotations towards that person. Both the theories, judge crime on the type of people and how they have been deemed, both theories try to explain crime from social perspectives.

There are many different aspects of criminal justice policy. One in particular is the different theories of crime and how they affect the criminal justice system. The Classical School of criminology is a theory about evolving from a capital punishment type of view to more humane ways of punishing people. Positivist criminology is maintaining the control of human behavior and criminal behavior. They did this through three different categories of Biological studies, which are five methodologies of crime that were mainly focused on biological theories, Psychological theories, which contains four separate theories, and the Sociological theories, which also includes four different methods of explaining why crime exists. The last theory is

Before we embark on description and analysis of a General Strain Theory of criminology, it is important to, first of all, understand the meaning of the term "criminology". Criminology, as defined by the two social theorists, Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham of Italy and England respectively in their classical school of criminology, is the scientific study of crime, its causes, law enforcement as well as prevention measures taken to curb and control the crime in this case. Despite the fact that criminology has lots of fields including sociology, economics, psychology, biology, psychiatry, statistics and even anthropology, the term also has various theories explaining the real concepts surrounding crime, criminal and criminologist. The reason as to why these theories are many is that criminologists are trying as much as possible to seek the best solutions for reducing the levels and types of crimes. In this regards, the specific theory of criminology that will be described and analyzed in this paper is the General Strain Theory.

Another weak component of this theory, is that critical criminology addresses the mainstream idea of the poor stealing from the rich to meet their basic needs, whereas in reality, is for the purpose of obtaining luxury, rather than meeting basic needs. Even though critical criminology does a thorough job of addressing crime caused by social and economic disparities, this theory fails to assess existing problems in other countries that have a socialist based system. This theory also fails to take into account other possible social influences and environmental facts as this creates a narrow-minded way of addressing the causation of crime as this theory solely addresses the faults of the capitalist system as the reason for crime. (Siegal,

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

Robert Merton was an American sociologist that used the idea of anomie as a starting point in his attempt to understand deviance in American society (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 172). Merton eventually came up with his own perspective about the cause of deviance in American society, which is known as the strain theory. This theory suggests that “…deviance is a by-product of economic inequalities,” (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 173). In Merton’s opinion our society puts so much emphasize on having material wealth that those that cannot obtain material wealth legally because they lack the opportunities to advance feel that they must then opinion it illegally (Giddens, Duneier and Appelbaum 173). Those that are at an economic disadvantage therefore do things illegitimately in an attempt to fit in with the rest of

There have been many discussion of criminological theories surrounding the questions of why people commit crime and what motivates them to breach the law. I will be discussing two of these theories, the theory of classical criminology and the theory of positivism. I will be stating their history, their principles and the main philosophers involved in developing these theories. I intend to compare and contrast these theories, mainly focusing on their many differences which can be recognised throughout as the classical criminology and positivist theories propose opposite philosophies to explain criminal behaviour.

In accordance with Merton’s strain theory, their crime would be labelled as Innovation, where they executed illegitimate means to achieve the socially approved goals. As seen in the table (Figure 1), an innovator accepts the cultural goals but rejects the institutionalised means. Innovation is a pure case of anomie as Merton defined it due to discontinuity between goals and means, and is viewed as deviant (Newburn 2013). The immigrating family aspired to attain the American Dream, but with their poor socio-economic background, lack of money and inability to speak English, lacked the means to achieve their goal in a socially desired way. Still holding onto the cultural goal, the family rejected institutionalised means and introduced new methods (Beech, 2011), in the form of shoplifting, to attain their goal. This crime illustrates the American society’s social conventions. At that point in time stealing was viewed as immoral, and hence collective action was taken place through means of a court system, where the action was punished via prison sentences and fines. In the immigrant’s home country stealing may have been illegal but not viewed publicly as deviant as it may have been more prevalent in that society. In accordance with sociological positivism this displays why crime is important, reinforcing social values of the society through collective action against deviance (Libraries 2010).

The theory is said to be a way of expanding along with generalizing the strained notion at the level of psychology and understands behaviorally and emotionally cope with the strain (Agnew, 2001). It comprises the engagement of various criminal behaviors (Meadows, 2007). While earlier strain theory versions focused on the inability of achieving class-based or economic status goals as stressors, Agnew drew heavily from the research justice perception and stress exposure in broadening the strained concept. The concept includes various negative relations with other people. These relations comprise actual or threatened experience of not reaching the greatly valued objectives, losing