Strain Theory, General Strain Theory and Anomie Institutional Theory - Term Paper Example

Strain Theory, General Strain Theory and Anomie al Theory No: Strain Theory, General Strain Theory and Anomie Institutional Theory Strain Theory Strain theory is the first and unpolished version of General Strain theory. Merton proposed the Strain theory that describes strains to make a person deviant. He puts the major burden of adoption of criminal behavior on American Dream. People have aspirations related to economic stability and accomplishment while the opportunities available are insufficient for all or it can be said that the distribution of resources for getting economic accomplishment is imbalance (Cullen, et al, 2014). This leads people to adopt deviant behavior to get economic success. A strain is created and people want to get economic success without giving heed to legality or illegality of their actions. People are pressurized to do crime. Lower classes of the society because of having less or no access to resources to get economic success have more strain or pressure. The gaps that are created between economic achievements and people’s aspirations create imbalance and strain is there. American dream describes people’s social worth as per their economic achievements leading towards strain and motivation towards delinquency (Hagan, 2012). The pressure to succeed or gain and absence of traditional or socially accepted ways generates strain and most of the individuals are unable to gain economic success with legalized methods. Therefore, in totality, it can be said that crime and deviant attitude is a result of stress and strain created because of inability to gain economic success as described by American Dream. According to Merton, there are four probable adaptations to strain that are ‘innovation’, ‘ritualism’, ‘retreatism’ and ‘rebellion’ (Vito & Maahs, 2011). Along with these four, there is ‘Conformity’ according to which, there are no gaps between conventional objectives to resources and means to access those resources. So, conformity is legal version of gaining economic success through socially accepted ways (Vito & Maahs, 2011). The first adaptation to strain is innovation according to which, a person aspires for the same goals as that of other society members, but the attainment of these goals is through unacceptable or socially disapproved ways. This kind of behavior leads to delinquency as the innovators wants everything like other society members, but in place of using legal means, he has illegal means for gaining success (Vito & Maahs, 2011; Cullen, et al, 2014). The second adaptation to strain is ritualism. People initially keep goals to financial achievement, but with the passage of time, they realize that their goals cannot be met due to which, they leave any hope or struggle towards the economic success. They accept with what they have and start living a ritualistic life. They realize their disadvantaged position in a society and pursue no hard task to get anything better. In totality, they follow ritualism accepting everything what comes their way and not struggling for any other commodity (Vito & Maahs, 2011; Cullen, et al, 2014). According to retreatism, people who are ‘social dropouts’ stop working towards any social or economic success and lose hope at all. These are persons who have mental illnesses issues, vagabonds, vagrants, tramps and other socially deprived people. They consider it impractical and useless to pursue any goal towards economic success. Somewhat ritualistic people, they also do not work towards any success gaining, but as they are social dropouts, so their status as compared to ritualistic people is much deprived. They show no concern towards violation of law and they also consider themselves powerless to violate any law or policy (Vito & Maahs, 2011; Cullen, et al, 2014). Rebellious people, as per Merton, are those who reject social norms, societal goals and conventionally accepted means of achieving those goals. Rebellion as an adaptation to strain makes the people to know that any struggle towards societal goals and conventionally means to gain those goals, all are flawed and the system should change altogether. They have their own self-designed goals and objectives and they lead their lives as per their self-constructed goals and adopt mostly illegal means to accomplish those goals. They want everything their own way. The terrorists and other people with self-constructed ideologies fall in the rebellious category. They have no regard for any social value, goals or legalization (Vito & Maahs, 2011; Cullen, et al, 2014). The Origins of the strain theory can be traced back to Emile Durkheim’s theory of Anomie as Merton formed his own theory based on Durkheim’s notions about anomie. Anomie means ‘disregard for law’ or ‘without norms’ and according to Durkheim, people are unable to internalize the norms of the society or simply fail to do so resulting in anomie. However, as per Merton, there are some culturally defined goals and objectives that people aspire to obtain through legal as well as legal means, which causes strain (Vito & Maahs, 2011). Merton was the key theorist who took the notion of anomie from Durkheim and then found cultural deviance aspects in relation to people’s behavior towards conventionally accepted notions of economic success and accomplishments. Video Description The video that is included to describe the strain theory is Charles Stuart, who killed his pregnant wife in order to get her insurance money and also to get rid of economic issues that were going to rise with the birth of a child. He reformulated the story as if some African American attacked them while they were in car, took them on gun point to a lonely place and afterwards, shot his wife in the head while hitting Charles Stuart Stomach. After all this happening, Stuart drove the car a little and dialed 911 for informing about the accidental happening. His child was saved and got birth as a premature baby while his wife was unable to survive the head injury. Charles Stuart himself removed from his injury. Stuart’s brother Matthew reported the police after some time that Stuart’s wife’s murder was not an accident, but a preplanned murder by his brother in order to do an insurance fraud. Stuart blamed an African American wrongly for committing the murder of his wife and made the law enforcement officials approve his wrong story. His wrong blame on the African American also became a reason for causing of riots based on racial behavior. He was economically worried due to which, he targeted his wife and unborn child. His action can be understood as an innovator with strain. He tried to acquire socially accepted goals, but through illegal and criminal means. There was a clear strain and greed on his side, which motivated him to act delinquently. Offender’s Involvement As an offender with strain to get economic success, I might be attracted towards criminal doing if I am unable to meet my goals legally. For example, I am an offender who has done bank robbery with two of my crime mates. The motivation towards bank robbery is that of getting money that can be used for buying car, house and so on. The buying of car and house are socially accepted goals, but the method that I have used of getting money for all those commodities is illegal and criminal. The crime of killing one’s wife for insurance fraud and monetary gains is a gruesome crime. I have committed the crime only for gaining economic success and materialistic gains without paying heed to someone’s life and this aspect was otherwise inaccessible to me. I was attracted towards planning for the killing on the basis of my motivation to get some money for my future stability, which was not possible otherwise. For prevention of such a crime, I should be provided with programs that can support me in staying away from criminal doings or adopting criminal means for getting economic success. People should be informed that financial success is not the overall success. We must try to achieve whatever is possible living within the legal means. There should be programs to reduce negative feelings because of strain. The youngsters whether they belong to lower classes or upper classes should be fully aware of law and consequences of breaking the law. They should also attend social programs making them realize the after-effects of any wrong doing and coping up with their strain. Policy For the offenders who show delinquency based on strain theory, social programs should be arranged dealing with controlling their emotions linked to strain and their perceptions towards crime and criminals. There should be classes with proper legislative information, videos and true happenings showing what happens to criminals who do not respect social values and violate law. General Strain Theory Individuals perceive themselves to be maltreated, which causes strain for them. According to Agnew’s General Strain theory, individuals consider themselves maltreated due to which, they have negative emotions related to people. The strains that they endure are based on certain facts such as threat leading to the loss of something or someone valuable, prevention to gain economic success, threat of physical harm or insulting behavior and anything negative affect that is created because of a certain happening leads to strain (Hagan, 2012). Agnew described that crime and delinquent behavior are the outcome of ‘societal stress’ and many other individual as well as group related factors such as “poverty and family environment, school environment, and peer associations” and many others (Burns, 2013, p. 60). There are three categories of strain that lead towards criminal behavior of offenders. They are negative steps taken in anger or frustration because of inability to achieve positive goals of an individual, loss or disappearance of ‘positive stimuli’ such as loss of an important positive relationship figure from someone’s life such as parents and finally, presence of a ‘negative stimuli’ that directs towards delinquency and angered behavior. The theory as a whole gives importance to negative relationships that cause strain in someone’s life leading him or her to commit a crime or become delinquent (Burns, 2013). Agnew’s General Strain theory focuses on three already mentioned factors that are about losing good aspects, getting bad aspects and inability to get the positive goals. All of these lead to strain and promote delinquency in individuals. Agnew disconnected the causation of strain on the basis of social class, but he informed that any person can have strain belonging to either class in a society. According to Agnew, all kinds of strains can lead to delinquent behavior if they are ‘high in magnitude’, ‘perceived as unjust’, ‘associated with low social control’ or ‘create some pressure or incentive for criminal coping’ (Agnew, 2008, p. 333). Therefore, the impact of a strain on an individual matters a lot, as his consideration of a strain leads him to be delinquent. If someone receives punishment or he is denied of something that he requires, he may regard this as a maltreatment leading to negative emotions that will eventually encourage him to act delinquently. So, the relation of strain with delinquency appears quite clear. This theory has its roots in Strain theory by Merton. However, Agnew saw strain connected to societal pressures and negative relationships while Merton described them as simple strains leading from social class categorization and people’s believe in economic success. Merton also highlighted American Dream as a root cause for strain in American people while Agnew saw many strains adding pressure to one’s life disregard of their social status or economic success (Hagan, 2012; Cullen, et al, 2014). This theory was composed by Robert S. Agnew who researched about the presence of various categories of strains that can lead to delinquent behavior. Agnew also took inspiration from anomie theory (Cullen, et al, 2014). Video Description The video that is included for this theory is a documentary on war on drugs. The documentary shows law enforcement officials raiding various locations where they find drugs, plants that are converted to drugs and much more. They have also traced criminals involved in buying, selling, distributing and trapping people into using drugs. Drugs are prohibited in USA as well as in many other countries and the prohibited drugs are used illegally that is a crime punishable by law. Drug selling and buying is quite a handsome illegal business with the help of which, people can earn millions in very less time. This video notifies towards illegal drug usage and involvement of criminals in flourishing this business. As it is informed in General Strain theory that strains encourage people to indulge in criminal activities, therefore, there are various strains that can lead people into using drugs, selling them and distributing them. The drug users may have faced losses in their lives for which, they try to make use of such illegal and dangerous drugs to complete the gaps and cope up with their losses. Likewise, the drug sellers may have motivation of getting more economic success and their involvement in drug selling and distributing can be understood as having some negative stimuli in their lives leading them to behave criminally. The criminals can have negative emotions towards people of the society due to which, they are involved in drug distributing. They may have understood the society as maltreating them and as criminals involved in drug business, along with monetary gains, they have the chance of revenging the society for its wrong treatment. Law Enforcement Official As a law enforcement official, I feel that the people involved in drug selling and buying activities are criminals because they are not only themselves involved in criminal doings, but also encourage others towards drug usage and distribution in the society. The act of drug selling and buying occurred because people see involvement in drug related activities as advantageous for monetary gains. They are well aware that drugs and their business are unlawful activities. The people who were arrested for drug related crimes and the places that were raided were linked to drug businesses. The involvement of people is based on criminal acts and illegal access to resources. People show motivation towards drug related acts because of various strains that are discussed already. As the drugs are prohibited in the society and their usage is unlawful and this is a crime punishable by law, therefore, the criminals that are arrested for their crime involvement should be dealt accordingly. People should be guided about the harmful effects of drugs and the people involvement in drug usage and distribution should be made to attend programs that deal with their strains and issues. As a law enforcement official, I will work to organize programs dealing with countering issues of criminals. Policy For the adolescents and youngsters, school based programs should be arranged for dealing with the issues about coping with strains that they feel so that they can be made able to cope up with their issues and control any formation of negative emotions. The school based programs will not only be efficient with dealing with students’ problems, but will also accommodate them to perform better in their studies. In addition to the school based programs, the people and general public can be offered family based programs involving their whole family. Families have a major impact on formation of positive stimuli for the people. Therefore, for getting rid of strains, the people can attend family based programs that will deal with their issues and teach them with various strategies that can be employed for coping with any strains that they face in their lives. Institutional Anomie Theory Social and cultural trends influence the social behaviors of the individuals. Sometimes the trends followed indirectly influence the social change within the society. Irrespective of the societal behavior, individual may have a diverse adaptability of the social and cultural norms. The increase in the crime rates are influenced by following the behaviors those are unacceptable with the social norms but still influenced by the social behaviors. Messener and Rosenfeld highlighted the role of social institution and societies for the individuals as to “(1) adapt to the environment; (2) mobilize and deploy resources for the achievement of collective goals; and (3) socialize members to accept the society’s fundamental normative patterns” (Bjerregaard and Cochran, 2008). According to the Messner and Rosenfeld, the higher rates of the homicide within the boundaries of America are due to the social institutions. The economy institution dominates all other social institution. The power domination has a direct connection with the economy institution. The concept the surrounds the institutional anomie theory depicts the importance of the balance of the power between various institution within the society involving, economy, family and education. Without a balance, the competition between the societal institutions influences the members to divert towards a particular institution and neglect the others. The success of the individuals influences others individual to follow the same footsteps and attain the success. According to the Messner and Rosenfeld, the power is most likely to be associated with the economy institution. Thus, the individuals with lower economic status within the society have lower social power as compared to the individuals with higher economic status (Vito and Maahs, 2011). Criminals are differentiated with respect to the economic status of the criminals; street criminals are not treated in the similar manner as that of the white-collar criminals. Irrespective of the nature of the crime, white-collar criminals are not punished in the similar manner as those of the street criminals. Moreover, the criminals are involved in the crimes like frauds, cheating, etc go unpunished due to their good economic status. However, the offences of the white-collar criminals are comparatively larger in the context as compared to the street criminals. Merton’s theory revolves around the four institutions including education, family, polity and the economy. Family is considered as the important institution of the society as it produces individuals for the society. On the other hand, family is important in caring and bringing up of the individuals by providing economic as well as emotional support to the family members. Educational system enhances the skills of the individuals and induces the cultural standards to the generations. Polity has the most important role among the all the other institution. It creates a balance between all the other institutions and diverts the power to the institution that supports the society in a more suitable manner. Economy is considered as the most important institution and in the American society, all other institution revolve around the economy institution (Bjerregaard and Cochran, 2008). Messner and Rosenfeld suggest that economy is considered the most important institution as it promotes the dominant values of the American dream (materialistic benefits, individual economic status and competition). The capitalistic nature of the economy is the functions of the private ownerships of the economic resources. However, the free market index is the availability of the goods and services to the public enhancing the capitalistic nature of the economy. In oder to gain the access to the economy institution, the crime rates increases as the social statues are governed by the economy (Bjerregaard and Cochran, 2008). Vito and Maahs describes the “Fetishism of the money as, “American culture values the accumulation of the momentary rewards; money is literally the measure of success (Vito and Maahs, 2011). The most important perspective of the American culture is to attain the success at any cost. The achievements are regarded as the gains of the individual in the lifetime. Money is the massive gain in one’s life, the more one gained, the more successful one is. It is like a game, your success only depends on wining the game. Losing the game will not only make you unsuccessful but also makes you a disrespected member of the society. Messner and Rosenfeld argue that American culture promotes the individuals to achieve the goals irrespective of how the goals are achieved. In this manner, the culture itself promotes the illegal means to achieve success. An altered institutional anomie is seen here, as there is no stopping point of the success regarding the money, as, it is unable to restrict one’s desire of money. Everyone wants to be the most successful and attain as much money as one can that enhances the rate of crime. Competition is only to attain heist level of access no matter how the success is achieved and what will be consequences of the success (Vito and Maahs, 2011). With respect to the economic status, educational systems are not as much valued as engineers that design and develop the buildings are valued much lesser as those of the building owners. In the similar manner, factory workers are not as much valued as factory owners, no matter what roles they both are playing in the progress of the region. Other institutions go around the economy institution. Factory workers devote most of their time for the factories as devote less time for their families. Employers care least about the families of the workers, workers are not given leaves to devote time for the families. Video Description The video that is selected here under the category of Institutional Anomie theory depicts events of slip and fall and false insurance claims from insurance companies and retail stores for the injuries that never occurred. In American society, there is an overall competition in the society between institutions as well as individuals, they are encouraged to commit acts of crime leading to monetary gains through illegal means. The involved criminals are involved in frauds that are conducted for depriving others from their righteous possessions. A Milwaukee woman was running this ring of crime and defrauded various insurance companies and retail stores for false claims of injuries and health hazards caused. The people should give less importance to money and more to relationships and self-respect and this can be taught at schools, universities and other guidance and educational institutions. Judge’s Verdict As a judge, I should deal this crime with much care. By analyzing the problem with American society in which, people want economic success and monetary gains on the cost of anything, they should be dealt by taking proper measures. The offenders should be punished heavily by imposing heavy fines on them and they should also be given imprisonment in jail. This kind of punishment is necessary in order to make other people of society realize that this is an illegal act and in case of any such happenings or doing, dire consequences will be faced. Policy The policy that should be applicable for dealing with such kinds of situations should be to assist people with proper financial care wherever appropriate and guide them to ways from where, they can gain economic help. In addition to that, they should have guidance programs to inform them about the legal consequences of such actions and what other legal ways can be adopted to generate money for fulfilling day to day needs. References Agnew, R. S. (2008). Strain Theories. In V. Parrillo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Social Problems. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publishers Inc. pp. 332-339. Bjerregaard, B., & Cochran, J. K. (2008). Cross-National Test of Institutional Anomie Theory: Do the Strength of Other Social Institutions Mediate or Moderate the Effects of the Economy on the Rate of Crime, A. W. Criminology Rev., 9, 31. Burns, C. E. (2013). Examining Juvenile Delinquency Contributors through Life-Course and Strain Theory. Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 2306. East Tennessee State University. Cullen, F.T., Agnew, R. & Wilcox, P. (2014). Criminological Theory: Past to Present, fifth edition. New York: Oxford University Press. Hagan, F. E. (2012). Introduction to criminology: Theories, methods, and criminal behavior. Sage Publications. Kittleson, M. A. (2012). A Cross-National, Longitudinal Test of Institutional Anomie Theory. . Masters Theses. Paper 54. Western Michigan University Messner, S. F., Thome, H., & Rosenfeld, R. (2008). Institutions, anomie, and violent crime: Clarifying and elaborating institutional-anomie theory. International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 2(2), 163-181. Vito, G & Maahs, J. (2011). Criminology: Theory, Research, and Policy. Jones & Bartlett Publishers. Videos Charles Stuart Documentary.wmv. (2012). Strain Theory. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbUB291I4IQ Milwaukee Slip and Fall Scam Takes Insurance Companies for Millions. (2013). Institutional Anomie Theory. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzP3rHsR6SY War against Drugs: Drug Busts (Crime Documentary). (2013). General Strain Theory. Retrieved from www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4-B-ZL8xMo Read More