Sociological Approaches to the Study of Deviance - Essay Example

Sociological Approaches to the Study of Deviance Number Department Introduction If there are theoretical frameworks that explain the concept and reality of deviance, then Marxism and functionalism must predominantly feature among them, because of their comprehensive scope and approach to deviance and crime. This makes Marxism and functionalism approaches to deviance the chosen models in this study. Marxism and functionalism also feature in the explanation of deviance, as they are always seen to be diametrical opposed to each other. Marxism sees crime and deviance in light of its general critique of capitalism, while functionalists are emphatic on the positive roles that criminality may bring upon a social system. Nevertheless, the similarity between the two is seen in both perspectives being structural theories that explain criminality as a broader social phenomenon. The main personality behind the functionalist theory is Emile Durkheim, who postulates that crime is inevitable in all societies. This is to the effect that even in a society of saints, there are saints that adhere to rules, closer than their counterparts. Marxists take the idea that crime results from an unjust social order, and therefore looks forward to a classless society where exploitation and ownership are inexistent and thereby making crime redundant. This is to say that while Marxism is primarily concerned with explaining why the criminal system is biased in towards the bourgeoisie, functionalists see crime as an integral part of all societies that are healthy. Actors That Break the Rules/Laws Necessary to Maintain Social Order (Functional) Functionalism has it that crime is helpful to the western societies, in that it sets boundaries for permissible behaviour. This is to the effect that public horror at despicable crimes can strengthen social solidarity. This makes the malefactor become acceptable or offers the society the chance to anlayse and reevaluate what it considers deviant, and thereby making the society more pluralistic. In the above development, if the malefactor was a shoplifter, then the society which he has wronged and breached its laws will have been provided with the chance to review the cause and dynamics of shoplifting. The need to reconsider facts and dynamics surrounding kleptomania, poverty and socioeconomic unequal relations between the haves and the have-notes may be applicable at this juncture. In this case, the shoplifter’s act of engaging in small time larceny will have served the society with the chance to make itself more egalitarian, in lieu of merely using the criminal justice system as a punitive measure against some riff raffs. At the same time, when an individual commits a crime, he provides the courts with a public forum where laws are constantly being tested and changed, so that protests of the law being static and irrelevant or outdated are addressed. In this light, credence can be lent to the observation that criminality provides a motor for legitimate social transformation. This standpoint may be seen to slightly correlate with Marxism which also sees the criminal justice system (the policing system, the prison and the judicial court systems) as being estranged from the plight of the contravener of social norms who may necessarily not be a malefactor in essence. Others such as Philips (2011, 1) argue that it is only through these developments that intellectuals are stirred from slumber and into meaningful pursuit. In light of the immediately foregoing, an individual who breaks rules or laws that are necessary for the maintenance of law and social order, serves the society some social good by opening a door for socio-cultural transformation and legislative dynamism. A Label Applied To Agents That Challenge the Class-Based Rules/Laws of Capitalist Society (Marxism) According to Marxism, an individual who breaks societal standards, roles and laws is one who is merely challenging the class-based rules or laws of a capitalist society. Marxists argue that the law, its enforcers, interpreters, makers and creation is part of a repressive and suppressive apparatus that protects and consolidates the interests and wealth of the ruling class. Marxists cite laws that protect private ownership are tilted towards the ruling class and the rich, while laws that are supposedly supposed to help the proletariat (the working class) are merely concessions to the working class (McMullan, 2008, 377). The same group continues that law enforcement concentrates solely on the working class crime. This is to the effect that corporate crime is seldom policed, investigated and prosecuted to its conclusive end. In this light, one may easily point out the fact that the Serious Fraud Squad in London rarely facilitated or carried out successful prosecution, while petty crime and lawlessness such as shoplifting and are not only heavily policed, but also successfully and conclusively investigated and prosecuted (Pavlich, 2001, 150). In the same wavelength, the laws also team up with the class-based rules or laws of a capitalist society to connive the poor or the working class out of his means of livelihood. In this Marxist postulation of deviance, the rich capital owner also has swathes of land. He also has the power to determine the masses’ or the workers’ remunerations and by extension can thus be said to be controlling the labour force or manpower that is due to the working class. The police are controlled by the state and exist to consolidate the interests and wealth of the ruling class, meaning that it becomes unrealistic for the working class poor to access justice from a capitalist society. To show that all odds are against the working class poor, even the media is under the influence of the capitalist or policy makers so that the chances for addressing the plight of the poor member of the working class are significantly nullified. Because of this, workers are pushed towards poverty and gain more proclivity to crime. The same Marxist approach maintains that even as an individual from the working class gains an increased predisposition to crime, its insufficient capital base and inability to access the social connections with the ruling class relegates this class to small scale crime such as shoplifting. The Marxist approach has it that such is the case with a shoplifter who has been constrained by the harsh socioeconomic realities and the need for self-preservation into engaging in the petty crime of shoplifting. In this case, an individual who is incarcerated in prison is not really apprehended because of his criminality, but is in such a situation because of getting into opposition to the class-based rules or laws of capitalist society. Likewise, the individual who has been charged with the crime of shoplifting is in such a situation because the class-based rules or laws of a capitalist society are against his means of economic self-sustenance, yet he had to actualise some way of earning a living. The closing of different avenues to economic stability on the side of the poor or the working class therefore leaves no alternative to stealing, or shoplifting. The import of what Marxist approach to crime is postulating is that those who engage in social deviance or lawlessness are not engaged in such exercises merely because they are lazy or inherently predisposed to aberrant social behaviour. This condition may also lead to other social aberrations such as riots. It is this scenario that Quinton (2011, 1) discusses as being the cause of the riots in London, in 2011. Assessing the Approach Which Provides the Best Analysis of Deviance So far, the functionalist and Marxist approaches have served the purpose of explaining crime and deviance cogently and rationally. It is interesting to note that even as these ideas are fundamentally opposed to each other, yet they share aspects of similarity. Another point of commonality that this functionalism has with the Marxist rumination on deviance is that both approaches dismiss the outward labeling of the deviant as true criminals. Instead, both functionalism and Marxism seem to be treating the shoplifter in this case as an agent who may trigger positive social change, in the long run, albeit at the surface value, he may seem as a lawbreaker and a disturber of social stability. Specifically, as the shoplifter engages in his larcenous act, his criminality paves way for legitimate social transformation, in the mind of the functionalist such as Emile Durkheim and his proteges. On the other hand, as the shoplifter engages in his act of pilferage, he is merely acting against the oppressive class-based rules and laws of a capitalist society, in the mind of a Marxist. This is to postulate that the shoplifter is acting to the benefit of the society, since he is working against the oppressive status quo that subjects the working class to abject poverty. As already mentioned, both functionalism and Marxism see the shoplifter as being estranged from the criminal justice system. It is for this reason that the Marxist idea sees the law and the criminal justice system as being unable to handle corporate crime and corruption, since they are always perpetuated and exacted by the ruling class or the rich capital owners. Nevertheless, it is important to note that even in the face of the comprehensive and tenable nature of functionalism; there are drawbacks that persist therein. For one, functionalism does not explain the cause of crime or deviance, while Marxism does. Even the idea of labeling that Becker (1963, 5) and Gold (2012, 1) advance only explains how stigma makes crime to thrive and therefore fails to tackle the origin of crime and deviance. Functionalism only analyses the aftereffects of deviance on the society, as a positive factor. As such, there is neither an explanation to individual engagements in crime, nor can one surmise that the shoplifter in the case of functionalism is engaging in crime merely because he is interested in pushing forward, the cause of social change. On the converse, Marxism explains it so well that the shoplifter, like other malefactor, engages in crime because of the inordinate control that the ruling class has over the forces of production and state, so that the shoplifter as a representative of the working class, can neither not extricate himself from poverty, nor access fairness in the criminal justice system. Secondly, it is also arguable that functionalism appears to be a little removed from reality. In its attempt to underscore the role and importance of crime or deviance as being the motor that drives positive social transformation, Emile Durkheim and other functionalists easily sidestep the vagaries that accompany social aberration or lawlessness. While it is very plausible that the shoplifter’s act may lead to the revisiting of the law in a court of law and possible challenge the public to relook the reality of socioeconomic inequalities between the haves and the have-nots, the pitfalls of cajoling crime are also dire. Bennhold (2012, 1) also asserts that crime and any form of deviance lead to the disturbance of social order and a breakdown of law and order in the society. Runaway corruption, treason, fraud, robbery with violence, homicide, sex crimes, perjury and deliberate miscarriage of justice are certainly forms of deviance which are not only too serious, but must be punished also, seeing that their exaction infringes on the rights and freedoms of others. In the event that a society merely looks at deviance with the eyes of a pure functionalist, the need to punish crime may be treated as a matter of peripheral importance. A society wherein deviance and crime go unpunished is not sustainable and is due for an imminent implosion. In light of the foregoing, the Marxist approach to crime and deviance remains the most cogently argued and the most plausible. The Marxist standpoint explains the cause and origin of deviance and crime, as originating from the yawning gap between the poor and the rich capitalist owner, and class-based rules or laws of a capitalist society. It is by this that one can understand how inequality between the working class poor and the rich capital owner plays out in the criminal justice system, so that it is only the former who ends up being prosecuted, while it is the latter who commits more heinous crimes. The import of all these is that by looking at the Marxist approach, the most potent panacea to the social sickness of deviance and crime can be contrived, specifically by spearheading socio-economic reforms that would perpetuate socioeconomic egalitarianism. References Becker, S. H., 1963. Outsiders. Simon & Schuster. Bennhold, K. 23rd, Dec 2012. “Times Topics.” New York Times. [Online] Available at http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/people/b/katrin_bennhold/index.html [Accessed 23rd, Dec 2012] Gold, T., 2012. “The right has chosen its scapegoat – the single mum. And she will bleed.” The Guardian. [Online] Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/19/single-mothers-uk-riots-tanya-gold [Accessed 23rd, Dec 2012] Pavlich, G., 2001. “Critical Genres and Radical Criminology in Britain.” British Journal of Criminology, 41 (1): 150. McMullan, J. L., 2008. “Crimes of the Powerful: Marxism, Crime and Deviance.” Canadian Journal of Sociology, 3 (3), 376-377. Philips, M., 2011. “Britain’s Liberal Intelligentsia has Smashed Virtually Every Social Value.” Daily Mail. [Online] Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024690/UK-riots-2011-Britains-liberal-intelligentsia-smashed-virtually-social-value.html [Accessed 23rd, Dec 2012] Quinton, R. P., 2011. “Running through riotous London.” Al-Jazeera English. [Online] Available at http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/08/201189161741876869.html [Accessed 23rd, Dec 2012] Read More