Asses the view that crime is functional inevitable and normal
Crime can be functional in bringing about social change - when social norms are unsuited with the conditions of life.
A high crime rate is an indication of a social system that has failed to adapt to change. Deviance, acts as a warning device, indicating that an aspect of society is malfunctioning. Deviance may also act as a safety valve - a relatively harmless expression of discontent. For example the invasion of the House of Commons, would be a warning device to society relating to security issues.
Durkheim argues that some crime is inevitable, but only in some societies, the crime rate may become too much and, this indicates a society that is intolerable, which means that it is suffering from social disorganisation. However, Durkheim does not provide any indication of what a 'normal' crime rate might be.
While regarding a certain rate of crime as a normal unavoidable feature of society, also Durkheim was aware that particular societies might be in a suffering condition, which generates excessive deviance. This leads into the area of anomie and the work of Robert Merton.
Durkheim argues that crime can have a positively beneficial role in social evolution. Individuals, who anticipate necessary adjustments of social morality to changing conditions, may be stigmatised as criminals at first.
Despite Durkheim’s views, he does not explain why certain people are more likely to commit crimes than others are; he is more interested in the relationship between deviance and order in society.
Along with Durkheim, Merton argues that deviant behaviour is functional.
Merton's analysis suggests that deviant behaviour is functional. Firstly, for the individuals involved, since it enables them to adapt to the circumstances in which they find themselves and secondly, for society as a whole - since modes of individual adaptation help to maintain the boundaries between acceptable and non-acceptable forms of behaviour.
There are ways of being blocked from success that will lead to deviance. This is why Merton went on to explain different patterns of deviance.
