Functionalist and Subcultural Theories: Merton
Durkheim: Crime Is Normal and Functional
Functionalist sociology begins from the premise that society works like a living organism: its institutions perform necessary functions and, when working well, produce social order and value consensus. Emile Durkheim argued that crime is not simply a social problem to be eliminated — it is a normal feature of every known society. If crime were to disappear entirely, Durkheim reasoned, society would have become so rigid and repressive that even the most minor non-conformity would be treated as a serious offence. A healthy society requires a certain level of deviance to function.
Durkheim identified two functions of crime. First, crime performs a boundary maintenance function: when an offender is publicly punished, the community gathers around the shared moral boundary that has been violated, reaffirming collective values. Court proceedings, media coverage of verdicts and public discussion of serious crimes all serve this ritual function. Second, crime can act as a driver of social change: acts that are initially labelled criminal — civil rights protests, for example — may eventually prompt a rethinking of the law. Yesterday’s criminal can become tomorrow’s reformer.
Durkheim also introduced the concept of anomie — a state of normlessness that arises when the rules holding society together break down. For Durkheim, periods of rapid social change (economic booms or slumps) could weaken the norms that regulate individual desires, leading to an increase in deviant behaviour. Robert Merton later developed this concept into a full theory of crime.
Durkheim argued crime performs two functions for society: boundary maintenance (reaffirming shared values through punishment) and enabling social change (challenging unjust laws). He also introduced anomie — normlessness resulting from the breakdown of social rules.
Merton: Strain Theory and the Goals–Means Gap
Robert Merton, writing in Social Theory and Social Structure (1938, enlarged 1968), developed Durkheim’s concept of anomie into a systematic theory of crime. Merton argued that deviance results from the culture and structure of society — not from individual pathology or moral failure.
Merton started from the functionalist premise of value consensus: all members of society are socialised into the same cultural goals, particularly the goal of material success. However, because members of society have different positions in the social structure, they do not have equal access to the institutionalised means — the legitimate routes (education, employment, talent) through which success is achieved. Members of the working class and poor communities are socialised into the same aspirations as everyone else but face far greater structural barriers to achieving them.
This gap between cultural goals and institutionalised means creates a strain that puts pressure on individuals to deviate. Crucially, Merton believed that in American society (the context of his original research, though his ideas have wide application) the emphasis on success far outweighed the emphasis on achieving it legitimately — “winning at all costs” encouraged a state of anomie in which the usual rules governing behaviour were abandoned. The concept can be applied in a UK context: the expectation of consumer lifestyle success is widely promoted through media and advertising, yet structural barriers (class inequality, educational inequalities) mean that not all routes to that success are equally available.
Merton’s Five Responses to Strain
Merton identified five ways in which individuals can respond to the tension between cultural goals and the available means to achieve them. These are not personality types but modes of adaptation to social structure.
1. Conformity: Accepts both the cultural goals (material success) and the institutionalised means (education, employment). This is the most common adaptation and produces social stability. The conformist works hard, gains qualifications and pursues a career within the rules of the system.
2. Innovation: Accepts the cultural goals but rejects or lacks access to the legitimate means. The individual turns instead to deviant or criminal methods — theft, fraud, drug dealing. Merton argued that innovation was most common among those lower in the class structure who faced the greatest gap between aspirations and opportunities. This is the response most directly linked to crime.
3. Ritualism: Rejects or abandons the cultural goals (no longer striving for wealth and success) but continues to follow the institutionalised means rigidly. The ritualist remains in a low-paid, low-status job and follows the rules to the letter — perhaps through an enthusiasm for petty bureaucracy — without expecting advancement. Merton associated this with some middle-class individuals who have been strongly socialised to conform but have little prospect of upward mobility.
4. Retreatism: Rejects both the cultural goals and the means of achieving them. The retreatist “drops out” of society altogether, withdrawing from mainstream life. Merton applied this concept to explain the behaviour of people experiencing chronic poverty, homelessness or long-term addiction. This adaptation involves neither conventional success nor criminal gain — simply withdrawal.
5. Rebellion: Rejects both existing cultural goals and means but replaces them with alternative goals and means. Unlike the retreatist, the rebel acts to create a new social order. Merton saw this as typical of members of a “rising class” who may attempt organised political revolt or social revolution.
Merton’s five responses: Conformity (accepts goals + means), Innovation (accepts goals, rejects means — most linked to crime), Ritualism (rejects goals, accepts means), Retreatism (rejects both), Rebellion (rejects both, substitutes new goals and means).
Subcultural Theories: Albert Cohen
Albert Cohen, in Delinquent Boys (1955), extended the strain tradition but shifted focus from individual adaptation to collective, subcultural responses. Cohen argued that working-class boys hold the same success goals as the wider society but, because of cultural deprivation and poor educational prospects, they consistently fail to achieve by mainstream standards.
This failure produces what Cohen called status frustration. Rather than innovating individually (Merton’s route), working-class boys respond collectively by forming delinquent subcultures that invert the mainstream values they have been denied: they celebrate vandalism, truancy and theft not because these acts gain material wealth but because they gain status and prestige within the subculture. Success at what the mainstream condemns becomes a source of peer recognition.
Cohen’s approach adds an important dimension missing from Merton’s theory: it explains non-instrumental crime — acts committed not for economic gain but for status, thrill or group belonging. Critics of Cohen argue that not all working-class boys experience school failure in the same way, and that his account overlooks girls and young women entirely. Feminist and interactionist perspectives offer different explanations for why subcultures form along gendered lines.
Evaluating Functionalist and Subcultural Theories
Merton’s strain theory has been influential because it shifts blame for crime from individuals to the social structure. However, critics point out several limitations. Marxist sociologists argue that Merton fails to ask who makes the laws and who benefits from them: focusing on working-class innovation ignores corporate crime, tax evasion and white-collar offending. Interactionist critics argue that Merton assumes a single value system (success goals) shared by all, when in practice values vary across class, gender and ethnicity. Feminist critics note that Merton’s theory is largely silent on women and crime. Cohen has been criticised for overstating cultural deprivation as the cause of working-class failure and for producing an account that applies only to young males in urban settings.
Students sometimes write “anomie means crime.” Anomie is the condition — a state of normlessness or the breakdown of social rules — not the criminal behaviour itself. Crime (specifically innovation in Merton’s framework) is one possible response to anomie, but conformity, retreatism and other adaptations are also responses to the same condition. Always define anomie as normlessness or the breakdown of rules, then explain how it can lead to deviance.