“Outline two criticisms of functionalist based explanations of crime and deviance” [10 marks]

One criticism of the functionalist based explanations of crime and deviance is that functionalists rely on a pattern of crime shown in official crime statistics. However, a lot of crime is never actually reported, and a lot of offenders are never caught and convicted for their crimes. This makes it difficult to know who the real offenders are, so subcultural explanations are inadequate as they are based on an unrepresentative sample of offenders. For example, crimes like mugging, stealing and vandalism, the culprit is quite often never caught and punished for their crimes. Therefore, there isn’t sufficient evidence either who actually committed these crimes, so it’s possible functionalists presume everyone who commits crime is from a certain subculture. They do not take into account that maybe middle-class have more of an ability to hide the crime they are participating in, as they have had more of a chance to succeed in education, as Functionalists think society favours them. Another criticism is from Matza who criticises subcultural theories for making the delinquent out to be different from other people. Matza emphasises the similarity between the values and morals held by delinquents and those of main-stream society, and shows us how normal delinquents actually are. He points out, for example, that they show emotions of outrage about crime in general similar to those of most people. When they are caught offending, most delinquents express feelings of remorse, guilt and shame, and use what Matza calls techniques of neutralisation roots in mainstream values to explain away their action as justifiable or excusable emporia lapses in otherwise conformist behaviour, as expectation to the rule. Techniques of neutralisation are justifications used to excuse acts of crime and deviance, such as by denying responsibility, denying that there was a victim: claiming that those casting blame has no right to do so, or the deviance was justified by the circumstances. For example, there were only shoplifting because they wanted to get their mum a birthday present and didn’t have any money, or the person they were fighting with was a bully who deserved it. This shows a commitment to mainstream values, not a rejection of them like functionalists actually argue. Matza also argues that many young people commit only occasional delinquent actives as a means of achieving identity, excitement and peer-group status for a short period of ‘drift’ in their lives before reaching full independent adult status. They have little serious commitment to delinquent values or a delinquent way of life, and many give it up as they grow older.