Evaluate Durkheim's explanations of crime and deviance

Emile Durkheim of the functionalist perspective argued that deviance is a universal and normative aspect of all societies, adding that a small amount of crime is functional as it reaffirms societal boundaries and can inspire social change, for example, the suffragette movement's contribution to civil rights. Despite this, Durkheim also asserted that a large amount of crime is dysfunctional to society. This shows that deviance is present in all societies, and so not everyone can be expected to be conformist as well as revealing to us how crime can promote positive social change and reaffirm a shared consensus through unity of moral condemnation. However, critics of the Marxist perspective would argue that functionalism is selective in the crime they chose to consider, as functionalism mostly ignores other significant forms of crime such as white collar and corporate crime. Though Durkheim's contribution concerning the recognition of the functionality of deviance still proves to be valuable. Durkheim utilizes the concept of 'anomie', meaning a state of normlessness, to describe crime and deviance in terms of insufficient integration into society's norms and values. This shows that not everyone can be expected to be conformist and reflects the importance of sufficient socialisation in maintaining conformity. This is useful in that it links deviance and criminality to inadequate socialisation, and helped pave the way for sociologists such as Travis Hirschi to develop theories such as the 'bonds of attachment' model. However, the concept of anomie cannot explain all crime and deviance such as impulsive, emotional crime like murder, nor crimes committed by individuals who are assumed to be well socialised such as working class or corporate crime.