...The strain theory foundation was laid by a well known sociologist Robert Merton. Merton believed that when groups of people do not have access to particular resources within the community, they are faced with the issues of obtaining those achievements and/or resources. Often times the process by which these achievements and/or resources are obtained will lead to criminal action. This places tremendous pressure on individuals which can be described as strain. Merton also refers to the inability to obtain the achievements and/or resources honestly as blocked opportunity structure (Agnew 2006). Over time many studies regarding strain theory have been conducted which has altered the meaning of strain theory. Merton’s foundation of strain theory was built upon by a modern sociologist named Robert Agnew. Agnew took Merton’s strain theory and changed the theory behind which Merton believed that strain led to criminal and deviant behavior. Agnew’s newly defined definition of strain theory including the inability to obtain the achievements and/or resources need; but the loss of property and negative behavior displayed by others created strains (2006). Agnew also provided a structuralized approach to the strain theory by providing categories which the different behaviors can be classified. Agnew’s classification of the various form of strain theory can be determined by the resources available to an individual, behavior of others, and the experiences (both anticipated and unanticipated)...
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...Theory of Strain The strain theory explains delinquency as being caused by the strain or frustration of not having an equal opportunity or means to achieve commonly shared goals such as economic or social success. Persons with little formal education and few economic resources are denied the ability to acquire the goals of American society, thus producing a sense of alienation, hopelessness and frustration. Because opportunities for success are more open for the middle – and upper classes, strain is experienced most by those in the lower socioeconomic class, where quality education and employment opportunities are more limited. Strain is more common among lower-class persons, who live in inner-city urban areas that are characterized more by social problems and crime. As a way to enhance educational and employment opportunities and reduce delinquency, the government funded policies such as “Head Start” and job programs for the lower-class youths. The Head Start program is a federal program for preschool children three to five years of age in low-income families. This program promotes school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families. They engage parents in their children’s learning and help them in making progress toward their educational, literacy and employment goals. Significant emphasis is placed on the involvement of...
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...organs within the body) work together to sustain society as a whole. Functionalism being a macro-scale approach is therefore seen as a strength as it allows functionalist sociologists to observe society, and its institutions, as a whole. Functionalism is also seen as a consensus theory, it sees society as fair and just, and it acknowledges that many societies, including the majority of western ones, have democracy and all individuals within a particular society share the same or similar norms and values. This could therefore be seen as a strength as it acknowledges that democracy does exist in many societies. However, as functionalism is a macro-scale approach and sees society as a whole, it could miss crucial factors/ groups which contribute to the functioning of society; these include small groups and tribes, such as gipsies. Not acknowledging these minority groups within society could lead to functionalist sociologists lacking crucial information about how society functions and how minority groups live within a large society. This could therefore be seen as a weakness of functionalism as it fails to acknowledge that there are minority groups within society. Also, as functionalism is a consensus theory where all individuals within a particular society share the same or similar norms and values and sees society as being fair and just; however, it fails to acknowledge that...
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...General Strain Theory: Robert Agnew At one point in life, every individual will experience strain. Theorist Robert Agnew tried to explain that when an individual experiences strain, he/she would feel a certain negative emotion or emotions. These negative emotions may lead a person to cope their strain through delinquent behavior. This paper will first summarize a recent crime on the news and it will also address Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory. The three situations that are believed to cause strain will be explained, as well as the five factors that can make it strenuous for a person to cope in a positive and legal manner. This paper will also discuss why Agnew would explain this criminal decided to commit the crime by giving examples of the individual’s (the criminal’s) environment, personalities, and relationships. Nelly Kantun worked for more than 20 years at the Domino’s Pizza located at 1644 E. Highland Ave in San Bernardino, California. She was the manager of the store when something tragic took place on February 12, 2014. According to a news website, The Sun, Nelly Kantun’s ex-boyfriend Pedro Enrique Duquesne, age 55, from Highland shot her once in the upper body when she was inside the Domino’s store; Nelly was then shot two more times outside of the store when she allegedly tried to run out. Police believed this incident was due to domestic violence. The 39 year old unfortunately died at St. Bernardines Medical Center in San Bernardino. She was well liked and...
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...Rudee Reyes SOC 408 In order to illustrate how biological theories of criminal behavior came up short in showing social reality, Robert Merton proposed his strain theory. He realized that every society and culture sets forth goals that every member should meet, and dictates the legitimate means of achieving those goals. So Merton argued that structural conditions needed to be considered as influencing deviation from behavior considered as normative. He referred to Durkheim’s concept of anomie, but understood it as the pressure, or strain, that an individual experiences based on two conditions. First, an individual may experience strain when institutional means of achieving culturally defined goals do not necessarily lead to attainment of those goals. Second, an individual may also experience strain when access to the institutional means of achieving culturally defined goals is completely blocked off. In his theory, Merton describes five different ways that individuals adjust to the strains they experience (Merton pg. 233). These categories explain how individuals adapt under the conditions of strain resulting from anomie. The first category is conformist, in which the individuals believe in both the goals set forth by their culture and the institutional means of achieving those goals (Merton pg. 234). These people strive for their culture’s goals of success by following the prescribed means of achieving them. An example of this would be college students because they want...
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...3. Merton's Strain Theory says that there are goals present that are set by our culture, such as the American Dream ( white picket fence, high paying job and family). Although the goal exists for most people within that culture and should be attainable by all , that is not always the case. Sometimes some people lack the means and /or the opportunities to reach those goals. This is usually because of two reasons, lack of opportunity or discrimination, according to structuralism. People with less opportunity often are poorer and, less educated. The people being discriminated against are typically minorities and female. When the goal is unattainable, this leads to a road of deviance. One main idea is that not everyone who fails to reach their goals chooses a deviant lifestyle, only those with the opportunity to do so, do. When strain does occur there are 5 modes of adaption to deal with it, conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. Conformity is the most popular mode and means that the goals are met and the ways of meeting the goals are respected. Innovation is when the goals are met but the way they were met isn't considered "high status" . It usually involves very hard work and blue collar jobs. Ritualism does not meet the culture's goals but makes their own, and is happy with what they have. Retreatist shun away from the norms of the cultural goals , this is the rarest. Rebels fight against the norm and seek to create their...
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...Everyone’s motivation for crime may be different but things such as environment and pressure are contributing factors in most criminal activity. Crime and violence are age old anomalies that have intrigued the minds of scientist and theorist; many have come up with theories that they feel explain criminal motivation. Behavior theory and strain theory explain my thoughts on the theory of crime. “Behavior theory is important in the study of criminology because much human behavior is the result of conditioning” (Schmallegher, 2014, p. 72). Most humans are born innocent and learn behavior from their environment such as friends and family. A person is conditioned according to those that they see as models for their behavior and they learn their morals and values in the environment in which they are raised. Many criminals do not share the same values that majority of society have and therefore they tend to deviate from...
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...According to the article ‘Understanding the effects of Victimization: Applying General Strain Theory to the experience of LGBQ youth’ written by Deeanna M. Button. Button’s, main focus throughout the article is the high risk of victimization among the lesbian, gay, bisexual and questioning(LGBQ) youth. In which, she demonstrated the strange violence, school violence, family violence and dating violence the LGBQ individuals experience compared to heterosexual people. Viewing the research, it shows the exploitation that due to the numerous victimization that the LGBQ youth confront can possibly prompt various, hurtful, and some of the time overwhelming results. Causing poor academic performance, substance use, and mental health problems; leading to suicidality. Not only that put Button using the general strain theory(GST) to...
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...The theory I have chosen to discuss is the strain theory. Before Agnew had developed his adaptation of strain theory, Durkheim had introduced the term “anomie” – the break down of social order as a result of the loss of standards and values – before the end of the nineteenth century. After Durkheim, came Merton. He also related his theories to anomie, but his predictions slightly differed from those of Durkheim's. Merton argued that “The real problem is created not by sudden social change but by a social structure that holds out the same goals to all its members without giving them equal means to achieve them. This lack of integration between what the culture calls for and what the structure permits, the former encouraging success and the latter...
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...General Strain Theory In this article dated Monday, 23 April 2018 01:56 PM, three were charged with larceny at Liverpool PAC. Three people were accused and charged with theft of personal property or larceny in homes within Liverpool. Officers from Liverpool Police conducted investigations pertaining to stolen equipment from hire firms in Granville and Guildford and carried out the investigation on Saturday 21/4/2018 and Sunday 22/4/2018. The three suspects were aged 24, 37 and 41.They were refused bail to appear at Liverpool court on Monday 23 April 2018. As stated in strain theory, low social control is an aspect that relates to individual conditions that an individual has slight or completely no control over like employment prospects...
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...The first social theory that had a major influence on social policy development is Strain theory. Strain theory is described an individual engaging in crime to reduce the amount of strain they have on their life. Everyone becomes strain or stressed in their lives, which sometimes people commit crimes to escape from the strain or stress. According to Strain theory, people commit crimes to fix their financial issues. Crimes such as dealing drugs, stealing, robbery, etc. are some examples how people reduce their financial issue due to strain. People could also engage in drug use to help reduce stress according to the Strain theory. These individuals also commit crimes to seek out revenge of another individual or to end harassment from another...
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...V. Criminality and Genetics 1. Robert Agnew According to Agnew’s (1992, 2006) General Strain Theory, there are many different types of strain in life, and strain may differ depending on the different types of relationships one may have in their environment. In Agnew’s theory strain is the result of negative emotions people have with one another, and is the direct correlation to individual characteristics people have with coping poorly with this strain and as a result strain may lead to crime. In Agnew’s (1992) claim, he eludes to how individuals that experience strain are left with the sense of not being able to achieve one’s full potential of being valued in society. This results in the person becoming under-stimulated with life and underappreciated with a lower than normal social standing. Individuals experiencing strain also experience negative emotions, and these emotions leave the person wanting to feel better with themselves and the world around them. Strain then results in crime, when the individual lacks certain skills like cognitive, emotional, and coping skills to deal with the situations revolving around their environment (Agnew, R. 2016)....
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...The Strain theory traces the origins of deviance to the tensions that are caused by the gap between cultural achievement and the means people have available to achieve those goals. For example, not being able to pay for college, not having money, job etc. will make this Individual join a gang or start selling drugs in order to achieve cultural goals such as successes. Not only that, but when individuals are faced with a gap between them they will tense up and have five moods of adaptation. For instance, the five mood are conformity, innovation, which mean accept cultural goals, but reject the conventional methods of attaining those goals and ritualism are individuals who do not believe in the established cultural goals of society, retreatism...
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...Mysta D’struction offers free Wi-Fi to residents in his building and he also obtained personally identifiable information on elder clients after five years of representation. This white collar criminal that falls under the strain theory psychological theory, is not a member of any specific criminal organization (McAfee, 2015). David simply uses social platforms as a distribution device giving him the ability to obtain an individual’s contacts, location, and even business activities. Theft of personal property refers to the act of using an internet to steal an individual’s property or to obstruct someone’s use and enjoyment of property. Theft of financial and/or personal information through computer use for making its fraudulent or other illegal use, which include hacking into a bank’s...
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...Examine Strain theories as an explanation of crime and deviance. Criminal and deviant behaviour is one of societies biggest, long-standing problems. Many sociological theories attempt to unearth the reasons behind this behaviour, and therefore how to ensure that even if it still exists, it is significantly reduced. Strain theory, originally developed by Merton, is one of many sociological theories offering an explanation for deviant behaviour. All strain theories believe that individual strain, the frictions experienced by an individual to meet their needs, is the motivational mechanism that causes criminal activity. Mertons strain theory initially states that deviant behaviour is the result of strain between the goals that are encouraged in society and what societies structures will allow an individual to achieve. This ‘strain’ is most likely to affect those who make up the working class, as due to their cultural deprivation it is harder for them to succeed in our middle class centred society. As a result of this strain Merton recognises five responses to which he believes all members of a society fit into, these are conformity, where people adhere to both goals and means, innovation, where people reject the means but still pursue the goal, ritualism, where the means are used but the goal is lost, retreatism, where goals and means are rejected, and rebellion, where different goals and means substitute societies unattainable one. Despite creating a starting point for various...
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