Anomie In Relation To Crime

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Crime can be seen as a natural offshoot of the capitalist system. Capitalism encourages a social structure based on wealth. On top of society lie the rich or the bourgeoisie and on the bottom lies the poor and the forgotten. Capitalism is centred toward capital. The accumulation of capital creates greed in the rich and causes desperation for the poor. In order to survive within a capitalist society, you need wealth and those who struggle to accumulate it may, as a result, turn to crime due to the injustice they feel is being done upon them. Even those who have wealth turn to crime so they can generate more. Capitalism encourages individuals to pursue their own interests rather than the interests of the collective. The system creates
Anomie was first introduced by Durkheim in relation to suicide but Merton further developed the concept by looking at it in relation to crime and deviance. Anomie occurs within a society when the traditional norms and standards diminish and are not replaced by newer more suitable ones. This leaves individuals with no clear standards to guide their behaviour, they become disillusioned, confused and sometimes angry at society. Merton reshaped the concept by looking at the strain put on individuals behaviour when societies outdated goals collided with reality. Society puts pressure on the individual to reach socially accepted goals even though these goals may be out of reach for many. This puts a strain on the individual's behaviour which may lead them to commit a crime. Merton identified five ways in which people might adapt when faced with strain. Conformity involves accepting societies norms and values even though they may not be suitable for you. Innovation involves accepting societies norms and values but using both legitimate and illegitimate means of following them. Ritualism involves following socially approved means to reach your own more modest goals. Retreatism involves rejecting societies accepted norms and values as well as the means used to achieve them. Lastly, Rebellion again involves rejecting societies norms and values as
It starts with an illegal or antisocial act which is picked up by the media and reported on and the seriousness of the act is greatly exaggerated. The act is made out to be a part of a pattern when it is evidently not. More often than not it involves something which would not normally be reported on. Once the story gains traction, similar stories begin to appear which then begin to reinforce the medias made-up pattern. Reports involving the incident are worded in such a way to make the deviant act seem 'cool' which then encourages others to participate in said act therefore further strengthening the claim that a pattern is appearing. As more stories appear a moral panic ensues, believing a pandemic is occurring they put pressure on the authorities to deal with the so-called threat caused by the deviant act. This results in the authorities putting unnecessary resources on something which may even be a trivial matter. [Cohen, 1973]. Deviant amplification is hard to prove, the more stories that appear, the more validated the medias hysteria becomes. There's a number of problems associated with the deviancy amplification thesis. Firstly it makes the problem seem much larger than it actually is. It causes people to miss out on the larger issues which may be present in their communities and it also makes social issues harder to fix as resources