Robert Merton's Anomie Theory

Robert Merton’s Anomie Theory emphasizes the importance of the goals that people believe are worth striving for, and the legitimate means to attain the desired goals. He says that for these two elements must be balanced, an imbalance of these lead to strain/anomie that can affect people in social classes, but it would most likely affect the people from lower socioeconomic status. Merton states that most people adapt to different modes like conformers, they pursue their goals through acceptable means. Innovators, pursue their goals through illegitimate means, ritualists settle for less and hope that one day they will achieve their goals, retreatists are those who do not pursue their goals and quit, and rebels are the individuals who reject the cultural goal and the legitimate means of achieving it. He believed that the source of crime was the adaption to a contradiction between achieving the desired goal and the ability to achieve the goal through legitimate means. Furthermore, Albert Cohen, a student of Merton adapted his theory and tried to explain gang delinquency. He believed that crime was generally caused by gangs than individually, and that was gangs are formed to gain status among peers, such as family name and position in the community or academic achievement. Cohen states that juveniles can either
conform to societal values, or rebel and establish their own values, that lead to negative behaviors. According to Cohen, young people who rebel often find others and form gangs and support their new values. Also, he believed that anomie could affect every juvenile in all social classes, but it mostly affects juveniles from lower socioeconomic status. In addition, Cloward and Ohlin extended the previous explanations of anomie by suggesting that not all members of gangs adapt to anomie differently.
They added the illegitimate opportunity structure, which can be identified by three gang types such as the criminal, the violent, and the retreatist. If the illegitimate opportunity is available to them, they will more likely form gangs to get money. If they have neither the legitimate or illegitimate means to make money then they get vicious and violent. Nonetheless, if they are unable to adapt to either type of gang and fail to make money through legitimate means, then they will retreat and give up on
everything. Anomie theorists would increase legitimate opportunities for everyone and reduced ambition to prevent crime. A way to increase opportunities is to provide employment and work training, and help from the community organization and improve social services to disadvantaged families. However, the reduction of aspirations is somewhat impossible to attain because people will consider it a violation of freedom. Overall, the anomies theory can give a better understanding the reasons behind crime in communities. The main idea of these theories is that people’s aspirations and goals have a major effect on the individual and sometimes those goals do not coincide with the legitimate ways to achieve them, therefore, people choose to take different ways to achieve their goals whether they are through legitimate or illegitimate means, specifically in lower classes. Merton’s anomie theory helped others such as Albert Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin develop other theories and concepts in the field of criminology.