Introducing 

Prezi AI.

Your new presentation assistant.

Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.

Loading…
Transcript

How Does Strain Theory Compare?

Strain Theory is similar to many theories in that it focuses on internal and external factors that may lead an individual to crime. It is different in that it implies that the negative emotions brought about by these internal and external factors are the cause of criminal behavior.

Strain Theory in Criminology

Critical Theory

Feminist Theory

The critical theory has been used to explain the nature and nurture of female criminality through analysis of both gender and crime and how they are related to women in society.

Women are seen as the caretakers (at home, caring for the children, making dinner, keeping the house clean, etc.). When these “caretaker” women do commit crimes, most are fraud, prostitution, shoplifting and any type of violent crimes are done to their children, husbands, lovers. This may be attributed to gender roles and power in society.

Similarities: Society provokes individuals to engage in criminal behavior. Societal norms, institutions, and expectations can lead individuals to engage in unlawful behavior in order to overcome inequalities and achieve their goals.

Differences: Structured Action theory: power control and strain theories do not explain the similarities of criminal acts of women and girls, let alone the differences between men and boys and women and girls. We behave in ways our gender is expected to, which limits the type of crime we engage in. This differs from strain theory, where men can still be prostitutes and shoplift and women can engage in robbery, assault, and violent crimes.

Feminist theory is the theoretical approach that focuses on women’s interests and perspectives, along with social justice and equality, in an attempt to explain crime and criminal behavior. In the study of criminology, the feminist theory mostly focuses on women’s interests that are political and aim to get equality and social justice outside of socially accepted means.

Similarities: Individuals who believe they have been wronged and/or stripped of their opportunities may feel negative emotions and become socially uncomfortable. In an effort to achieve their goals, they may resort to crime.

Differences: In feminist theory, women commit crime due to social injustice and equality. According to strain theory, women may commit crime for a multitude of reasons other than injustice and equality (as long as they are a source of strain for the woman).

Katie Gryzbowski, Travis Widder, Josh Zabel, Mark Pariano, Melissa Rura

What is Strain Theory?

Multiple views of Anomie/Strain Theory: The Classic Anomie Approach, Institutional Anomie Theory, and General Strain Theory

"A Revised Strain Theory of Delinquency"

General Strain Theory (GST)

Institutional Anomie Theory (IAT)

The Classic Anomie Approach

1. Theoretical Framework:

Strain is produced by a blockage of pain-avoidance behavior as well as of goal-seeking behavior. Adolescents typically do not have any legal means of escaping aversive situations, frustrating the individual and leading them to illegal escape attempts and anger-based delinquency.

2. Research Question:

Can delinquent behavior among adolescents be attributed to strain produced by a blockage of pain-avoidance behavior?

3. Hypothesis:

Blockage of pain-avoidance behavior among adolescent boys will lead to increased measures of anger and instances of delinquency

4. Subjects:

2,213 adolescent boys were selected from the national "Youth in Transition" survey conducted by the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan in October and November of 1966.

5. Methods:

Adolescents were chosen through a multi-stage sampling procedure to take the survey, including information of school and family environments as well as measures of social control, deviant beliefs, and delinquency. Measurements of Environmental Aversion, Anger, Social Control Measures, Subcultural Deviance Measures, and Delinquency were gathered using multiple scales and factor analysis was

used to obtain final measurements of each scale for individuals. Regressions were used to estimate

the effects of the independent variables

Emile Durkheim

Robert K. Merton

Developed by Steven F. Messner and Richard Rosenfeld, IAT is applicable to profit-motivated crimes particularly in the U.S.

Institutions in America promote the goal of economic success but do not provide alternative definitions of success. These institutions don't have the power to control the means of achieving 'success,' leading to anomie and the execution of unapproved and unlawful means to achieve goals.

Emphasized social class, family, and political, economic, and educational institutions and their impact on the production of certain types of crimes.

Developed by Robert Agnew, GST argues for a more comprehensive approach to the analysis of how strain is related to delinquent and criminal behavior by including all types of negative relations between the individual and others

Three Types of Strain

1. An individual's failure to achieve his or her immediate or future goals.

- gap between one's expectations and achievements (whether or not there is a fair and just outcome) may result in not only disappointment but also anger and resentment

2. An individual's loss of a source of stability; ex. death of a loved one, dissolution of a personal relationship

- strain exists due to loss of a stimulus that had a positive valuation

3. An individual's confrontation with negative stimuli; ex. educational difficulties, abuse from loved ones, crime victimization

- strain occurs from an attempt to get away from stimuli in a deviant way

Strain leads to the development of negative emotions (anger, jealousy, envy, depression, frustration, fear, etc.) which create pressure for corrective action, reduce the ability to cope in a legal manner, reduce the perceived costs of crime, increase the disposition for crime, and temporarily reduce social control and foster the social learning of crime.

Social support and criminal peer associations also interact with strain to modify the instances of criminal activity

Social structures exert pressure for change, whether helpful or not

Key concepts are those of "strain, tension, contradiction, or discrepancy between the component elements of Social Structure (approved social means) and Cultural Structure (approved goals for achieving those means)"

Strain and tension develop between goals and means, which exert pressure for change. When people don't have the means for meeting their goals, they may turn to nonconforming, unapproved, unaccepted, means. This in turn results in anomie.

Modes of adaptation:

- Conformity: acceptance of goals and means

- Innovation: acceptance of goals but rejection of means

- Ritualism: rejection of goals but acceptance of means

- Retreatism: rejection of goals and means

- Rebellion: rejection of goals and means and attempting to establish new social order

"Anomie" - meaning "without norms"

Crime is functional and normal for society due to deviation

Society's most important feature is Social Solidarity, which consists of:

- Mechanical Solidarity

- Law is to discourage individuals from acting in a way that threatens society's collective conscience

- generally in smaller societies

- Organic Solidarity

- law becomes restitutive

- characterized by an increased need for a division of labor (can be forced or abnormal), leading to differences in class and status.

- greater loneliness, social isolation, loss of identity come from division of labor, leading to anomie

- state of anomie replaces state of solidarity, leading to the development and flourishing of crime and other antisocial acts.

What did we think?

Overall, this article was an interesting development of current beliefs in strain theory. Rather than focusing on the strain developed by blockage of goal-seeking behavior, it focused on strain created by blockage of pain-avoidance behavior. The data gained by this theoretical revision overcomes many of the typical criticisms of modern strain theory - such as the issues between aspirations and expectations, issues with the prevalence of middle-class delinquency, the sporadic nature of delinquency, issues with the decline of delinquency in late adolescence, and the inclusion of critical variables in the instances of delinquency (ex. quality of family relationships, non-economic goals, etc.). Shortcomings of the study include lack of causal analysis, control for dishonest answers in surveys, and issues with external and ecological validity due to sampling methods. Future research should be focused on additional forms of environmental aversion, examine the amount of time adolescents are required to remain in aversive environments, and examine factors that condition the link between aversion and delinquency.

6. Results:

This analysis found that all measure of environmental aversion have a statistically significant positive effect on anger. Levels of anger were found to have a significant positive impact on all measures of delinquency, with the highest level on measures of aggression. Aversion variables were higher on levels of interpersonal aggression and escape attempts from school than on seriousness of delinquency. Overall, this article found that environmental aversion plays a large factor in juvenile delinquency. Using the findings, the researchers concluded that the revised strain theory more adequately explains juvenile delinquency than traditional forms of strain theory.

References

"Universal Knowledge Allah, Salah Salahadyn Charged In Stradivarius Violin Theft" - Huffington Post

Agnew, R. (1985). A revised strain theory of delinquency. Social Forces, 64(1), 151-167. Retrieved from http://sf.oxfordjournals.org/content/64/1/151.full.pdf

Ramde, D. (2014, February 8). Universal knowledge allah, salah salahadyn charged in stradivarius violin theft. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/08/universal-knowledge-allah-salah-salahadyn-stradivarius-violin-theft_n_4751210.html

Reid, S. T. (2012). Crime and criminology. (13th ed., pp. 109-139). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

This recent news article, published in the Huffington Post on February 8th, describes the theft of a 5 million dollar Stradivarius Violin from renowned concertmaster of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra Frank Almond. On January 27th, after a performance, Almond was taking the 300 year old Stradivarius back into his vehicle when he was hit from the back with a stun gun. He fell, stunned, and recalled a van driving away before he was able to recover the instrument. Stradivarius violins, created by Antonio Stradivari in 1715, can reach millions of dollars in worth, especially since only 600-650 are estimated to be remaining. After receiving an anonymous tip, police found the violin in Salahadyn's acquaintance's attic, who purportedly was not aware that it was placed there. Salah Salahadyn and Universal Knowledge Allah were implicated in the robbery and arrested and are currently awaiting trial.

In this article, we can see how strain theory can truly cause a person to commit crime. Salahadyn has been previously arrested for attempting to sell a stolen piece of art valued at 25,000 dollars. Economic factors were likely a large cause of this crime. Salahadyn's lack of assets and large disparity between goals (receiving large financial assets) and legal means were most likely a cause of strain in his life. The discomfort of this strain, coupled with the opportunity achieve his goal through nonlegal means, likely pushed him and accomplice Universal Knowledge Allah to commit this theft. The strain of lack of assets and the means to achieve financial gain through robbery most likely pushed these individuals to their limit and led them to commit this crime.

Learn more about creating dynamic, engaging presentations with Prezi