Examine the Role of Access to Opportunity Structures in Causing Crime and Deviance.

Examine the role of access to probability structures in create crime and aberrancy. Opportunity structures can be described as a factor, situation or pathway which can postulate towards or away from deviant or criminal behaviour, for event if someone does not gain access to the licit prospect structure of education to achieve goals they may look to other, cocksucker opportunities and which can lead to them committing crime or engaging in deviant behaviour. One theory that supports the role of access to chance structures in causing crime and deviance is, arguing that unsymmetrical access to permit opportunity structures is the cause of this behaviour is Mertons Strain Theory. Mertons Strain theory and anomie argues that deviance arises from the structure of society. He has developed the functionalist theory of deviance to cause to explain why deviance occurs in the first place. He argues that people engage in deviant behaviour because they ar unable to achieve soci tout ensembley approved goals by legitimate inwardness. Most people share goals for example, financial success, having their own base and possessing consumer goods and most conform to the approved means of achieving them, like working in paid employment.

However, in an unequal society, Merton argues that not all individuals have the same opportunity of realising these goals by approved means. This means they face a sense of strain and anomie (normlessness), as the dominant rules about how to achieve success dont meet their needs, and therefore deviance results from unequal access to legitimate opportunities (such as education and careers which can be seen as opportunity structures). Merton argues that there are different modes of adaptation, or responses to situations, that simulacrum from conformity that most people to display, to one of four forms of deviance, which he calls Innovation, Ritualism, Retreatism and Rebellion. A non-deviant, non-criminal conformist citizen would take the... If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay

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