Overview of Strain, Labelling & Republican Theories of Criminology

Crime, through criminology, has had many theories attributed to determine its cause, yet crime still pervades in modern society, evading means of being purged, as these theories retain incongruity of the changing nature of crime and punishment and fail to be fully incorporated into society (Agnew, 2002; Plummer, 1979). Theories that are attributed to attempting to define and explain the nature and cause of crime are strain theory, labelling perspective and republican theory. Each of these theories will be analysed and evaluated for the concepts they encapsulate and their subsequent influences on the contemporary criminal justice system, leading to the discussion of how crime manages to exist, even with the development of such theories.

Strain Theory, conceptualised and developed by Robert Merton in 1938, suggests that deviance is inspired when goals cannot be achieved through legitimate means, causing a strain or anomie on such people, who then turn to illegitimate means to achieve such goals (Smith, 1995). The cause of crime is then seen to be a sociological phenomenon, with crime stemming from social processes and not from the individuals within it, where crime is defined as the contravention of the norms and values held in consensus by a society (White & Haines, 2004). This ideas was important because it was one of the first theories to shift their focus of criminality away from the individual, to look be looked at in a social context (White & Haines, 2004). The main source of strain however, argued to be inherent in every society, is that the culture of a society defines certain goals that is deemed to be the objective of all persons within the society (Vold, Bernard & Snipes, 2002). However, the cultural goals in a society can vary from differing societies, but can still result in strain due to the blocked opportunity in attempting to achieve it (Vold, Bernard & Snipes, 2002). The response to crime, according to Strain theory was to provide opportunities to...