2.The main features to each perspective are described below:

Functionalists believe that crime is best analysed by looking at society as a whole and that we should not look at the individual person, and that the way society is structured explains the cause of crime. They believe that crime has a function in society and that we need it, even though functionalists feel strongly about shared values and consensus to keep society together. This said they think that the existence of crime brings other parts of society together because, we come together to stop crime e.g. neighbourhood watch or a paedophile moving into a town: all different types of people would get together in the way of marches and the signing of petitions.

This therefore helps to promote shared values and social order. Functionalists believe crime has its function, if it did not prisons/punishment and the police would therefore not have a function in society. Theorists who follow this perspective are Durkhe

2.Strengths to Merton's study include: he showed how the culture and structure of society generate deviance. Showed that goals in the USA are reached at the expense of institutionalised means, this creates a tendency towards anomie. His theory can help to explain the rise in the crime rte in post-communist Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany and Russia. Weaknesses to Merton's study include: It neglects the power relationship in society as a whole that deviancy and crime occurs. He did not carry his analysis e.g. who makes the laws and who benefits from them. He also assumed that there was a value consensus in American society and that people only commit crime under its structural strain.

Cohen's definition of a moral panic is when 'a condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to social values and interests; its nature is present in a stylised and stereotypical fashion by the mass media'. This is what Cohen is interested in and not in what really happened. Cohen believed the Mods and Rockers were not the first post-war youths to emerge as folk devils, the first were the teddy boys of the fifties. All these and other groups formed after represented the rise of the affluent teenager, whose music and dress sense became linked with deviant or at least values disapproved of by the public. Cohen says "the response was as much to what they stood for s what they did" about the Mods and Rockers. Due to the moral panic different approaches were brought in by the police and the courts. It also contributed to the passing of the Malicious Damage Act. Ultimately a process of 'de-amplification' took place, this meant the media and public interest decline. This made the public feel that something was being done about the problem, so the media moved on to other teenage deviant groups e.g. student radicals and hippies.

Sociological study Maureen Snider, 1993.

Strengths to Stanley Cohen's study include: the material used was good secondary date e.g. relevant local and national newspaper reports and radio and TV news broadcasts and a load of local publications like parish news letters and council minutes from all the towns affected. He showed that there was a connection between crime and the media. Weaknesses to Cohen's study include: his research results state that these teenage subcultures represented a rejection of the work ethic and they were turned off by dead end jobs but here I believe is a weakness as many of the Mods and Rockers were from middle-classed backgrounds and would not have been able to afford scooters and motorbikes if they had rejected working.

Cohen pointed out that the increasingly harsh distinction between Mods and Rockers came about due to the way that the media described 2 groups. There is also a clear link with talking about power, in that a range of social control measures were proposed, and many actually introduced, to exercise power and punishment over the groups. Cohen said these groups came about due to the youths rejecting the 'work ethic'. He said these had been turned off by their boring, dead-end jobs. But post-war youth affluence enabled then to spend their money participating in the newly emerging mass teenage subculture. Young people were attracted to advertisers because they had disposable income that was enough to live on and enjoy leisure time. They no longer thought the way the older generation did, in the ideas of work; it was merely a necessity that allowed them to take part in subcultural activities - especially dress and music styles they choose.

An example of this is the USA, Merton outlined his theory as: people in America share the same norms and values of American culture. They share the same goals of success that they all try to achieve; this is basically measured in wealth and material possessions. This is known as the American dream - where everyone has the chance/opportunity to be wealthy and a success. In many societie

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