Similarities Between Mckay And Merton

Every city seems to have a “bad part of town”, but what is responsible for crime and social problems in these parts of inner cities? Robert Merton coined the theory of strain in 1938 building off of Emile Durkheim’s concept of anomie, or a feeling of normlessness (Cullen text, Part V). Robert Merton suggests that every society has a specific set of norms and goals for success, and that crime occurs due to the gap, imbalance, and disjunction between aspiration for these goals and the means to achieve them. Success is often fairly uniform across the classes, but legitimate means to achieve success is less likely among the lower class (Lecture).
Robert Merton suggests that this strain is the reason crime runs rampant in lower-class areas (Cullen text, CH13). According to Merton, crime is bred in lower-class areas where legitimate opportunities to achieve
Although each theory is talking about different processes, they discuss they same concepts – crime and social structure (Lecture). Agnew takes into account all aspects of both theories and ties them his single theory claiming that people are pushed into crime. Where Shaw and McKay’s and Merton’s theories are more at the macro-level, Agnew’s is much more micro-level. Agnew shifts the focus away from financial goals and aspirations and focuses on how people are negatively pushed into crime. Agnew’s general strain theory is a great combination of social disorganization and Merton’s strain. Agnew outlined three types of strain, failure to achieve goals, removal of positive stimuli, and the introductions of negative stimuli. He also suggests three coping mechanisms the minimization of the importance of goals, the minimization of negative outcomes, and the acceptance of responsibility (Cullen text, CH16). Agnew’s ideas fill in the gaps of Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory and Merton’s strain