Robert K. Merton's "Dream Machine"
An Explication of Merton's
"Social Structure and Anomie" (1938)
FUNCTIONALIST ARGUMENTS
IN SOCIOLOGY
Strange as it may seem at first, functionalist theorists argue just this point! Just like many other institutionalized behaviors, crime has an important function in society. For example, both Émile Durkheim and G. H. Mead argue that crime allows the members of a society, who are otherwise quite different, to join together in condemning the criminal, a commonly perceived enemy. By coming together, allowing people to see what they have in common and defining themselves against what they are not, individuals acquire a "collective cohesion."