subculture strain

status frustration

• cohen

• wc boys face anomie in the middle class education system

• theu are culturally deprived and lack the skills to achieve leaving them at the bottom of the status hierarchy

• as a result they suffer status frustration

• they resolve it by rejecting mainstream middle class values

• form the subculture

alternative status hierarchy

• the subculture provides an alternative status hierarchy where they an win status through delinquent actions

• it values spite, malice, hostility and contempt for those outside it

• subculture inverts mainstream values

• what society values, they condemn it e.g. respecting property

3 criminal subcultures

• cloward and ohlin

• criminal subculture: apprenticeship into a career of rime, highly organised, professional adult crime e.g. mafia

• conflict subculture: loosely organised groups, turf wars, e.g. gangs

• retreatist subculture: double failures, fail both legitimately and illegitimately e.g drug users

evaluation

• over predict amount of wc crime

• ignore crime of wealthy

• draw boundaries too sharply between the different types of subcultures