Subcultural theory

Cohen: Functionalist

• Educational failure and dead-end jobs → wc boys can’t achieve mainstream success → status frustration

• Agrees with Merton that crime was a lower class phenomenon, but not always for monetary gain

• Subcultures rejecting mainstream norms and values form, turning to the values of a delinquent subculkture

• Subcultures are another way to achieve status, with a high value placed on criminal acts to gain status (collective deviance) within the subculture from it (non-utilitarian crime)

Cloward & Ohlin: Functionalists

• Asked why deviance takes different forms and identified 3 types of delinquent subcultures

• 1) Criminal: Develops in areas of well-established crime, unstable neighbourhoods, utiltarian

• 2) Conflict: Deprived areas, gain status through violence instead of mainstream goals, no adult organised crime (gang violence)

• 3) Retreatist: Those who have failed in ganges and form own gangs based in drug use

Miller: Focal concerns

Matza: Subterranean values

Other subcultural studies