Subcultural Strain Theories

What do subcultural theories see deviance as the product of?

A delinquent subculture with different values from those of a mainstream society.

What do subcultural theories see subcultures as?

Providing an alternative opportunity structure for those who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means - mainly those in the working class. From this point of view, subcultures are a solution to a problem and therefore functional for their members, even if not for wider society.

What does Cohen agree with Merton in?

That deviance is largely a lower-class phenomenon. It results from the inability of those in the lower classes to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as educational achievement.

What are the grounds Cohen criticises Merton’s explanation of deviance on?

1. Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the fact that much deviance is committed in or by groups, especially among the young.

2. Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain, such as theft or fraud. He largely ignores crimes such as assault and vandalism, which may have no economic motive.

What does Cohen focus on?

Deviance among working-class boys.

What does Cohen argue about working-class boys?

That they face anomie in the middle-class dominated school system. They suffer from cultural deprivation and lack the skills to achieve. Their inability to succeed leaves them at the bottom of the official status hierarchy,

For Cohen, as a result of being unable yo achieve status by legitimate means (education), what do working class boys suffer?

Status frustration. They face a problem of adjustment to the low status they are given by mainstream society.

In Cohen’s view, how do working class boys resolve their frustration?

By rejecting mainstream middle-class values and they turn instead to other boys in the same situation, forming or joining a delinquent subculture.

According to Cohen, what are the values of the subculture?

Spite, malice, hostility and contempt for those outside it. The delinquent subculture inverts the values of the mainstream culture: while society upholds regular school attendance and respect for property, the boys gain status from vandalising property and truanting.

For Cohen, what is the function of the subculture?

It offers the boys an alternative status hierarchy in which they can achieve. Having failed in the legitimate opportunity structure in which they can win status from their peers though their delinquent actions.

What is one strength of Cohen’s theory?

It offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance.

Unlike Merton, who only accounts for crime with a profit motive, what do Cohen’s ideas of status frustration and alternative status hierarchy help to explain?

Non-economic delinquency such as vandalism and truancy.

Like Merton, what does Cohen assume?

That working class boys start off sharing middle-class success goals, only to reject these when they fail. He ignores the possibility that they didn’t share these goals in the first place ans so never saw themselves as failures.

Like Cohen, where do Cloward and Ohlin take ideas from?

Merton.

What do Cloward and Ohlin agree?

That working-class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve ‘money success‘ and that their deviance stems from the way they respond to this situation.

What do Cloward and Ohlin attempt to explain?

Why different subcultural responses occur. In their view, the key reason is not only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure as Merton and Cohen recognise, but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures.

Drawing on the ideas of the Chicago school, what do Cloward and Ohlin argue?

That different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers.

What do Cloward and Ohlin identify?

Three different types of deviant subcultures that result from different neighbourhoods providing different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal career.

What do criminal subcultures provide youths with?

An apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime.

Where do criminal subcultures arise?

Only in neighbourhoods with a longstanding and stable criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adult crime.

What do criminal subcultures allow youths to do?

Associate with adult criminals, who can select hose with the right aptitudes and abilities and provide them with training and role models as well as opportunities for employment on the criminal career ladder.

Where do conflict subcultures arise?

In areas of high population turnover. This results in high levels of social disorganisation and prevents a stable professional criminal network developing. Its absence means that only the illegitimate opportunities available are within loosely organised groups.

In conflict subcultures, what does violence provide?

A release for young men’s frustration at their blocked opportunities, as well as an alternative source of status that they can earn by winning ‘turf‘ (territory) from rival gangs. This subculture is closest to that described by Cohen.

Why do retreatist subcultures arise?

In any neighbourhood, not everyone who aspires to become professional criminal or a gang leader actually success - just as in the legitimate opportunity structure, where not everyone gets a well-paid job. What becomes of these ‘double failures‘.

According to Cloward and Ohlin, what do many people turn to a retreatist subculture bsed on?

Illegal drug use.

What do Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton and Cohen in?

That most crime is working-class, thus ignoring crimes of the wealthy.

What does Cloward and Ohlin’s theory over-predict?

The amount of working-class crime. Like Merton and Cohen, they too ignore the wider power structure, including who makes and enforces the law.

While Cloward and Ohlin agree with Cohen that delinquent subcultures are the source of much deviance, unlike Cohen, what do they provide?

An explanation for different types of working-class deviance in terms of different subcultures. However, they draw the boundaries too sharply between these.

What did South find?

That the drug trade is a mixture of both ‘disorganised‘ crime, like the conflict subculture, and professional ‘mafia‘ style criminal subcultures. Likewise, some supposedly ‘retreatist‘ users are also professional dealers making a living from this utilitarian crime. In Cloward and Ohlin’s theory, it would not be possible to belong to more than one of these subcultures.

Why have strain theories been called reactive theories?

Because they explain subcultures as forming in reaction to the failure to achieve mainstream goals. They have been criticised for assuming that everyone starts off sharing the same mainstream success goal.

What does Miller argue?

That the lower class has its own independent subculture from mainstream culture, with its own values. This subculture does not value success in the first place, so its members are not frustrated by failure.

What does Matza claim?

That most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subculture, as strain theories suggest, but merely drift in and out of delinquency.

What has strain theory had a major influence on?

Both later theories of crime, and on government policy. For example, Merton’s ideas play an important role in left realist explanations of crime. In the 1960s, Ohlin was appointed to help develop crime policy in the USA under president Kennedy.

What have recent strain theorists argued?

That young people may pursue a variety of goals other than money success. These include popularity with peers, autonomy from adults, or the desire of some young males to be treated like ‘real men‘.

Like earlier strain theorists, what do recent theorists argue?

That failure to achieve these goals may result in delinquency. They also argue that middle-class juveniles too may have problems achieving such goals, thus offering an explanation for middle-class delinquency.

Like Merton’s theory, what does Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional anomie theory focus on?

The American dream. They argue that its obsession with money success and its ‘winner takes all‘ mentality, exert ‘pressures towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment in ehich people are encouraged to adopt an ‘anything goes‘ mentality in the pursuit of wealth.

In America (and arguably the UK), what goals are valued?

Economic goals are valued above all, undermining other institutions.

What do Messner and Rosenfeld conclude?

That in societies based on free-market capitalism and lacking adequate welfare provision, such as the USA, high crime rates are inevitable.

How do Downes and Hansen support Messner and Rosenfield’s view?

They found that societies that spend more money on welfare had lower rates of imprisonment, backing up Rosenfield’s claim that societies tat protect the poor from the worst excesses of the free market have less crime.

What does Savelsburg apply strain theory to?

Post-communist societies in Eastern Europe, which saw a rapid rise in crime after the fall in communism in 1989. He attributes this rise to communism’s collective values being replaced by new Western capitalist goals of individual ‘money sucess‘.