Deviant subcultures - delinquent, criminal and spectacular

Question 1

Juvenile delinquency

Answer 1

Criminal activity like theft vandalism and assault by young people (anti social behaviour too)

Question 2

What are the two types of delinquency?

Answer 2

Instrumental and Expressive

Question 3

What distinguishes the types of delinquency?

Answer 3

The main motivating factor

Question 4

Expressive delinquency

Answer 4

The main motivating factor is excitement

Question 5

Instrumental delinquency

Answer 5

The main motivating factor is financial gain

Question 6

What are types of Deviant subcultures?

Answer 6

Skinheads, Punk Rockers, Criminals

Question 7

Who studied the deviant subculture of Skinheads?

Answer 7

Clarke (1976)

Question 8

Bovver Boys or Boot boys

Answer 8

Skinhead alternative names

Question 9

What was the typical image of a skinhead?

Answer 9

Doc Marten Boots, Braces, and short cropped hair

Question 10

What type of people were usually skinheads?

Answer 10

Young working males ages 15-17 who dressed the same and looked for fights

Question 11

How did skinheads act?

Answer 11

Aggressively, they wanted to cause “aggro” which increased their delinquent image

Question 12

What was the relation between skinheads and football?

Answer 12

Formed neighbourhood groups and were usually football supporters (Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool) and caused a great deal of football hooliganism at matches causing police to have to remove skinhead braces, belts and bootlaces before matches started

Question 13

Where were many Skinheads located?

Answer 13

London (Mile end, Edgware road, St. Johns Wood), they were preoccupied by territory and felt threatened by the arrival of immigrants

Question 14

What values did skinheads support?

Answer 14

Conservative working class values

Question 15

What sort of groups were Skinheads drawn from?

Answer 15

Groups that had been rejected by school or had low self esteem

Question 16

Who did skinheads hate?

Answer 16

Immigrants (especially Asians), non-masculine males (homosexuals) and hippies (seen as lazy since some were work shy)

Question 17

What led to Pakistani vigilante groups being set up in East London in 1969?

Answer 17

Skinheads being very racist towards them and attacking them (found that 25% of Pakistani students from the federation had been attacked)

Question 18

What did skinheads listen to?

Answer 18

Ska, bluebeat and reggae

Question 19

How did the media portray skinheads?

Answer 19

As delinquent folk devils

Question 20

How had the skinheads image changed by 1971?

Answer 20

They began to grow their hair and adopt a smooth image as they were fed up of being scapegoated by the public and police

Question 21

What are the disadvantages of skinhead research by Clarke (1976)?

Answer 21

• Pearce (1973) contradicts it and states skinheads weren’t delinquent and held same views as most, the media just portrayed them badly
• Has been criticised because skinheads were actually from different races and nationalities rather than all being white working males and they just all wanted to defend British values and territory

Question 22

What is an advantage of skinhead research by Clarke (1976)?

Answer 22

+ They had a positive attitude towards Afro Caribbean immigrants and embraced music that belonged to their culture and shared territory with them due to living in the same run down estates

Question 23

What is Punk?

Answer 23

A new wave music developed in the USA that was outrageous and rebellious (included lyrics that referred to high rise flats, dole queues (no job), politics, sex and white riots)

Question 24

How did Punk rockers dress?

Answer 24

Shaved most of their hair and dyed the rest bright colours, wore sexual clothes from dustbin liners and old school clothes

Question 25

What were some musical icons associated with the punk rocker era?

Answer 25

Sid Vicious, Sex pistols

Question 26

What did the subculture of punk rock lead to?

Answer 26

Dole Queue Rock - the highest unemployment rate in Britain since the war

Question 27

What types of people were followers of punk rock?

Answer 27

Lower middle class youngsters from art colleges and the working class who rejected the worshipping of superstars (punk rock was alternative to mainstream music). Some were national front supporters who wore swastikas and some were racist

Question 28

Who did punk rock appeal to?

Answer 28

Young people with no future, no job and bleak prospects

Question 29

What are the advantages of Punk rockers?

Answer 29

+ Supported by Marxists as it rebelled against authority, change and revolution, similar to Marxist ideas on resistance. Most were against the capitalist system. + Supported by Post modernist sociologists like Polemus as it celebrates being different from mainstream culture

Question 30

Who studied criminals as a deviant subculture?

Answer 30

Albert Cohen (Functionalist) (1955) and Cloward and Ohlin (1961)

Question 31

What two main points did Cohen make about delinquency?

Answer 31

1) Delinquency is a collective response in an effort to express discontent 2) He wanted to focus on non utilitarian crimes that don't provide monetary reward

Question 32

Who did Cohen focus on in his research on criminals?

Answer 32

Young boys who have the same goals as the rest of society and mainstream culture but due to educational failure and dead end jobs, they cannot. (Failure can be explained by their position in social structure)

Question 33

What may the young boys in Cohen's research on criminals suffer from?

Answer 33

Status frustration

Question 34

Status frustration in Cohens research

Answer 34

Boys become frustrated and dissatisfied with their low status in society and reject the success goals of mainstream culture

Question 35

What may status frustration lead young boys to do?

Answer 35

Develop new norms and values and can achieve success and prestige by forming a delinquent subculture to solve the status frustration

Question 36

What may delinquent subcultures place a high value on according to Cohen?

Answer 36

Criminal activities such as stealing, vandalism and truancy which are condemned by wider society

Question 37

What positive rewards can be gained from delinquent subcultures according to Cohen?

Answer 37

Gaining prestige, glory, satisfaction and recognition from peers when they commit crimes

Question 38

What are the disadvantages of Cohen's work?

Answer 38

- Box (1981) criticised it as it can only be applied to a minority of criminals and thinks that the youth feel resentment rather than guilt and shame - Bordua (1962) criticised the use of "lower class subculture" as it cannot explain crime as it's newly generated by an upsurge of young working class delinquents rather than it being passed down - Matza (1964) criticised view that most delinquents are opposed to mainstream values and found it was accepted by youth and they only occasionally committed crimes, sometimes drifting from delinquency

Question 39

What did Cloward and Ohlin (1961) focus on?

Answer 39

Explaining different types of crime that criminal subcultures may commit

Question 40

Who did Cloward and Ohlin (1961) focus on?

Answer 40

The working class

Question 41

Why did Cloward and Ohlin focus on the working class?

Answer 41

They face more pressure to deviate and become part of a criminal subculture because they have less opportunity to succeed by legitimate means

Question 42

What 3 routes did Cloward and Ohlin suggest the working class may have due to their pressure to deviate?

Answer 42

Criminal subcultures, Conflict subcultures, Retreatist subcultures

Question 43

Criminal subcultures (CO1961)

Answer 43

Emerges in areas where lots of crime occurs. Learning environment for youth and they are exposed to criminal skills and deviant values. Those successful can rise in the professional criminal hierarchy. Crimes are utilitarian

Question 44

Conflict subcultures (CO1961)

Answer 44

Emerges in areas where young people have little opportunity to access legitimate opportunities and there is little organised crime for youth to aspire to. Can occur in high population turnover areas and places that lack unity. Response can be gang violence to release frustration

Question 45

Retreatist subcultures (CO1961)

Answer 45

Organised around drug use. Delinquents have failed to succeed in legitimate and illegitimate structures and they are failed criminals or gang members so they retreat into this subculture (double failure)

Question 46

What are the advantages of Cloward and Ohlin's work?

Answer 46

+ Highly sophisticated version of Merton and Cohen's theory so would be supported

Question 47

What are the disadvantages of Cloward and Ohlin's work?

Answer 47

- Hopkin Burke (2001) criticised it as its based on the assumption that the working class is a homogenous group - Offers a very simplistic explanation about drug abuse in working class subculture and ignored that its also problematic in middle and upper classes - Taylor (1973) criticised it as it wrongly assumes that everyone in the USA start off being committed to goals of success and wealth and if it fails they become criminals