Subcultural Strain Theories Flashcards
(13 cards)
Outline subcultural strain theories
- See deviance as the product of a delinquent subculture with different values from mainstream society.
- Subcultures provide an alternative opportunity for those who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means (mainly WC). So subcultures are a solution to a problem and functional to their members.
How does Cohen criticise Merton’s theory?
- Merton sees deviance as an individual repose to strain, ignoring how much deviance is committed in or by groups
- Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material gain (theft). He ignores crimes like assault, which have no economic motive
Describe Cohen’s focus on deviance among WC boys
- Cohen argues that WC face anomie in the MC 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.
- This results in status frustration (boys are at the bottom of the social structure have little change of gaining a higher status). Boys then reject the values of mainstream society and turn to a delinquent subculture, where the social group inverts what it means to be successful. To gain status, the boys place high value on criminal acts (stealing).
- In these subcultures, the individual can then gain respect by committing crimes.
What is a strength of Cohen’s theory?
It offer’s an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance. Unlike Merton, Cohen’s ideas of status frustration, value inversion and alternative status hierarchy help to explain non-economic delinquency (vandalism and truancy)
What is a limitation of Cohen’s theory?
However, like Merton, Cohen assumes that WC boys start off sharing MC success goals, only to reject these when they fails. He ignores that maybe they didn’t share these goals in the first place and so never saw themselves as failures
Describe the difference between Cohen’s theory and Cloward and Ohlin’s theory
- Cloward and Ohlin note that not everyone who is denied legitimate opportunities turn to utilitarian crimes . Different subcultures respond to different ways to lack of legitimate opportunities.
- In their view, the key reason isn’t only unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure, but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures
Describe the criminal subculture as a deviant subculture
- A career like organisation. Exists in longstanding and stable criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adults.
- Training and opportunities allow for employment on a criminal career ladder
Give an example of a criminal subculture
The mafia in the US involved 5 main mafia families, organised around a hierarchy headed by boss and fixed rules and initiation process
Describe conflict subcultures as a deviant subculture
These arose in areas of high population turnover. High social disorganisation means there’s no stable professional criminal organisation. Instead, lots of groups emerge, with little opportunities and high risks of violence as a source of status
Describe retreatist subculture
Those groups who are not able to succeed in legitimate ways or in illegitimate ways. Lack of opportunity and exclusion from society may lead to retreatism from society and deviant behaviour (e.g. drug use)
Give criticisms of subcultural strain theories
- They draw boundaries too sharply between these. e.g. South found that the drug trade is a mixture of both ‘disorganised’ crime (conflict subculture) and professional criminal subcultures
- Strain theories have been called reactive theories as they explain subcultures as forming in reaction to the failure to achieve mainstream goals. They’ve been criticised for assuming that everyone starts off sharing the same mainstream success goal
Outline recent strain theories
- Recent strain theorists have argued that young people may pursue a variety of goals other than money success. These include popularity with peers, autonomy from adults.
- They argue that failure to achieve these goals may result in delinquency and that MC juveniles too may have problems achieving such goals, offering an explanation for MC delinquency
Describe the institutional anomie theory
- Messner and Rosenfeld’s theory focuses 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 which people are encouraged to adopt an anything goes mentality in pursuit of wealth.
- In America, economic goals are valued above all, and this undermines other institutions. e.g. schools become geared to preparing pupils for the labour market at the expense of instilling values such as respect for others.
- They conclude that in societies based on free-market capitalism and lacking adequate welfare provision, (USA) high crime rates are inevitable
