Cloward & Ohlin A03 Flashcards
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✓ Unlike Cohen, they usefully provide an explanation for different types of working-class deviance in terms of different subcultures.
✓ Subcultural & strain theories have had a major influence both on later theories of crime & on government policy. E.g. Merton’s ideas play an important part in left realist explanations of crime. In the 1960’s Cloward & Ohlin’s work helped form the basis if President Johnson’s ‘war on poverty’ polices.
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Agree with Merton & Cohen that most crime is working-class, so Marxists would argue that they ignore crimes of the wealthy (e.g. corporate crime & white collar crime).
🗶 The theories are too deterministic & over-predict the extent of working class crime. The working class is not a homogeneous group (all the same) & most do not deviate.
🗶 Marxists argue that they ignore the wider power structure (as do Merton & Cohen), including who makes & enforces the law.
🗶 They draw the boundaries too sharply between different types of subcultures so that it would not be possible to belong to more than one subculture at the same time. But what about a ‘retreatist’ user who is also a professional dealer?
🗶 Wrongly assume that everyone starts off sharing the same mainstream success goals. Miller (1962) usefully argues that the lower class does not value success in the first place, so its members are not frustrated by failure. He argues that the lower classes have their own ‘focal concerns’ – their own goals that are different to mainstream ones.
