Subcultural strain theories Flashcards
Subcultural strain theories see deviance as the product of?
A delinquent subculture with different values from those of mainstream society
What do subcultures provide?
An alternative opportunity structure for those who are denied the chance to achieve by legitimate means- mainly those in the w/c
A.K. Cohen: Status fustration
What is deviance a result of acc to Cohen?
The inability of those in the lower class to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as educational success
A.K. Cohen: Status fustration
Cohen criticises Merton’s explanation of deviance on what 2 grounds?
- Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the fact that much deviance is committed in or by groups
- Merton focuses on utlitarian crime committed for material gain, such as theft and ignores crimes like assault and vandalism
A.K. Cohen: Status fustration
What does he argue about w/c boys?
- they face anomie in the m/c dominated school system
- suffer from cultural deprivation
- inability to succeed leaves them at the bottom of the official status hierachy
- as a result of being unable to achieve status by legitimate means (education) the boys suffer from status fustration
A.K. Cohen: Status fustration
Alternative status hierarchy?
- the delinquent subculture inverts the values of mainstream society, what society condemns, the subculture praises and vise versa
- for Cohen, the subculture’s function is that it offers the boys an alternative status hierachy in which they can achieve
A.K. Cohen: Status fustration
Evaluation of Cohen’s theory
- it offers an explanation of non-utilitarian deviance, unlike Merton
- however, like Merton, Cohen assumes that wc boys start off sharing m/c success goals, only to reject these when they fail
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
They agree that wc youths are denied legitimate opportunites to?
- Achieve money success, and that their deviance stems from the way they respond to this situation
- They take Merton’s ideas as their starting point
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
What do they note about how people respond in this situation?
- Not everyone adapts to it by turning to ‘innovation’
- Different subcultures respond in different ways to the lack of legitimate opportunites
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
Acc to Cloward and Ohlin, whats the key reason why different subculture responses occur?
- Unequal access to the legitimate opportunity structure
- As well as unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
C&O argue that different neighbourhoods provide what?
Different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
1 - Criminal subcultures?
- Provides youths with an apprentiship for a career in utilitarian crime
- Arise in neighbourhoods with longstanding and stable criminal culture with an established hierarchy of professional adult crime
- Adults provide training and role models for youths
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
2 - Conflict subcultures?
- Arise in areas of high population turnover, results in high levels of disorganisation and prevents a stable professional criminal network developing
- The only illegitimate opportunites available are within loosely orgainsed gangs
- In these, violence provides a release for young men’s fustration at their blocked opportunites
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
3 - Retreatist subcultures?
- ‘Double faliures’ - those who fail in both the legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structure
- Turn to drugs
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin?
- Ignore the crimes of the wealthy, their theory also over predicts the amount of w/c crime
- Agree with Cohen that delinquent subcultures are the source of much deviance, unlike Cohen they provide an explanation for different types of w/c deviance in terms of different subcultures.
- However they draw the boundaries too sharply between these e.g drug trade is a mixture of both ‘disorganised crime’, like the conflict subcultures, and professional ‘mafia’ style subcultures
Clowarand Ohlin: three subcultures
Strain theories have been called reactive theories because they explain what?
Evaluation of Cloward and Ohlin?
- Subcultures as forming in reaction to the faliure to achieve mainstream goals, criticsed for assuming that everyone starts of sharing the same mainstream goals
- Miller (1962) - lower class has its own independent subculture seperate from the mainstream culture, with its own values. Deviance arises out of an atempt to achieve their own goals
Recent strain theories
Recent strain theorists argue that young people may persue what?
- A variety of goals other than money success, e.g popularity with peers, autonomy from adults
- They argue that faliure to achieve these goals may result in delinquency
Recent strain theories
Institutional anomie theory?
- Messner and Rosenfeld (2001)
- Focuses on the American dream
- They argue that its obsession with monwy success and its ‘winner-takes-all’ mentality, exert pressure towards crime by encouraging an anomic cultural environment in which people are encouraged to persue an ‘anything goes’ mentality
- In the US, economic goals are most valued, this undermines other institutions. e.g. schools become geared to preparing pupils for the labour market at the expense of teaching values such as respect for others
