Subcultures

Question 1

3 possible responses to the illegitimate opportunity structure

Answer 1

Criminal subcultures - organised crime, career criminals socialise youths into a criminal career

• conflict subcultures - gangs organised by young people - based on claiming territory from other gangs or gaining status
• retreatist subcultures: double failures in legitimate and illegitimate opportunity

Question 2

Evaluation of illegitimate opportunity structure

Answer 2

Lines between subcultures are too distinct

• focuses on only working class males
• ignores wider power structure

Question 3

Miller

Answer 3

Focal concerns

• wc socialised into a distinct set of values, oppose mainstream values
• these values mean they are more likely to engage in deviance

Question 4

Focal concerns

Answer 4

Miller

Question 5

Examples of working class focal concerns

Answer 5

Immediate gratification
Fatalistic 
Aggression 
Masculinity 
Anti school subcultures

Question 6

Matza: delinquency and drift

Answer 6

Suggests deviants are no different to ‘normal’ people who respect value consensus - they simply drift in and out of delinquency
- we all share ‘subterranean’ delinquent values but manage to control them most of the time - occasionally suspend conforming to mainstream values

Question 7

Delinquency and drift

Answer 7

Matza

Question 8

Matza: techniques of neutralisation

Answer 8

Denial of responsibility ‘it wasn’t me’
Denial of injury ‘it didn’t hurt’
Denial of victim ‘he deserved it’
Condemnation of the condemners ‘you’re just as bad’
Appeal to higher loyalties ‘I did it for God’

Question 9

Who decides what is deviant in society?

Answer 9

Moral entrepreneurs (picture on a cigarette packet, people won’t want to smoke it - benefits the nhs)

Question 10

Becker

Answer 10

A deviant is someone whom the label has been successfully applied and deviant behaviour is simply behaviour that people label
- crime and deviance are a social construct

Question 11

Crime and deviance are a social construct

Answer 11

Becker

Question 12

What does Becker argue?

Answer 12

Deviance is relative
A deviant being labelled depends on: who committed the deviance, who saw it, where and when it was committed, negotiations between ‘social actors’ involved
- powerless groups are more likely to be labelled than powerful groups

Question 13

What does being labelled depend on?

Answer 13

Interactions with agencies of social control
Appearance and background
Situation and circumstances of the event

Question 14

Pilivanin and brair

Answer 14

Decision to arrest young people made on physical cues

- young black males most likely to be stopped and searched

Question 15

Black males most likely to get stopped and searched

Answer 15

Pilivanin and Blair

Question 16

Cicourel

Answer 16

Decisions to arrest informed by officers ‘typifications’
Police and probation officers see the ‘typical delinquent’ as being from:
A single parent family
A low income family
An ethnic minority groups
Leads to police focusing on a certain type of criminal

Question 17

Typifications

Answer 17

Cicourel

Question 18

Reiner

Answer 18

Canteen culture - the way in which people working in a particular workplace develop a shared set of values and prejudices
- conservative canteen culture may explain police discrimination and lack of fairness displayed in police discretion

Question 19

Official statistics (what does it say about them?)

Answer 19

They don’t give a valid picture of crime - should not be taken at face values
- we should investigate the processes that have created them