Cloward and Ohlin

• Cloward and Ohlin

  • Agrees with Merton that w/c boys are more likely to commit crimes because they lack legitimate opportunities
  • Don't believe everyone reacts by turning to utilitarian crime, some result to violence
  • Reason for difference = unequal access to legitimate opportunities but also to unequal opportunity structure
• Criminal subcultures

  • Adult criminals can train youths with correct abilities and provide them with opportunities on the criminal ladder
  • Apprenticeship in utilitarian crime = neighborhood with longstanding, stable subculture and hierarchy of professional adult crime
• Conflict subculture

  • Arise in areas with high population turnover (many people moving in and out) > prevents stable adult professional criminal network from developing > only illegitimate opportunities are within loosely organised gangs
  • Violence provides a release of frustration at blocked opportunities > status gained from winning turf from a rival gang
• Retreatist subcultures

  "Double failures" = fail at both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures often turn to drugs and join a dropout subculture
• Strengths of Cloward and Ohlin

  Try to explain different types of w/c deviance in terms of subcultures unlike Merton
• Weaknesses of Cloward and Ohlin

  • Ignore crimes of wealthy, over-predicting w/c crime
  • Draws distinctions too sharply between different subcultures often show the characteristics of more than one type
  • E.g. Smith's study on drug gangs = conflict subcultures combined with criminal subculture