cohen - status frustration

• Cohen agrees with Merton that deviance is a working class phenomenon and results from the inability to achieve success through legitimate means.

  • They then experience status frustration which leads to them committing crime
• Cohen criticizes Merton for two reasons:

  1. Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain which ignores deviance committed in groups, for example, young groups
  2. Merton ignores non-utilitarian crime and focuses on crime with an economic motive
• Cohen argues working class youths resolve their frustrations by rejecting mainstream values and joining a delinquent subculture in a similar situation
• They say the delinquent subcultures values are hostility towards the middle class and value problematic things in society.

  • Cohen argues that they are getting back at society who deny them status and offers an alternative status