Subcultural Strain Theories of Crime and Deviance

• They perceives subcultures as providing an alternative opportunity structure for those who are denied to achieve goals by legitimate means
• Cohen agrees with Merton that deviance is largely a lower-class phenomenon
• Cohen criticises Merton for two reasons;

  • Deviance is typically committed in groups
  • Focusses on utilitarian 'money' crime and ignores crime like vandalism
• Cohen believes deviance among working-class boys goes through steps;

  • Cultural Deprivation
  • Lack Social Status
  • Status Frustration
  • Join a subculture which Inverts Mainstream Values
• However, Cohen assumes that working class boys start off by sharing the same goals as the middle class and only reject them once they are unable to achieve them
• Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton and Cohen that working-class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve 'money success'
• Cloward and Ohlin says that different subcultures respond differently to the lack of legitimate opportunities
• Cloward and Ohlin explain this difference in subculture response is because not everyone has equal access to illegitimate opportunity structures
• Cloward and Ohlin say there is 3 subculture responses;

  • Criminal Subculture
  • Conflict Subculture
  • Retreatist Subculture
• Conflict subculture means crime is committed for status and respect, mainly among gang for young people
• Criminal Subculture is focusses on organised crime for money and includes 'career criminals'
• Retreatists Subculture drop out altogether and use substances to cope with the lack of opportunities
• Miller says that working class people create different value systems as a response to the monotony of working class jobs to cope with their situation
• Miller says this crime continues as young working class people grow up in these subcultures which socialises them into being deviant
• Miller says the focal concerns of working class people are;

  • fate
  • excitement
  • autonomy
  • smartness
  • toughness
  • trouble
• Miller has been criticised for focusing too much on lower class focal concerns and why not all turn to deliquency
• Matza says people drift in and out of deliquency
• Matza says all people hold 2 levels of values;

  • Respectable and conventional values
  • Underground or subterranean values
• Respectable and conventional values (Matza) are good parenting and dedicated education
• Underground or subterranean values (Matza) are greed and aggression
• 'Mood of Fatalism' (Matza) is the result of lack of control someone has over opportunities and lifestyle
• 'Mood of Fatalism' (Matza) is a way to restore a sense of control and identity
• 'Technique of neutraliation' (Matza) is the way people justify their actions when moving back to subterranean values
• The Technique of Neutralisation;

  • Denial of responsibility
  • Denial of Injury
  • Denial of Victim
  • Condemnation of the Condemners
  • Appeal to higher loyalties
• Matzas theory suggest delinquents hold at least some mainstream values instead of having a distinctive subculture of delinquency