subcultural (sociological)

• Cohen status frustration:

  • KEY IDEA = crime is a group response to unequal access to society's goal of wealth
  • STATUS FRUSTRATION = working class boys end up at the bottom of the schools status hierarchy and feel frustrated and worthless
  • SUBCULTURES = they offer a solution by providing an alternative status hierarchy in which society's values are inverted. they gain status by being deviant
• Cloward and Ohlin 3 subcultures


  Different neighbourhoods give rise to different types of deviant subcultures
• Criminal subcultures(Cloward and Ohlin)


  
  

  • Mainly in areas of longstanding professional criminal network
  • They select youths for an 'apprenticeship' in utilitarian crime and further crime career
• Retreatist subcultures(Cloward and Ohlin)


  
  

  • Made up out of dropouts who have failed legitimate and illegitimate opportunity subcultures
  • Normally due to drug use
• Conflict subcultures(Cloward and Ohlin)


  
  

  • Only criminal opportunities are within street gangs
  • Violence is a release for frustration and a source of status earned by winning opportunities
• strengths of subcultural theories

  • Cloward and Ohlin show how different types of neighbourhoods give rise to different illegitimate opportunities and subcultures
  • these theories show how subcultures preform a function for their members by offering solutions to the problem of failing to achieve goals legitimately.
• limitations of subcultural theories:

  • ignores crime of wealthy and overestimates crime in working class
  • actual subcultures are not as clear cut as Cloward and Ohlin state. some people show all 3 types
  • assume everyone starts with mainstream goals and turns to a subculture when they fail to achieve them. however some people don't show these goals and may be attracted to crime for other reasons