Crime in American Society: Anomie and Strain Theories Criminological Theory

Strain Theorists Through the Years Robert Merton’s anomie Albert Cohen’s delinquent boys Cloward and Ohlin’s differential opportunity Agnew’s revised strain theory Unnever and Gabbidon’s A Theory of African American Offending Messner and Rosenfeld’s institutional anomie: Crime and the American Dream Elliot Currie: Market economy and crime

Rebuttal of Hooton’s Biological Theory of Crime Merton and Ashley-Montagu debunked Hooton’s arguments Merton believed that conditions fundamental to American society in general were the core of the nation’s crime and deviance, not biological or organic inferiority Unlike the Chicago School, do not see the city as disorganized and criminogenic; rather, the “American Dream” had dire consequences for this society

Merton’s Strain Theory: Social Structure and Anomie America as a Criminogenic Society Conformity to conventional cultural values produced high rates of crime and deviance Structurally Induced Strain The U.S. places and extraordinary and universal emphasis on economic success for all (the “American Dream”) Cardinal American virtue is ambition Social structure limits access to goal of success

Merton’s Strain Theory: Social Structure and Anomie Structurally Induced Strain The disjunction between what the culture extols (the American Dream) and the means provided by the social structure (limited legitimate opportunities) produces strain and pressure for deviance

Typology of Adaptations Mode of Adaptation Cultural GoalsInstitutionalized Means Conformity++ Innovation+- Ritualism-+ Retreatism-- Rebellion++

Typology of Adaptations Most people do not deviate; the modal response is for people to conform For many, the disjunction between means and goals is the source of problems and a requisite for alleviating strain is changing their cultural goals and/or withdrawing their allegiance to institutionalized means

Typology of Adaptations Four Deviant Adaptations: 1. Innovation: Embrace success, but turn to illegitimate means 2. Ritualism: Maintain outward conformity to the norms of governing institutionalized means, but not the goals 3. Retreatism: Relinquish allegiance to both the cultural success goal and the institutionalized means (are in society but not of it) 4. Rebellion: Not only reject but wish to change the existing system

Anomie Merton borrowed the notion of anomie – normlessness or deregulation – from Emile Durkheim For Merton, institutionalized norms will weaken – anomie will take hold – in societies placing an intense value on economic success When this occurs, the pursuit of success no longer is guided by normative standards of right and wrong The question becomes which of the available procedures is most efficient in netting the culturally approved value

Anomie Innovative conduct becomes especially prevalent as anomie intensifies Anomie and deviance are mutually reinforcing Weakening of institutionalized norms allows a limited number of people to violate standards, which challenges the norms’ legitimacy

Rejecting Individualism Merton contended that the very nature of American society generates considerable crime and deviance Located the roots of crime and deviance within the very fabric of American society Stressed the criminogenic role of conformity to the universal and conventional cultural goal of pecuniary success

Strain Theory in Context Merton’s life seems to mirror the two core features of his paradigm: 1) the significance of the cultural message for all to pursue the American Dream and 2) the differential opportunities people had to reach this universal goal For Merton, the dominant reality was cultural homogeneity and universalism Americans shared a dream and identity

Strain Theory in Context Merton did not believe inner-city neighborhoods were fully disorganized and inherently criminogenic Residents want to live the cultural dream but were denied the opportunity to leave the slum which produced a pressure to deviate

Social Structure and Anomie Merton’s work received widespread attention in the 1960s Prior to 1960, poverty was not viewed as a major social problem By the early part of the 1960s, poverty was seen not as the fault of the individual but as the fault of the system Minority and other disadvantaged citizens were being denied equal opportunity

Status Discontent and Delinquency Albert Cohen and Richard Cloward’s and Lloyd Ohlin’s work represented important extensions of Merton’s deviance approach Investigated how this theory could be applied to the study of juvenile gangs in urban areas Focused on the origins and effects of delinquent subcultural norms Drew from both Merton and the Chicago School

Delinquent Boys Cohen pondered how notions of cultural transmission and structurally induced strain might be reconciled Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955): Delinquent gangs and the subcultural values they embrace are concentrated in urban slums The content of these subcultures not only is supportive of crime, but also is nonutilitarian, malicious, and negativistic

Delinquent Boys Engage in delinquency that is contemptuous of authority and irrational to conventional citizens Delinquent subcultures arise in response to the special problems that people face Lower-class youth are disadvantaged in their efforts to achieve middle-class standards of success and status Denied status in respectable society because they cannot meet the criteria of the respectable status system Lower-class youth reject the middle-class goals and norms and substitute oppositional values

Delinquent Boys The strains of class-based status discontent are conducive to the emergence of subcultural values supportive of delinquency A structural basis exists for the persistence of these delinquent norms and the gang organization they nourish Once in existence, the subculture assumes a reality of its own and this criminal culture can be transmitted to youths in the neighborhood.

Delinquency and Opportunity Cloward and Ohlin: Opportunity Theory The social structure generates pressures for deviance, pressures experienced most intensely in the lower class Slum youths face the problem of lacking legitimate means – the opportunity – to be successful and earn status, which creates the strain of status discontentment This disparity between what lower-class youths are led to want and what is actually available to them is the source of a major problem of adjustment and causes intense frustrations and the exploration of nonconformist alternatives

Delinquency and Opportunity People are not free to be any type of criminal they choose to be Criminal roles are learned through cultural transmission One must have access to illegitimate means The selection of adaptations is regulated by the availability throughout the social structure of illegitimate means Illegitimate means could illuminate why delinquent subcultures existed in slum areas and why they took a particular form

Delinquency and Opportunity Delinquent subcultures could emerge and persist only in areas where enough youths were concentrated to band together and to support one another’s alienation from conventional values The type of collective response that the youths could make would be shaped by the neighborhood in which they resided

Delinquency and Opportunity Three types of subcultures: 1. Criminal subculture in organized neighborhoods 2. Conflict or fighting oriented subculture in disorganized neighborhoods 3. The retreatist or drug using subculture when double failures (unable to achieve status legitimately or illegitimately) Cloward and Ohlin believed that opportunity theory - consolidation of cultural transmission and strain traditions - offered a general framework for studying crime and deviance

The Criminological Legacy of Strain Theory Assessing strain theory: Criticisms of Merton: In a society as diverse as the U.S., do all citizens really ascribe to the goal of pecuniary success? Is strain really more pervasive in the lower classes?  White-collar crime? Why did this condition originate and persist?

The Criminological Legacy of Strain Theory Assessing strain theory: Criticisms of Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin: Do these theorists describe the content of subcultures accurately?  Do all subcultures embrace nonutilitarian, malicious, and negativistic values?  Are there three distinct types of subcultures? Empirical critique of strain theory: Some have found high aspirations are associated with conformity and low aspirations are associated with delinquency  However, research does find support for strain theory

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Argued that Merton’s strain theory was too narrow There may be other kinds of negative relations or situations that create strain and prompt people to break the law, besides the inability to attain future economic success Developed a revised strain theory which was a prelude to his general strain theory

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Proposed there were three sources of strain: 1. Failure to achieve positively valued goals 2. Actual or anticipated removal of positively valued stimuli 3. Actual or anticipated presentation of negative stimuli

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Adapting to strain: The higher the dose of strain that a person experiences, the greater the likelihood of the person being engaged in crime or deviance Presented the variables that “condition” the response to strain Factors that diminish the risk of a criminal adaptation: Availability of other goals, coping resources, social support, strong social bonds Factors that increase the risk of criminal adaptation: Low self-control, prior criminal learning, antisocial beliefs,

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Unlike other theories, the conditioning variables only increase criminal behavior when occurring in conjunction with strain Also included the role of emotions, particularly anger Negative emotions create pressure for corrective action; individuals feel bad and want to do something about it and thus are more likely to engage in criminal behavior

Agnew’s General Strain Theory Empirical support: The results are not consistent for every type of strain, but there is consistent empirical evidence that exposure to strain increases the likelihood of criminal offending Studies provide less support for the idea that adaptations to strain are conditioned by a range of other factors These variables may have direct effects There is some evidence that the combination of strain and anger increases the risk of criminal conduct

Elaborating General Strain Theory Must address which strains are criminogenic Four factors that increase the likelihood that strain will prompt a criminal adaptation: 1. The strain is seen as unjust 2. Strain is high in magnitude 3. The strain is caused by or associated with low self control 4. The strain creates some pressure or incentive to engage in criminal coping

Elaborating General Strain Theory Determining which type of coping is most likely to cause crime Strain often does not lead to crime because people have a range of conventional coping strategies to deal with this experience Only certain individuals experiencing strain engage in criminal coping

Elaborating General Strain Theory Agnew diagrammed a model of the coping process in general strain theory (4 stages) 1. Individuals experience or anticipate experiencing objective strain 2. Individuals subjectively evaluate of cognitively appraise the objective strain 3. Individuals experience a negative emotional reaction to strain 4. Individuals cope with their strain with negative emotions providing the major impetus for coping

Elaborating General Strain Theory Conditional variables affect the coping process They affect how the strain is subjectively interpreted They affect how individuals deal with their emotional reaction

A Theory of African American Offending African Americans are disproportionately involved in serious street crime and in victimization numbers Some disparity is due to police practices and racial inequality in America that leads to poverty and criminogenic circumstances However, the central question is are the causes of crime the same or different for Blacks and Whites

A Theory of African American Offending Most criminological perspectives are genral theories People go into crime for the same reasons Racial invariance – fundamental causes of violence do not vary by race Believe variations are seen because groups differ in exposure to factors that are believed to cause crime (e.g., differential association, strain)

A Theory of African American Offending However, strain theorists have appreciated that African Americans confront race-specific situations Real or perceived discrimination that can create a sense of injustice and potentially be criminogenic

A Theory of African American Offending Unnever and Gabbidon’s book, A Theory of African American Offending, offered a fully race-specific theory of crime African Americans believe they will encounter racial prejudice and racial discrimination during their lives Convinced the U.S. has been and continues to be systematically racist Often experience this personally and vicariously in the criminal justice system and larger society

A Theory of African American Offending These discriminatory experiences can be so intense and generate such negative emotions that they can trigger criminal involvement directly Also can weaken social bonds to conventional institutions Still, despite this widespread discrimination, only a small percentage of African Americans offend

A Theory of African American Offending Argue that African Americans cope with objective and/or perceived discrimination with racial socialization Occurs when effective parents provide coping skills When it does not occur, there is a higher likelihood of mistrust, attenuated bonds, strain, and criminal involvement

Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory Messner and Rosenfeld argued for the need to discern what is distinctive about the very culture and structure of American society Noted that the United States has a higher rate of serious crime than any other industrial nation Claimed Merton’s anomie theory had focused on only one social institution, the economy, and did not examine how social institutions are interrelated Culture can cause one institutional sphere, especially the economy, to be overemphasized and to cause problems in other social institutions

Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory The American Dream and Anomie The American Dream is a commitment to the goal of material success, to be pursued by everyone in society under conditions of open, individual competition The American Dream fosters anomie or the breakdown of normative control There is the tendency for people to use the technically most efficient means, which is often crime, to achieve desired goals

Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory Institutional Balance of Power What is unique about the U.S. is that the economic institution dominates other social non- economic institutions (family, education, politics) In the U.S., non-economic institutions are not successful in socializing and controlling the citizenry

Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory The United States’ high rate of serious crime is caused by the nation’s distinctive, mutually reinforcing culture and institutional structure The American Dream serves as a powerful cultural force that generates anomie by motivating the pursuit of money though any means necessary

Crime and the American Dream: Institutional-Anomie Theory Empirical status: Evidence that crime rates are lower in societies in which the validity of non-economic institutions are more pronounced Strength of noneconomic systems is associated with lower rates of crime Major criticism: Does the United States have an “American Dream”? Mixed results

Currie: The Market Economy and Crime Argued that the United States is characterized by an extreme form of capitalism, a “market economy,” in which the pursuit of personal economic gain becomes increasingly the dominant organizing principle of social life and disrupts other social institutions

Currie: The Market Economy and Crime Dominance of the market economy fosters high rates of crime in 7 ways: 1. The progressive destruction of livelihood 2. The growth of extremes of economic inequality and material deprivation 3. The withdrawal of public services and supports, especially for families and children 4. The erosion of informal and communal networks of mutual support, supervision, and care 5. The spread of materialistic, neglectful, and “hard” culture 6. The unregulated marketing of the technology of violence (i.e., guns) 7. The weakening of social and political alternatives

Currie: The Market Economy and Crime Concern for productivity and profits outstrips the concern for the needs of many people who struggle under this system America’s market economy is criminogenic because large segments of its population are pushed into extreme deprivation while simultaneously both public provision of support and informal support networks that might cushion these disadvantages are withdrawn

The Future of Strain Theory In response to the excessive individualism and emphasis on greed during the 1980s and 1990s, there has been a continuing cultural self- examination in the United States We also may be in a period where it is more difficult to ignore the complicity of the U.S. society in a range of social ills, including crime Because of prevailing inequalities, strain theory will receive its fair share of adherents in the criminological community

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Expand opportunities: Increase legitimate opportunities Strain theory justifies programs that attempt to provide the disadvantaged with educational resources, job training, and equal access to occupations Prison rehabilitation programs Delinquency prevention programs (Mobilization for Youth)

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Mobilization for Youth (MYF) Draws from Merton’s strain theory, setting up programs that extended youths’ educational and employment support as well as community organization Promoted boycotts against schools, protests against welfare policies, rent strikes against slum landlords, lawsuits to ensure poor people’s rights, and voter registration

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Mobilization for Youth (MYF) Due to its call for lawsuits, protests, etc., it was subjected to investigation by the FBI Exonerated but the publicity led many to resign Must be credited for its attempt to attack the root causes of crime that most criminal reforms leave untouched Served as a model for similar community action programs across the nation

The Consequences of Theory: Policy Implications Taming the American Dream May be better said than done There is no simple program that can be implemented to make Americans less interested in economic success Requires true social change Non-economic institutions must be valued ends in themselves – cultural regeneration

Conclusion Strain and anomie theories rejected as simplistic, if not as incorrect, previous theories that had sought to locate the causes of crime within individuals Warned that the social organization of society constrains what people learn to become and what they might be pressured into doing