Middle class area West Garden Grove Household median income $89,768 Below poverty line: 4.3% Residential: Belgrave & Blackmer Commercial: Chapman & Valley View Pacifica High School Upper class area Beverly Hills Household median income $129,539 Below poverty line: 6.9% Residential: 625 N. Canon Dr. Commercial: 278 Via Rodeo Dr. Beverly Hills High School Lower class area Willowbrook Household median income $32,455 Below poverty line: 34.1% Residential: Towne Ave. & 130 th. St. Commercial: Avalon & El Segundo Centennial High School

Underclass area Skid row – 554 San Julian St., Los Angeles

 American culture is egalitarian  Everyone has an equal chance to gain wealth  If you can’t it’s your own fault – maybe you’re “lazy”  Kornhauser – strain is evenly spread through society  Rich and poor always want more  Economic gain isn’t a cultural value – it’s intrinsic  Hard work (Protestant ethic) is a weak value, easily overcome by greed  Criminals and delinquents not strained ▪ Have low aspirations (what they want) and low expectations (what they expect to get)  American culture is “criminogenic” – it promotes crime  Strong forces promote goal of material success  Weak forces promote culturally accepted means ▪ Protestant work ethic, honesty, education, delayed gratification  Social structure limits possibilities

 “Anomie” – Emile Durkheim  Society can’t regulate appetites  Rapid social change breaks down controls  “Strain” – Merton – Social change not required to explain crime  Individual “appetites” originate in the culture  America: heavy emphasis on material wealth  Severe strain on lower classes ▪ Limits imposed by social structure – not by talents or efforts ▪ Fewer legitimate opportunities ▪ Lack of socially acceptable “means”, too much emphasis on “ends” ▪ Those who use deviant means are not consistently punished ▪ So, crime is a rational choice – a way to adapt to strain 3 mis.

 Conformity (accept goals and means)  In stable society, most persons will keep trying even if they don’t succeed  Innovation (accept goals, seek out new means)  Non-criminal adaptations – training, education  Criminal adaptations – steal, deal drugs  Ritualism (reject goals, accept means)  Achieve minimum success  Retreatism (reject goals and means)  “Turn on, tune in, drop out” – Timothy Leary and the psychedelic 60’sTurn on, tune in, drop out  Drop out – of the rat race  Rebellion (replace socially accepted values with new values)  Political rebellion, spiritualism 8 mis.

 Messner & Rosenfeld agree with Merton that cultural pressures for success  crime  BUT - expanding opportunities may cause more crime unless culture changes ▪ Newly “enabled” persons lose their excuse to stay poor  Economic goals override influence of social institutions ▪ Families, schools, politics – all are subservient to the economy  Recommendations ▪ Support families with child care and flexible work schedules ▪ Make a distinction between education and job training ▪ Protect citizens from the marketplace with social safety nets ▪ Engage young people in community service ▪ Give greater social prominence to goals other than material success  Bernard says that strain is concentrated in lower classes but is primarily structural  Delinquents have a gap between expectations and aspirations  Their excuses & justifications are misinterpreted as part of a “lower-class lifestyle”  Adaptations described by Merton are real reactions to situations that individuals cannot overcome

 Most delinquency occurs in gangs  Mostly not caused by strain  Non-utilitarian, malicious, negativistic (vandalism)  Gang member goals are intangible (not tangible, i.e. money)  Status and self-worth  Which delinquents are strained?  Youths without ascribed status (e.g., come from a poor family)  Youths who cannot gain achieved status (lose when competing with others)  Cohen’s theory similar to Merton’s “rebellion”  Form that “rebellion” takes is shaped by a group – not just by an individual

 Goals are both tangible (Merton) and intangible (Cohen)  Goal of serious delinquents is “conspicuous consumption”  Fast cars, fancy clothes, “swell dames”  Goals clash with conventional values  Serious delinquents are looked down on for... ...what they don’t want (middle-class lifestyle) ...what they do want (fast cars, fancy clothes, “swell dames”  If they lack licit and illicit opportunities to get what they want, serious delinquents may form a violent or “conflict” gang to express their anger 7 mis.

 Strain means two different things  Characteristics of a society that doesn’t provide legitimate means to achieve culturally valued ends  Individual feelings of frustration, anxiety and depression from above  Structural inequalities encourage deviance  Unequal legitimate opportunities caused by social structure  Deviant response varies according to “structuring variables”  Social/economic circumstances  Technological advances  Specific opportunities (e.g., Columbian drug cartel)  Individual psychological responses  It’s the “feelings” that directly cause crime Social structural inequality  frustration  crime 7 mis.

 Individual strain  Negative relationships & stressful life events ▪ Juveniles stressed by bad interpersonal relationships ▪ Cannot escape”stressors that originate at home or in school  Delinquency & drug use a way to cope or manage strain  May provide “relief” from stresses 10 mis.

 Juvenile Delinquency Prevention and Control Act of 1961  Improve education  Create job opportunities  Organize lower-class families  Provide services to individuals, gangs, families  War on Poverty – Economic Opportunity Act of 1964  Crime and poverty based on social structure  Original intent to change social structure  Implementation geared to change poor people