1. Subculture theories - Cohen, cloward and ohlin, matza and miller
sociology of crime
Subculture theories - Cohen, cloward and ohlin, matza and miller

2. Recap Merton’s strain theory
Learning objectives:
Recap Merton’s strain theory
To introduce subculture theories of crime by Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin, Matza and Miller.

3. Merton – strain theory - evaluation
Merton shows how both normal and deviant behaviour can arise from the same mainstream goals. Both those who conform and those who don’t are pursuing money success – one legitimately, the other illegitimately. He explains crime patterns:
Most crime is property crime, because American society values material wealth so highly.
Lower class crime rates are higher, because they have least opportunity to obtain wealth legitimately.

4. Criticisms of merton
Merton’s theory has also been criticised as it takes official crime statistics at face value. Do these over-represent working class crime? So Merton sees crime as mainly a working class phenomenon.
It is also too deterministic: the working class experience the most strain, yet they do not all deviate.

5. Subcultural strain theories – A K Cohen
Status Frustration
Cohen agrees with Merton that deviance is largely a lower class phenomenon. It results from the inability of those in the lower classes to achieve mainstream success goals by legitimate means such as educational achievement.
However, Cohen criticises Merton’s explanation of deviance on two grounds:
Merton sees deviance as an individual response to strain, ignoring the fact that much deviance is committed in or by groups, especially among the young.
Merton focuses on utilitarian crime committed for material
gain, such as theft or fraud. He largely ignores crimes such as
assault and violence, which may have no economic motive.

6. Cohen – status frustration
Cohen (55) developed a theory of working class crime and deviance among working class males. He examined delinquent gangs in low-income, inner city areas. He argues that they face anomie in the middle-class-dominated school system. They suffer from cultural deprivation and lack the skills to achieve. Their inability to succeed in this middle class world leaves them at the bottom of the official status hierarchy.
Status frustration: defined as failures by the wider society, many working class adolescents experience status frustration. They are frustrated with their low status as ‘losers’ and are given little or no respect. In Cohen’s view, the resolve their frustration by rejecting mainstream middle-class values and they turn instead to other boys in the same situation, forming or joining a delinquent subculture.

7. A subcultural solution: faced by a common ‘problem of adjustment’ – a problem they share – some working class adolescents develop a deviant solution. They create their own subculture – their own norms and values which differ from those of mainstream society. In Cohen’s words, the ‘the delinquent subculture takes it norms from the larger culture but turns them upside down’.

8. Cohen – alternative status hierarchy
According to Cohen, the subculture’s function is that it offers the boys an alternative status hierarchy in which they can achieve.
In what ways can the boys gain status from their peers in these delinquent subcultures?
How is Cohen’s theory different from Merton’s theory?
How is Cohen’s theory similar to Merton’s theory?

9. Anti-social and criminal behaviour, which are condemned by the wider society, are valued by the delinquent subculture. And, most importantly, they provide a means by which ‘failed’ working class young people can solve the problem of status frustration. By succeeding in terms of the values of the delinquent subculture, they gain respect and admiration from their peers – those in a similar situation.
This is where collective deviant activities come in. Gang members require an audience to gain respect. The ‘successful’ delinquent gains in the eyes of his peers.

10. What is non-utilitarian crime?
questions
If mainstream society upholds regular school attendance and respect for property, what does the subculture value?
What is non-utilitarian crime?

11. Cohen and delinquency
If status frustration is the main problem, then criminal activities to achieve monetary success – Merton’s ‘solution’ – may not be necessary. Vandalism, joy riding, fighting, anti-social behaviour such as giving cheek to teachers and disrupting the classroom, can bring respect.
According to Cohen, acting in terms of the deviant subculture young men not only gain status in each other’s eyes, they also hit back at a society which has denied them the opportunity to succeed and branded them as failures.

12. Analysis of Cohen
One strength of Cohen’s theory is that it offers an explanation of non- utilitarian deviance among the working class. Unlike Merton, whose concept of innovation only accounts for crime with a profit and motive.
However, like Merton, Cohen assumes that working class boys start off sharing middle class success goals only to reject these when they fail. He ignores the possibility that they did not share these goals in the first place and so never saw themselves as failures.
What do these two theories appear to suggest about who commits crime in terms of social class, gender and age?
Car theft – the offender’s perspective:

13. cloward and ohlin: three subcultures
The idea of strain between goals and means had a very significant impact on the writings of Cloward and Ohlin (1960) – American sociologists who provided an explanation for different types of working class delinquency (social class overlap).

14. Like Cohen they take Merton’s ideas as their starting point
Like Cohen they take Merton’s ideas as their starting point. They agree that working class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve ‘money success’, and that their deviance stems from the way they respond to this situation.
However, their response to this situation varies depending on the social environment in which they grow up. Different social environments provide different opportunities for crime and deviance (which they call the ‘illegitimate opportunity structure’) which, in turn, encourages the development of different delinquent subcultures.
They argue that both Merton and Cohen fail to explain why delinquent subcultures take different forms. Why, for example, are some gangs mainly concerned with theft while others focus on violence?

15. Cloward and ohlin continued…
Cloward and Ohlin attempt to explain why these different subcultural responses occur. In their view, the key reason is not only unequal access to the legitimate structure, as Merton and Cohen and recognise - but unequal access to illegitimate opportunity structures. E.g. not everyone who fails by legitimate means, such as schooling, then has an equal chance of becoming a successful safecracker. Just like the apprentice plumber, the would be safecracker needs the opportunity to learn their trade and the chance to practise it.
Cloward and Ohlin argue that different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills and develop criminal careers.

16. Evaluation of cloward and ohlin
Cloward and Ohlin develop both Merton’s strain theory and Cohen’s subcultural theory. They show that working-class delinquency is not simply concerned with material gain. And they identify, and provide explanations for, a number of delinquent subcultures.

18. The criminal subculture
Cloward and Ohlin identify three types of delinquent subcultures: the criminal subculture, the conflict subculture and the retreatist subculture.
The criminal subculture: this type of subculture tends to develop in areas where there is a well-established pattern of adult crime. This provides an illegitimate opportunity structure. Young men are presented with role models from whom they can learn the tricks of the trade. They are given the opportunity to climb the professional criminal hierarchy and to become ‘successful’ by participating in crime which brings monetary gain. These subcultures provide youths with an apprenticeship for a career in utilitarian crime.

19. The conflict subculture
The conflict subculture: this type of subculture tends to develop in areas where an illegitimate opportunity structure is absent. These areas usually have a high turnover of population and a low level of social cohesion – this prevents established patterns of adult crime from developing. With little opportunity to succeed by either legitimate or illegitimate means, young men become frustrated and angry. They often respond to this situation with gang violence which gives them the opportunity to gain status and respect from their fellow gang members. In these subcultures, young men can gain an alternative source of status through winning turf territory from rival gangs.

20. The retreatist subculture
The retreatist subculture: this type of subculture tends to emerge among those who failed to succeed either by legitimate means or as members of either criminal or conflict subcultures. These ‘double failures’ sometimes form retreatist subcultures based on illegal drug use.
What are the similarities between Cloward and Ohlin’s retreatist subculture and Merton’s idea of a retreatist adaptation?
What are the similarities between Cloward and Ohlin’s conflict subculture and Cohen’s idea of status frustration?

21. Criticisms of cloward and ohlin
It is difficult to accept that such a neat distinction into three categories occurs in real life.
Deterministic and overpredicts the extent of working class crime. Like Merton and Cohen, they too ignore the wider power structure, including who makes and enforces the law (see Marxist theory later!)
There is no discussion whatsoever about female deviancy.
 Cloward and Ohlin tend to box off the subcultures they identify and ignore the overlaps between them. e.g. gangs involved in the conflict subculture often deal in drugs and make large sums of money in the process. The sample applies to members of the retreatist subculture – some addicts also ‘successfully’ deal in drugs.

22. Nigel South
Nigel South 97: found that the drug trade is a mixture of both disorganised crime, like the conflict subculture, and professional ‘mafia’ style criminal subcultures.

23. Walter miller’s focal concerns
Miller argues that the lower class has its own independent subculture separate from mainstream culture, with its own values. This subculture does not value success in the first place, so its members are not frustrated by failure.
Miller suggested that there is a distinctive lower class subculture which is passed on from generation to generation. It arose partly from the experience of low skilled labour which involved boring, repetitive, dead end jobs, interspersed with periods of unemployment. Lower class subculture provides ways of living with this situation and of finding satisfaction outside of work.

24. Millers focal concerns: Miller agrees that deviance is widespread in the lower class, he argues that this arises out of an attempt to achieve their own goals, not mainstream ones. He calls these goals ‘focal concerns’ these can be seen as interests and involvements that are likely to lead to delinquency.
Autonomy: it is important not to be pushed around.
Excitement: it is important to search out thrills.
Toughness: being physically stronger than others, and the ability to demonstrate this.
Fate: individuals have little chance to overcome the wider fate that awaits them.

25. Evaluation of miller
BUT:
There is little evidence to show that these are specifically lower class values – they could apply to males right across the class structure!

26. Alternative theories: david matza ‘delinquency and drift’ 1964
Theories examined so far tend to see criminal and deviant behaviour resulting from forces beyond the individual’s control. E.g. in terms of Merton’s strain theory, those at the bottom of the class structure are under considerable pressure to turn to crime. Cohen’s subcultural theory suggests that the deviant behaviour of many young working class males is directed by a delinquent subculture. To an extent, these theories people as prisoners of the social structure, acting out predetermined roles with little or no say in the matter. Matza claims that most delinquents are not strongly committed to their subculture, but merely drift in and out of delinquency.

27. How different are delinquents?
Matza argued that there are no distinct sub cultural values, rather that all groups in society used a shared set of subterranean values. These ‘underground values’ are only expressed in particular situations. They include an emphasis on excitement and toughness. In mainstream society, they are expressed in competitive sports e.g. football field. If, as Matza claims, they often direct delinquent behaviour, then in this respect, delinquents are little different from other people.

28. Drifting into delinquency…
Subcultural theory suggests that many young males are committed to a distinctive subculture and a deviant lifestyle. Matza disagrees; he argues that many young people drift in and out of delinquency. Their delinquent acts are casual and intermittent rather than a way of life. This fits with evidence indicating that most young people have little difficulty giving up delinquent activities as they grow older.
The delinquent is pictured as little different from young people in general.