The seconded of these schools was the "Strain Theory". In the 1930's, Robert Merton (1938), tried to locate deviance within a functionalist framework. For Merton, crime and deviance were evidence of a poor fit (strain) between the socially accepted goals of society and the socially approved means of obtaining those goals. The resulting strain led to deviance.
Merton argued that all societies set their members certain goals, and at the same time they also provide socially approved ways of achieving these goals. Merton was aware that not everyone shared the same goals, and he pointed out that in a stratified society the goals were linked to a person's position in the social structure. Those lower down had restricted goals. The system worked well as long as there was a reasonable chance that a majority of people were able to achieve their goals. However, if the majority of the population wee unable to achieve the socially set goals then they became disenchanted with society and sought out alternative (often deviant) ways of behaving. Merton used Durkheim's term anomie, to describe this situation.
The following different forms of behaviour then could be understood as a "strain" between goals and means. Conformity is when the individual continues to adhere to both goals and means, despite the limited likelihood of success. Innovation is when the person accepts the goals of society but behaviour is included in this response. Ritualism is when the means are used, but sight of the goal is lost. For example, the bureaucrat or the police officer blindly enforcing the letter of the law without looking at the nature of justice are examples. Retreatism is when the individual rejects both goals and means. The person dependent upon drugs or alcohol is included in this form of behaviour. Rebellion is when both the socially sanctioned goals and means are rejected and different ones substituted. This is the political activist or the religious fundamentalist. Merton's theories have been criticised by a sociologist called Valier (2001) amongst others for his stress on the existence of a common goal in society. Valier argues that there are, in fact, a variety of goals that people strive to attain at any one time.
Writing in the mid 1950's, Albert Cohen (1955) drew upon both Merton's ideas of strain and also ethnographic ideas of the Chicago school of sociology. Cohen was particularly interested in fact that much offending for the thrill of the act. According to Cohen, "lower class" boys strive to emulate middle-class values and, aspirations, but lacked the means to attain success. This led to status frustration that is, in a sense of personal failure and inadequacy. The result was that they rejected those very values and patterns of "acceptable" behaviour that they could not be successful within. He suggests that school is the key area for playing out this drama. Lower-class children are much more likely to fail and consequently feel humiliated. In an attempt to gain status they "invert" traditional middle-class values, behaving badly and engaging in a variety of anti-social behaviours. This theory has its criticisms such as there is no discussion of female. His research is solely about males. The young delinquents need to be brilliant sociologists to work out what are middle-class values and then invert them. Cohen fails to prove that school really is the key place where success and failure are demonstrated.
The ideas of strain between goals and means was a relatively minor influence on Cohen, but it did have a very significant impact on the writings of Cloward and Ohlin (1960), who owed much to the ideas of Merton. They argued that Merton had failed to appreciate that there was a parallel opportunity structure to the legal one called the illegitimate opportunity structure. By this they meant that for some subcultures in society a regular illegal career was available, with recognised illegal means of obtaining societies goals. A good contemporary example of this is given in Dicks Hobbs' book Bad Business (1998). Hobbs interviews successful professional criminals and demonstrates how it is possible to have a career in crime given the right connections and 'qualities'. According to Cloward and Ohlin, the illegal opportunity structure had three possible adaptations or subcultures. Criminal, this adaptation is where there is a thriving local criminal subculture role-models. Young offenders can 'work their way up the ladder' in the criminal hierarchy. Conflict, here there is no local criminal subculture to provide a career opportunity . Groups brought up in this of environment are likely to turn to violence usually against other similar groups. Cloward and Ohlin give the examples of violent gang 'warfare'. Retreatist, this tends to be a more individual response and occurs where the individual has no opportunity or ability to engage in either of the other subcultures. The result is a retreat into alcohol or drugs. This explanations is useful and, as Hobbs work shows, for some people there really is a criminal opportunity structure. But the approach shares some of the weaknesses of Merton's original theory, it is difficult to accept that such a neat distinction into three clear categories occurs in real life, there is no discussion whatsoever about female deviancy.
In the late 1950's Walter Miller developed a rather different approach to explaining the values of crime when he suggested that deviancy was linked to the culture of lower-class males. Miller (1962) suggested that working class males have six 'focal concerns' that are likely to lead to delinquency. According to Miller, then, young lower-class males are pushed towards crime by implicit values of their subculture. Millers theory does have a few faults, such as it provides little evidence to show that these are specifically lower-class values. Indeed, as a Box (1981) pointed out, they could equally apply to males right across the class structure.
In conclusion I find it hard to define if the statement in question is correct or not as there are a mixture views. This is partly due to the limited resources available to me, and if I wanted to get a more sturdy conclusion I would need to do a lot more research.
