Albert Cohen adapts Merton’s theory to explain the collective or gang crime committed by juvenile delinquents. He argues that working-class boys commit juvenile delinquency for two reasons. Firstly is that heir parents fail to equip them with the right skills required for success in education and secondly is that society encourages its members to acquire status through educational success, jobs and materialism. However, due to working-class boys’ lack of skills, schools and teachers deny status. In frustration, working-class boys form anti-school subcultures which turn the value system of the school upside down and award status for deviant activities. Cohen therefore blames a combination of inadequate socialisation and society’s stress on acquiring status. However, some sociologists have questioned the view that working-class boys are interested in acquiring status from teachers. Willis, for example, argues that the lads in his study who rejected school wanted factory jobs and therefore did not see the point of qualifications.
Steven Box (1981) believed that Cohen’s theory was only possible for a small minority of delinquents. He questioned Cohen’s view that most delinquent youths originally accepted the mainstream standards of success. Rather than experiencing shame and guilt at their own failure, he claims they feel resentment at being regarded as failures by teachers and middle-class youths whose values they do not share and cannot accept. They turn against those who look down on them; they will not tolerate the way they are insulted. Also, David Bordua (1962) argued that he used it to explain the educational failure of lower-working-class youngsters, with the notion of cultural deprivation, but he did not use it to explain delinquency. Thus, whereas cultural deprivation is passed on from one generation to the next, this does not seem to happen with the delinquent subculture. Despite such criticisms, Cohen’s ideas continue to offer insights into delinquency. Even Cohen’s critics would generally accept that the search for status remains an important factor in the formation of delinquent subcultures.
In Delinquency and Opportunity the American sociologists Cloward and Ohlin combined and developed many of the insights of Merton and Cohen (Cloward and Ohlin, 1961). While largely accepting Merton’s view of working-class criminal deviance, they argued that he had failed to explain the different forms that deviance takes. Cloward and Ohlin argued that Merton had only dealt with half the picture. He had explained deviance in terms of the legitimate opportunity structure but he failed consider the illegitimate opportunity structure. In other words, just as the opportunity to be successful by legitimate means varies, so does the opportunity for success by illegitimate means. They begin by stating that there is greater pressure on members of the working class to deviate because they have less opportunity to succeed by legitimate means. Cloward and Ohlin then distinguished three possible responses to this situation: the ‘criminal subculture’, the ‘conflict subculture’ and the ‘retreatist subculture’:
Firstly is the criminal subculture. Criminal subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is an established pattern of organized adult crime. In such areas a learning environment’ is provided for the young: they are exposed to criminal skills and deviant values, and presented with criminal role models. Those who perform successfully in terms of these deviant values have the opportunity to rise in the professional criminal hierarchy.
Secondly is the conflict subculture. Conflict subcultures tend to develop in areas where adolescents have little opportunity for access to illegitimate opportunity structures. There is little organized adult crime to provide an apprenticeship’ for the young criminals and opportunities for them to climb the illegitimate ladder to success. So access to both legitimate and illegitimate opportunity structures is blocked. The response to this situation is often gang violence.
Finally is the retreatist subculture. They suggested that some lower-class adolescents form retreatist subcultures, organized mainly around illegal drug use because they have failed to succeed in both the legitimate and illegitimate structures.
The last two theories explain crime in terms of class-based subcultures. Walter Miller (1962) spoke of lower-class culture stating that he did not believe that a deviant subculture arose from the inability of the members of lower social strata to achieve success. Instead he explained crime in terms of the existence of a distinctive lower-class subculture. Miller believed that members of the American lower class had long had their own cultural traditions which differed significantly from those of members of the higher strata. He claimed that their values and way of life, which are passed on from generation to generation, actively encourage lower-class men to break the law. The other theory is the underclass theory coming from Charles Murray (1990) Of the New Right. Murray suggests that both in the USA and the UK there exists an ‘underclass’ a distinct lower-class grouping that subscribes to ‘deviant’ rather than mainstream values which it transmits to its children. Critics of Murray argue that he is scapegoating the poor for the effects of structural constraints such as economic recession which are well beyond their control. Murray’s theory is accused of negatively labelling a section of the poor for their poverty, which results in their over-policing. There is no empirical evidence for the existence of an underclass that subscribes to fundamentally different values.
So we are clearly provided with a comprehensive look at subcultural theories through several sociologists such as Murray. Not surprisingly there are some criticisms of these theories but this does not mean that they are not useful. Of course both sides of the argument must be looked but there is sufficient work given to tell us that despite some criticisms and some other points of view as shown, subcultural theories are indeed useful in understanding crime and deviance for the reasons stated.
