Strain theory

What is subculture?

Robert Merton

Evaluation

David Matza

Nigel South

Walter Miller

Cloward & Ohlin

Albert Cohen

People do not permanently exist in a subculture, there is a delinquency drift, people drift in and out of subterranean values (subcultures)

there's a consciousness of values, momentarily embrace subterranean values (in and out of delinquency)

there is an overlap of deviant subcultures

you can be criminal & conflict subculture

you can be a drug dealer & a user

there are not distinct subcultures, activities overlap

working class people dont not achieve goals, but have alternative goals

Focal concerns:

  • smartness (street)
  • trouble
  • excitement
  • toughness
  • autonomy
  • fate

not created as a result of status frustration, they are already there because of the habitus

People engage in deviant behaviour when they are unable to achieve socially approved goals by legitimate means

first strain theory by Merton who adapted Durkheim's concept of anomie to explain deviance

  • structural factors, societies unequal opportunities structure
  • cultural factors, strong emphasis on success & weaker emphasis on legitimate means to achieve them

Deviance is a result of strain between:
1) the goals that a culture encourages individuals to achieve
2) when the institutional structure of a society allows them to achieve insitutionally (American dream value 'money success')

institutionalised goals:
are dependent on the cultures, The American Dream

  • based off meritocracy, goals via legitimate means
  • however, reality is different, disadvantaged groups denied opportunities to achieve
  • strain between cultural goal of money success & legitimate opportunities to achieve
  • causes frustration, illegitimate means to achieve
  • some groups have greater strain than others

Adaptations to strain:

  • conformity (goals, legitimate)
  • innovation (goals, illegitimate)
  • ritualism (give up trying to achieve goals, legitimate)
  • retreatism (reject goals & legitimate, dropouts)
  • rebellion (alternative goals, alternative means)

Focuses on individuals

Most people subscribe to mainstream culture, with mainstream norms, values & customs - value consensus

but, in societies there are groups that reject value consensus, they still have these norms & value but they're alternative

subculture is often a result of strain, but the strain leads to a result of group deviance rather than individual

agrees with Merton that most people in street gangs (that he looked into) were young working class boys with little status

Status frustration:
cannot get status via legitimate means, so turn to other means

  • gravitate to others in same situation, form / join delinquent subcultures
  • have another way of gaining status, alternative, street credibility

Inversion of norms & values:

  • reverse the mainstream culture
  • e.g. need money & property so trash & set fires to properties
  • this even occurs in early years of schools with rejection / inversion of what teacher says

Alternative status hierarchy:

  • illegitimate opportunity structure
  • easier to gain status via this hierarchy than legitimate
  • legitimate means money, university etc
  • illegitimate just involves things such as tattoos, vandalism etc
  • non-utilitarian crime = non-material gain, they commit these crimes for status rather than material gains

working class youths are denied legitimate opportunities to achieve 'money success' & their deviance stems from how they respond to their situation

Different subcultures:
different subcultures respond in different ways to this lack of opportunity

  • this is because of unequal access to legitimate & illegitimate opportunity structures

Different neighbourhoods:
different neighbourhoods provide different illegitimate opportunities

  • criminal subcultures, big time gangsters e.g. mafia, less violent, less police attention as hidden away
  • conflict subcultures, fighting on streets, turf wars, fighting over "real estate" of prime locations, younger, more violent, often under control of subculture boss, police attention
  • retreats subcultures, "double failures", didnt make way in illegitimate & legitimate, the customers, exploited and used by other subcultures

underworld economy of criminal, conflict & retreatist

Evaluation of strain:

  • takes official crime statistics at face value, these over represent WC crime so Merton sees as mainly WC phenomenon, too deterministic of WC
  • Marxists, argue it ignores power of ruling class to enforce laws / criminalise poor not rich
  • assumption of value consensus, 'money success' ignores possibility many dont share this goal
  • only accounts for utilitarian crime for monetary gain, not crime for violence, also ignores state crimes
  • ignores role of group deviance
  • feminist, it is gender blind, ignores how these goals were set for men; also in 1938 when he was writing there was few legitimate opportunity structures for women, so why mot deviants to an extreme degree?
  • why have those that have achieve goals still involved in crime e.g. rich people tax invasion

Evaluation of Cloward & Ohlin:

  • ignores crimes of wealthy
  • gender blind, ignoring women, why do women not have status fustration
  • draws boundaries too sharply for different subcultures, you can be retreatist & conflict etc
  • Miller, argues subculture not value success in the first place, so not frustrated by failure
  • Matza, people drift in and out of subcultures