Week 2, Subcultural

Subcultural Theories of
Deviance
Naseem Irfan
• A Subculture is a group that has values that are different to the
mainstream culture.
• Subcultural theorists argue that deviance is the result of whole groups
breaking off from society who have deviant values (subcultures) and
deviance is a result of these individuals conforming to the values and
norms of the subculture to which they belong.
• In contrast to Social Control theorists, it is the pull of the peer group
that encourages individuals to commit crime, rather than the lack of
attachment to the family or other mainstream institutions.
• There are four people important for Subcultural
Theory:
• 1. Albert Cohen
• 2. Cloward and Ohlin
• 3. Walter Miller
• 4. Charles Murray
1. Albert Cohen’ 1. Status Frustration Theory
2. Cloward and Ohlin 2. Three types of subculture
3. Walter Miller 3. The focal concerns of the
working class
4. Charles Murray
4. The underclass and Crime
(links to the New Right)
Albert Cohen: Deviant Subcultures emerge because of Status
Frustration
• Albert Cohen argues that working class subcultures

emerge because they have denied status in society.
• Just like Merton, Cohen argued that working class boys
struggled to compete with middle-class values and
ambitions, but lacked the means to achieve success.
• This led to status frustration: a sense of personal
failure and inadequacy.
• Cohen argued that many boys react to this by
rejecting socially acceptable values and patterns of
acceptable behavior.
• Because there are several boys going through the
same experiences, they end up banding together and
forming delinquent subcultures.
• This delinquent subculture reverses the norms and values of
mainstream culture, offering positive rewards (status) to those who
are the most deviant.
• Status may be gained by being mean, threatening others, breaking
school rules or the law and generally causing trouble.
• This pattern of boys rejecting mainstream values and forming

delinquent subcultures first starts in school and then becomes more
serious later on, taking on the form of absence and possibly gang
membership
Subcultural Theory 2: Cloward and Ohlin’s 3 types of subculture
• Cloward and Ohlin advanced the Cohen’s subcultural

theory further, expanding on it in order to try and explain
why different types of subculture emerge in different
regions.
• They suggest that the ‘illegitimate opportunity structure’
affects what type of subculture emerges in response to
status frustration – The varied social circumstances in
which working-class youth live give rise to three types of
delinquent subculture.
types of delinquent subculture.
• Criminal Subcultures
• Conflict subcultures
• Retreatist subcultures
1. Criminal Subcultures are characterized by utilitarian crimes,
such as theft. They develop in more stable working class
areas where there is an established pattern of crime.
• This provided a learning opportunity and career structure for
ambitious young criminals, and an alternative to the legitimate
job market as a means of achieving financial rewards.
• Adult criminals exercise social control over the young to stop
them carrying out non-utilitarian delinquent acts – such as
destruction – which might attract the attention of the police.
2. Conflict subcultures emerge in socially disorganized areas where there is a
high rate of population turnover and a consequent lack of social consistency.
• These prevent the formation of stable adult criminal subcultures Conflict
subcultures are characterized by violence, gang war, ‘attack’ and other
street crime.
• Both approved and illegal means of achieving mainstream goals are
blocked or limited, and young people express their frustration at this
situation through violence or street crime, and at least obtain status
through success in subcultural peer-group values.
• This is a possible explanation for the gang culture which is increasingly
appearing …………………..
3. Retreatist subcultures emerge among those lower
class youth who are ‘double failures’ – they have failed
to succeed in both mainstream society and in the crime
and gang cultures above.
• The response is a retreat into drug addiction and
alcoholism, paid for by minor theft, shoplifting and
prostitution.
3. Walter Miller – the focal concerns of the working class
• Miller suggested that working-class boys were socialized into a

number of distinct values that together meant they were more
likely than others to engage in delinquent or deviant behavior.
• Attempts to explain the behavior of "members of adolescent
street corner groups in lower class communities" as concern for
six focal concerns.
• the theory suggests that delinquency is in fact part of the learned
cultural values rather than an anomic (the condition in which
society provides little moral guidance to individuals) reaction to
unattainable goals.
These values are:
• None of these values on their own mean that crime is inevitable
(many "lower-class boys" are also socialized with these focal
concerns and stay out of trouble) but they do make crime more
likely.
• Seeking excitement might lead to non-utilitarian crime; toughness,
smartness and trouble might result in fighting.
• Autonomy might lead people to take matters into their own hands
rather than asking for help; fatalism might mean that they do not
consider the consequences of their actions as the future is already
written.
4. Charles Murray – the underclass and Crime
• The sociological concept of underclass is a relatively new. As group the

underclass are those people who due to lack of employment, skills, income,
wealth or property appear to stand outside ordinary society.
• It can be argued that the underclass are those who have become surplus to
a globalized economy because production can be moved anywhere in the world
where unskilled labor is cheapest.
• American Sociologist Charles Murray (new right theorist) who viewed ‘excessive’
state welfare payments as creating a dependency culture who don’t want to
work and there’s your underclass. For Murray social welfare (social security as it
was once known) started out as a safety-net for people when hit with hard-time,
but has become hijacked by a group of people with no intention of working.
THANK YOU

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Week 2, Subcultural

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Subcultural Theories of

• Albert Cohen argues that working class subcultures

• This pattern of boys rejecting mainstream values and forming

• Cloward and Ohlin advanced the Cohen’s subcultural

• Miller suggested that working-class boys were socialized into a

• The sociological concept of underclass is a relatively new. As group the

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