A2 Sociology
Strain and Subcultural
Theories additional notes
Subcultural & Strain Theories
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Subcultural theories
share the common belief
that people who commit
crime usually share
different values from the
mass of law abiding
members of society.
However these people do
not live in opposition to
mainstream values- they
simply ‘amend’ certain
values to justify their
criminal behaviour.
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Strain is the term used to
refer to explanations of
criminal behaviour that say
that certain groups of people,
because of their circumstances
cannot conform to the rules of
society. This is also referred to
as subcultures.
Strain Theory (Merton)
{Functionalist.} Claimed that
crime and deviance were
evidence of the strain between
the socially accepted goals of
society and the socially
approved means of obtaining
those goals. The resulting
strain led to deviance..
Illegitimate Opportunity Structure.
(Cloward & Ohlin 1960)
They argued Merton had failed to appreciate the
illegitimate opportunity structure- a parallel
structure to the legal one.
 This meant for some individuals in society a
regualr illegal career was available with
recognised illegal means of obtaining societies
goals.
 -eg Hobbs (1998) Bad Business interviewed
successful proffessionsal criminals and
demonstrated how it is possible to have a career
in crimes given the right connections and
‘qualities’.
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Illegitimate Opportunity Structure. (Cloward
& Ohlin 1960)
According to Cloward andf Ohlin the IOS had
three possible adaptions or subcultures.
 CRIMINAL-thriving criminal subculture with
sucessful rolemodels. Young offenders can ‘work
their way up the ladder’ in the criminal
hierarchy.
 CONFLICT-no career opps available and
therefore these groups often turn to violence.eggang warfare.
 RETREATIST-when an individual cannot
engage in eaitehr of the two above subcultures
they will retreat to drugs and or alcohol.
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Criticisms of Cloward and Ohlin
It is difficult to accept that everyone falls
into one of the three categories they have
set out, in real life.
 There is no discussion whatsoever about
female deliquency.
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Status Frustration
Albert Cohen (1955)
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Focused on the fact that deviant behaviour was not done
for money, but for the thrill of the act.
Lower class boys strove to emulate middle class values and
aspirations but lacked the means to attain success.-thus
Status Frustration.
Ie-a sense of personal failure and inadequacy. As a result
they rejected those very values and patterns of
‘acceptable’ behaviour which they could not be successful
within..
Cohen claimed School was they main area for this to take
place.- lower class children are more likely to fail and
therefore feel humiliated.
In an attempt to gain status, they invert traditional middle
class values behaving badly and engaging an a variety of
anti-social behaviours.
Criticisms of Cohen
No mention of females.
 These individuals would need to be great
sociologists to work out what middle class
values are and invert them.
 Cohen fails to prove that school really is
the key place where success and failure
are demonstrated.
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Focal Concerns
Walter Miller (1950’s)
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Suggested delinquency was linked to the culture of lower
class males. He claimed they had six focal concerns (1962)
that are likely to lead to delinquency.
Smartness. A person should both look good and also be
witty with a ‘sharp repartee’.
Trouble. ‘I don’t go looking for trouble, but…’
Excitement. It is important to seek out thrills.
Toughness. Being physically stronger than others is good. It
is also important to be able to demonstrate this.
Autonomy. Its important not to be pushed around by
others.
Fate. Individuals have little chance to overcome the wider
fate that awaits them.
According to Miller- young lower class males are pushed
towards crime by the implicit values of their
subculture.
Criticisms of Miller
He does not prove tat these are
specifically lower class values.
 As Box (1981) pointed out they could
easily apply to all males right across the
class structure.
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Subterranean Values
an attack on subcultural theories.
Matza-(1962)
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One consistant criticism of subcultural theories was that
there was little evidence to demonstrate a distinct set of
anti social values.
Matza argued that there were no distinctive subcultural
values –but all groups in society shared a set of
Subterranean values.
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The key thing was that most of the time individuals
control their deviant desires- they only rarely emerge egat the office party or on holiday in Agia Napa.
But when the do emerge we use techniques of
neutralisation to provide justification for our deviant
actions.
He is basically saying that all of us share deviant
‘subcultural values’ and that it is not true that there are
groups with their own values different from the rest of
us.
Techniques of Neutralisation
Denial of
Responsibilitythe offender denies it
was their fault.
(blames another
factor-eg alcohol or
drugs.
Denial of Victim
Offender claims victim
was in the wrong- eg
rape case –woman led
him on..
Condemnation of
condemners- offender
feels a sense of
unfairness and being
picked on for something
others have done and
not been punished for.
.
Denial of Injuryoffender claims victim
was not really hurt by
the crime.- often used
to justify theft from
companies as
opposed to
individuals..
Appeal to higher
loyalties- offender
claims that rule of
law had to be
ignored because
more important
issues were at
stake.- eg standing
up for race/religion
etc.
Contemporary alternatives to
subculture.
Postmodernism Katz (1988) says that
crime is seductive- young makes get
drawn into it, not because of any process
of rejection but because its thrilling.
 Lyng (1990) argues that young men like
taking risks and engaging in ‘edgework’ as
he puts it- ie going right to the edge of
acceptable behaviour and flirting with
danger.
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NB: All of these theories cover males
and not females.