The Criminological Use of Culture and Subculture

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The Criminological Use of Culture and Subculture

• Understanding Criminology
• 2nd November 2006

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Lecture Outline

• Subculture Definitions and Typology
• Gangs and the variety of adaptations to strain
• Social Class and Subculture
• Drift Theory

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Culture and Subculture

• Adaptations of Strain theory, with an awareness
  of the diversity of deviant forms
• Initial focus on gangs and youth delinquency

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Subculture Definitions

• A relatively small grouping that develops
  distinctive norms, values and beliefs.
  Subcultures provide members with a range of
  personal resources (e.g. status, capital,
  excitement) that have often been denied by
  mainstream society / culture
• Subcultural Theory aim to identify the cause and
  expressive nature of subcultures

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Typology

• Reactive / Oppositional Subcultures
• The subcultural form is a direct reaction against
  mainstream culture
• Most directly influenced by strain theory
• Independent Subcultures
• Subcultures develop their own values and norms
  of behaviour independently of mainstream culture

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William Whyte Street Corner Society

• Easier for a slum resident to achieve monetary
  success in a racket, than by conventional means
• Role models college boys v. corner boys
• Gang activities highly organised
• Pioneering participant observation based study
• KEY expressive nature of subcultures

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Sutherlands Differential Association Theory

• Delinquent practices are culturally transmitted
  from one individual to another
• Cultural conflict if definitions favourable to
  law violation outweigh those unfavourable, crime
  will occur
• Applied largely to white-collar crime, but has
  subsequently been applied to other crime
• KEY Cultural Transmission

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National Strain / Inequality / Limited
Opportunities
Community Legitimate and Illegitimate
Opportunities
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Albert Cohen Delinquent BoysThe culture of
the gang

• Subculture evolved in response to strain, and a
  rejection of middle-class values
• Education paramount
• Make children aware of social status
• Key to the constraint of opportunities
• Goal status, not necessarily monetary success
• An attempt to understand non-economic deviance
• Gangs were a particular form of subcultural
  adaptation, characterised by-

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Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin

• Focussed on the range that adaptations to strain
  could take, incorporating differential
  association
• Criminal Gangs
• Conflict Gangs
• Retreatist Gangs
• Returned to Mertons focus on monetary success

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Evaluation of Strain Influenced Subcultural
Theories

• Fits with
• Over-representation of working class, urban
  offenders in gang activity
• A dominant / superior middle class culture
• Possibly fits with
• Gang activity being predominantly male girls and
  young women have alternative sources of status?
• Doesnt fit with
• Widespread, but petty offending
• British experience

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David Downes a British Perspective

• In Britain, social class is central to
  understanding subcultural adaptation
• Working class youth had a realistically low
  level of aspiration / fatalism
• Delinquency as a fact of life, but not a way
  of life

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Downes and Subculture in Britain

• Key cause of delinquency boredom and the
  importance of leisure
• little opportunity for excitement (akin to
  strain)
• leisure became the location for excitement and
  expression of
• - toughness, daring, panache
• Links between leisure and delinquency
• proceeds of crime funding leisure
• delinquency is itself exciting
• delinquency is a by-product of certain forms of
  excitement

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Marxist analysis of sub-culture / counter-culture

• Phil Cohen
• Economic Decline -gt
• family tensions
• fragmented community
• economic insecurity
• Mods socially mobile white-collar worker
• Skinheads emphasising masculinity of hard manual
  labour

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David Matza Drift and Neutralization

• Sees subcultural theories are over-predictive
• Drift a limbo between convention and crime
  preceding delinquency
• Techniques of neutralization demonstrate
  continued commitment to mainstream cultural
  values
• Delinquency represents the exaggeration of
  subterranean, but not deviant values
• the pursuit of excitement
• the disdain for routine work
• toughness and masculinity

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What is a Cultural of Deviance?

• Pockets of specific activities providing meaning
  and resources to the member
• E.g. The Gang
• A widespread loose affinity between relatively
  informal groupings
• E.g. Anti-globalisation environmental groups
• A reflection of temporary adolescent rejection of
  parental / mainstream values functional?
• A vital mechanism that acts to support and
• reproduce mainstream culture

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Summary

• Most cultural theories would expect more
  criminality than actually seen
• Matza and Drift theory would not predict much
  career criminality
• Cultural Relativism a danger that criminality is
  romanticized the expressive qualitative nature
  of deviance is addressed rarely the same focus
  on mainstream culture or victimisation