4.3.1 - Subcultural Theories of Crime

From strain to subculture

Strain-based subcultural theories start from a similar problem to Robert Merton's strain theory. In a society that praises success, status, and achievement, not everyone has the same chance of gaining them legitimately. Merton mainly explained this as an individual response to blocked opportunity. Subcultural theorists argue that this misses something important: much crime is social. Young people often offend in groups, seek approval from peers, and gain identity through collective norms rather than acting alone.

This makes subcultural theory useful for crime and deviance because it links social structure to socialisation. If a group repeatedly experiences rejection, exclusion, or lack of opportunity, it may create a shared value system that gives members status on different terms. Crime then becomes more than rule-breaking by an isolated person. It becomes a way of belonging, achieving respect, and building an identity.

Albert Cohen takes this argument in a specifically sociological direction. He was trying to explain why some working-class boys engage in non-utilitarian delinquency such as vandalism, fighting, or truancy. These acts often do not produce money, so they are not well explained by a simple desire for economic gain.

Cohen argues that many working-class boys are judged in school and other institutions by middle-class standards. They face what he calls a middle-class measuring rod. When they fail to gain approval through those standards, they experience status frustration.

Instead of accepting low status, some boys form a delinquent subculture. This is a collective solution to status deprivation. Through reaction formation, values are turned upside down: behaviour condemned by mainstream society becomes admired inside the group. Vandalism, disruption, aggression, and defiance can all become badges of status because they symbolically reject the institutions that produced failure in the first place.

This is why Cohen is especially useful for explaining non-utilitarian crime. A smashed window or public act of defiance may have little economic purpose, but it can still earn prestige inside a delinquent peer group. The crime makes sense once status and identity are treated as social achievements rather than just personal choices.

Different subcultures, different opportunities

Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin agree that blocked legitimate opportunity matters, but they argue that this is only half the story. It is not enough to say that people cannot succeed legally. Sociologists also need to ask what illegal opportunities exist in the area where they live.

Their theory is often called differential opportunity theory. In some places there are stable adult criminal networks, while in others there is only disorganisation and violence. Because access to deviant opportunities is uneven, not every deprived area produces the same kind of subculture.

This typology helps explain why deviance is patterned rather than random. Crime is shaped by local culture, social organisation, and the opportunities built into a neighbourhood. A stable area with organised crime may produce acquisitive offending, while a fragmented area may produce violence and gang rivalry instead.

Cloward and Ohlin therefore extend Merton and Cohen in two ways. First, they keep the structural focus on inequality and blocked opportunity. Second, they show that group crime depends on differential access to illegitimate socialisation. Young people must learn criminal roles somewhere. That makes their theory a strong bridge between structure and agency: individuals still act, but they act within opportunities they did not create.