Sociology Subcultural Strain Theories of Crime & Deviance 2

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  • Subcultural Strain Theories of Crime & Deviance 2
    • Cloward and Ohlin (1960): Differential Opportunity
      • Cloward and Ohlin agree with Merton and Cohen's claims that WC youths are denied legitimate chances to achieve 'money success' and not everyone in this situation will turn to 'innovation' and commit crime
        • However, unlike Merton and Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin attempt to explain reasons why different subcultural responses occur by focusing on unequal access to illegitimate opportunity strucutre
          • According to Cloward and Ohlin, not everyone will become successful through illegitimate means as, for example, different neighbourhoods provide different opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills
      • Cloward and Ohlin identified three different deviant subcultures
        • According to Cloward and Ohlin, not everyone will become successful through illegitimate means as, for example, different neighbourhoods provide different opportunities for young people to learn criminal skills
        • Criminal subculture (tend to emerge in areas where there is already an established pattern of organised adult crime)
        • Conflict subculture (tend to develop in areas where young people have little opportunity for access to illegitimate opportunity structures and where there is little organised adult crime to provide an 'apprenticeship scheme')
        • Retreatists subculture (tends to be where lower class adolescents have failed as criminals and so retreat into gangs focused around drug use)
    • Cloward and Ohlin Evaluation
      • Strengths
        • Cloward and Ohlin provide an explanation for different types of WC deviance in terms of different types of subcultures
      • Weaknesses
        • Similar to Merton and Cohen, they focus too much on WC crime and ignore crimes of the wealthy such as white collar and corporate crime
        • Strain theories have been criticised for their assumption that everyone starts off by sharing common mainstream goals of success.
          • For example Miller (1962) argues that lower class has its own values and aim to achieve their own success goals, not the goals of mainstream society

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