Law and You > Criminal Laws > Criminology > Subcultural Theory of Causation of Crime
Social (or human) ecology may be broadly defined as the study of the social and behavioural consequences of the interaction between human beings and their environment. It investigates how exposure to different environments (area- and place-based differential social organization and activities) influences human development and action. The social ecology of crime is the study of one particular behavioural outcome of these processes, the violation of rules of conduct defined in law. It focuses on the role of the environment in the development of people’s differential propensity to engage in crime and their differential exposure to settings conducive to engagement in acts of crime. Crime causation depends considerably on social interactions. In this article we shall discuss subcultural theory of causation of crime. Subcultural theorists argue that deviance occurs because of peer pressure within a subculture that has broken off from mainstream society.
At times persons violate the provisions of law knowing fully well that they will have to face penal consequences for their acts. Sociological theories of criminal behaviour can be explained under three heads:
- Structural Explanations
- Sub-cultural Explanations
- Multiple Factor Approach
Sub-cultural Explanations (Subcultural Theory of Causation of Crime):
Subcultural theory, developed by Al Cohen (1955) and others, argues that criminologists must understand criminal behaviour as being rooted in the collective reality of a criminal subculture. 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. A sub culture is sub-division within the dominant culture that has its own norms beliefs and values. Sub cultures typically emerge when people in similar circumstances find themselves isolated from the main stream and band together for mutual support. Sub cultures may form among members of racial and ethnic minorities, among prisoners, among occupational groups, among ghetto dwellers. Sub cultures exist within a larger society, not apart from it. They therefore share some of its values. Nevertheless, the life styles of their members are significantly different from those of in the dominant culture. 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.
Thus, cultural deviance theorists assume that:
- Individuals become criminal by learning the criminal values of the groups to which they belong.
- In conforming to their own group standards, these people break the law of the dominant culture.
According to Albert Cohen, an American Sociologist, deviant behaviour is supported by sub culture. A sub culture of criminals has its own norms which stand over against the norms of the larger group (the dominant culture). Just like Merton, Cohen argued that working class boys strove to emulate middle-class values and aspirations, 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 behaviour. Because there are several boys going through the same experiences, they end up banding together and forming delinquent subcultures. The deviance does not appear unusual or abnormal from their point of view. Indeed, most sub cultures have a vague notion that the larger society is unjust and corrupt. Important types of deviant behaviours are juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, and crime against persons and property etc. The laxity of norms the anonymous nature of cities and multiple standards of behaviours are often responsible for it.
Criticism to Cohen’s Theory:
- Most working class boys actually conform at school despite educational failure.
- Cohen ignores female delinquency
- He neglects the role of agencies of social control in the social construction of delinquency. For example, police stereotyping of working-class youths might mean they are more likely to be stopped and searched.
Cloward and Ohlin’s 3 types of subculture
Cloward and Ohlin develop 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.
Criminal Subcultures:
These subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is a lot of organised adult crime, here there are criminal role models for young people, and they learn how to commit criminal acts. 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 aspiring young criminals, and an alternative to the legitimate job market as a means of achieving financial rewards. In these subcultures the young people can climb up the professional criminal ladder by committing more crimes. These subcultures are normally concerned with utilitarian crimes, which yield financial reward such as theft. Adult criminals exercise social control over the young to stop them carrying out non-utilitarian delinquent acts – such as vandalism – which might attract the attention of the police.
Conflict Subcultures:
These subcultures tend to emerge in areas where there is little organised adult crime, so instead of learning how to commit serious monetary crimes the young people instead focus on gaining respect through gang violence. Conflict subcultures are characterised by violence, gang warfare, ‘mugging’ and other street crime. Young frustrated people express their frustration at this situation through violence or street crime, and at least obtain status through success in subcultural peer-group values.
Retreatist subculture:
These subcultures are for young people who have even failed in the criminal subcultures, these people are ‘double failures’. They tend to retreat to drugs and alcohol abuse to deal with the fact that they have been rejected from other subcultures. The response is a retreat into drug addiction and alcoholism, paid for by petty theft, shoplifting and prostitution.
Criticism to Cloward and Ohlin’s Theory:
- This theory is Criticised for assuming that the majority of people aspire to the mainstream goals of success and wealth.
- Taylor, Walton and Young point to deviant groups such as hippies who do not share these goals.
Walter Miller’s Cultural Deviance Theory:
Walter Miller‟s Theory of Focal Concerns, (1958) attributes the criminal activities of lower- class adolescent gangs to their attempt to achieve the ends that are valued in their culture through the behaviors that appear to them to be the most feasible means of obtaining those ends. Thus, adherence to the traditions of the lower class is essential. Miller labels them as trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate and autonomy. For example, lower-class boys pick fights to show their toughness, and they steal to demonstrate their shrewdness and daring.
Criticism to Miller’s Theory:
- Miller was criticised from the beginning. Bordua said that the idea that the working class live their lives isolated from the rest of society is flawed to begin with.
- Although Miller’s theory is subcultural, it bears little resemblance to Cohen’s theory, which partly blames society for gang activity. Miller strongly implies that working-class culture is problematic and inferior to middle-class culture. His theory is therefore similar to recent New Right sociologists such as Charles Murray who believes that there’s an underclass in both British and American society with a distinct culture and value system which encourages deviant behaviour.
Criticism to Subcultural Theory of Causation of Crime:
David Matza, an interactionist, suggests that Subcultural Theory of Causation of Crime has the following problems;
- Most young working-class people experience status frustration but do not become delinquents.
- Only a minority of youth actually become delinquents.
- Some young people drift in and out of delinquency, but eventually grow out of it when they reach adulthood.
- When justifying or explaining their delinquency, young people rarely make reference to membership of subcultures.
- Subcultural theories generally neglect the role of the police, who may target young working-class people as potentially criminal and frequently stop, search and arrest them, whereas they ignore similar behaviour in high status groups.
- Subcultural theories try to explain why young working-class people commit crime because the official statistics say they do. However, these statistics may not be valid since interactionists argue that they are social constructions – the end product of decisions by the powerful.
Conclusion:
Like anomie theories, subcultural theories criticize social inequalities in stratified or class society, which are responsible for individual pressure and adaptation problems. Cohen’s subcultural theory draws attention to the fact that criminals, in their view, do not act criminally at all. As members of subcultures, they are subject to different behavioural requirements based on values and norms that deviate from those of mainstream society. The behaviour shown is a conforming behaviour within the subculture and thus also for the actor. Thus, the subculture theory sees crime as a product of the culture in which it occurs. The people who commit and control crimes, in this view, use the meaning of established cultural practices as justification for the committing and controlling of crimes.