A subculture is a culture within a culture that shares some norms and values with mainstream society while possessing some of their own, which are usually deviant as a deviant act is one that goes against the norms and values held by the majority of the people. Different structural theories take different approaches while studying subcultural crime and deviance although they agree that it is “best understood by looking at groups involved in order to identify what causes members to be attracted to rule breaking” (Item A).
Functionalists view subcultures as arising from anomie in Merton’s strain theory as the strain of goals and the means of achieving them cause people, particularly those of working class backgrounds, to rebel and replace some …show more content…
Miller argues that WC youths have three focal concerns of which give meaning to their lives outside the workplace. These are toughness- involving a heightened sense of masculinity reinforced by the patriarchal structure of many criminal subcultures such as gangs that sees violence as an acceptable way to deal with problems-, excitement –which can involve the thrill of criminal and deviant activity- and trouble –generally being anti-education and anti-authority. These three focal concerns make crime inevitable, as WC boys find boredom in school and work if they live outside these concerns. This subcultural theory can be applied to studies of gang cultures. Gangs such as the Bloods and Crips in the US could be argued to fall into these focal concerns, excitement of rival gangs and territory claiming, toughness and increased masculinity with violent crimes making them notoriously known for criminal activity and trouble; being anti-authority and creating their own alternative authoritative hierarchy amounst their …show more content…
It may also be hard to generalise individual theories to all subcultures as the nature of criminal and retreatist subcultures make them difficult to study and understand. However Cohen’s theory of status frustration ,while being old, is acknowledged by many contemporary sociologists as a key cause of why people join gangs and become criminal showing that subcultural theories can be useful to our understanding, but are limited and should be supported with theories that do not hold working class culture as the root of the
Functionalists view subcultures as arising from anomie in Merton’s strain theory as the strain of goals and the means of achieving them cause people, particularly those of working class backgrounds, to rebel and replace some …show more content…
Miller argues that WC youths have three focal concerns of which give meaning to their lives outside the workplace. These are toughness- involving a heightened sense of masculinity reinforced by the patriarchal structure of many criminal subcultures such as gangs that sees violence as an acceptable way to deal with problems-, excitement –which can involve the thrill of criminal and deviant activity- and trouble –generally being anti-education and anti-authority. These three focal concerns make crime inevitable, as WC boys find boredom in school and work if they live outside these concerns. This subcultural theory can be applied to studies of gang cultures. Gangs such as the Bloods and Crips in the US could be argued to fall into these focal concerns, excitement of rival gangs and territory claiming, toughness and increased masculinity with violent crimes making them notoriously known for criminal activity and trouble; being anti-authority and creating their own alternative authoritative hierarchy amounst their …show more content…
It may also be hard to generalise individual theories to all subcultures as the nature of criminal and retreatist subcultures make them difficult to study and understand. However Cohen’s theory of status frustration ,while being old, is acknowledged by many contemporary sociologists as a key cause of why people join gangs and become criminal showing that subcultural theories can be useful to our understanding, but are limited and should be supported with theories that do not hold working class culture as the root of the