Lower Class Culture

Lower class culture is cause of delinquency Miller made this statement in 1958 although it was an imperfect notion, but I will argue that this statement was a brand-new filed in criminology and it well addressed the cause of street crime. Decades later, Anderson, Sandberg and Ilan took his theory farer, they connected crime with one issue the economic exclusion that existing in the society. I will make my argument by combine the statement Miller (1958) and Anderson (2000) made which are lower class culture cause crimes and the “code of the street” -- economic exclusion and ethnic marginalization are the main cause of crime. Across the history, many scholars have looked into the topic of culture and crime. They all have their own unique
argument about relation between culture and criminality. Katz (1988) and Ferrell (1993) suggest that pervious theorists failure to exam the background factor of crime, and they suggests that when we look into the cause of crime should consider emotional moments of crime also consider crime as resistance that driven by social power dynamics. This notion understand of offending are driven by the conformity of mainstream culture and consumerism. Their argument based on that the lower class culture does not exist fail to access to goal and the influence of mainstream culture were the main causes of crime, those scholars believe that crimes were not only caused by the economic exclusion but culture exclusion as well. (Merton 1938; Matza and Sykes 1961; Messner and Rosenfelf 2000; Hall et al 2008). Miller (1958) argues that the root of the crime is the lower class culture, the young people who in the lower class (working class) commit crimes.
He challenges those theories that looked at crime in simplex way, but he open to there are many other factors influence the lower class culture. Tradition criminological theories which argue the cause of crime are physiological, psychodynamic and environmental; he taken them into consideration that delinquency was not one dimensional. However, Miller fails to take economic factor into account; Anderson (2000) filled in the gap with idea of “code of the street”. Anderson looked into the inner city African American community where consider is the ghetto poor area. He claims that economic exclusion, institutionalised racism and distrust of criminal justice system lead young people into delinquency. Therefore, I will suggest that Miller’s idea of lower class culture is the cause of crime is an important idea, but it need to combine work of Anderson to address other social factors
better.

Differ from many other theories, Miller and Anderson both wrote their paper based on the first-hand experience not just theoretical assumptions.
Miller made his conclusion by using the ethnographic work; he explains delinquency is all about young people conforming to peer-group norms among lower class youth. These young people who engaged in crime or risk taking behaviours were aiming to get confirmation from their peer group. Moreover, Miller linked the female based household with youth delinquency. Female based household is a common phenomenon among lower class; the absent of masculine social figure leads youth feels more comfortable within one-sex peer group. Miller believed this lower class culture have been remain for centuries and had its own integrity (1958, p.19). Anderson built on Miller’s statement and he did research on African American community in the inner city US. The livelihood in ghetto poor in his opinion was more than lower class culture can explain. Code of street verse code of decency was his main argument. He sees lower class culture as code of the street and this code is important when for people live in inner city. Not every family live in the inner city are criminals; many family follow the mainstream culture which is the code of decency – hard working and plan for the future, the parents sacrifice for their children. However, code of street is the norm and is the key for children to survive. Since the hard working parents or street oriented
parent, children spend a lot of time on the street where they interact with each other and developing their norms.

In Anderson’s paper, he clarified the difference between children from different “coded” family. Once those children become teenagers or they start schooling, other aspects start to kick in. those teens no longer only influence by their family but the peers, teachers and others. Anderson suggests they made “freedom” to choose either way. Nevertheless, the freedom is not that free, “younger children witness the disputes of older children …… the victor is the person who physically won the altercation and this person often enjoys the esteem and respect of onlookers” (Anderson 2000, p.307). Respect is the key in code of the street, but this respect often hard to win and easy lost. Youth often use their appearance to guard their respect; the problem is that, these appearances were the main factor for police to identity who is criminal. Police constantly targeting lead to police became a figure of “white society” among inner city area. People from this neighbourhood felt they are distanced from the rest of US. The racial discrimination and lack of opportunity in the poor black community buried bitterness and anger in most desperate young people which caused them lack of patience with anyone irritate them (Anderson 2000). There is little faith on the system “if mainstream society has done nothing for them, they counter by making sure it can do nothing to them” (Anderson 2000, p.311).