sub cultural crime and deviance
Question:
Using material from item A and elsewhere, assess the usefulness of Subcultural theories in explaining ‘Subcultural crime and deviance’ in society today.
Subcultural crime and deviance refers to the violation of laws or social norms by various different groups within society. These groups have been studied by sociologists who have attempted to explain subcultural crime and deviance through the existence of deviant subcultures.
There are many different theorists who have researched into subcultural crimes in order to explain subcultural crime and deviance in today’s society. Some of these sociologists include Cohen; Cloward and Ohlin; Miller; Matza and Cohen.
The first strain theory was developed by the functionalist Robert K Merton who adapted Durkheim’s concept of anomie (normlesness) to explain deviance. According to Merton’s Strain theory, individuals in society have shared goals and there is a strain between society’s goals and an acceptable means of achieving them. As said by Merton, some people commit crime because they are poor/working class people and cannot achieve the American dream. He argues that the American Dream places greater emphasis on material success, especially in western societies where we are socialised to base our lives around materialistic things and in order to achieve these things (such as a nice car or a big house), there are institutionalised means of achieving these goals e.g. education. He says different people in society can respond differently to successful goals and these are: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. This is one useful explanation of explaining subcultural crime and deviance. However it can be argued that some members of society such as the underclass may not share these common goals as the rest of society. Also, it only accounts for utilitarian crime for monetary gain, and not crimes of violence, vandalism etc. S
Subcultural theories can be seen to be quite useful to explain
Using material from item A and elsewhere, assess the usefulness of Subcultural theories in explaining ‘Subcultural crime and deviance’ in society today.
Subcultural crime and deviance refers to the violation of laws or social norms by various different groups within society. These groups have been studied by sociologists who have attempted to explain subcultural crime and deviance through the existence of deviant subcultures.
There are many different theorists who have researched into subcultural crimes in order to explain subcultural crime and deviance in today’s society. Some of these sociologists include Cohen; Cloward and Ohlin; Miller; Matza and Cohen.
The first strain theory was developed by the functionalist Robert K Merton who adapted Durkheim’s concept of anomie (normlesness) to explain deviance. According to Merton’s Strain theory, individuals in society have shared goals and there is a strain between society’s goals and an acceptable means of achieving them. As said by Merton, some people commit crime because they are poor/working class people and cannot achieve the American dream. He argues that the American Dream places greater emphasis on material success, especially in western societies where we are socialised to base our lives around materialistic things and in order to achieve these things (such as a nice car or a big house), there are institutionalised means of achieving these goals e.g. education. He says different people in society can respond differently to successful goals and these are: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism and rebellion. This is one useful explanation of explaining subcultural crime and deviance. However it can be argued that some members of society such as the underclass may not share these common goals as the rest of society. Also, it only accounts for utilitarian crime for monetary gain, and not crimes of violence, vandalism etc. S
Subcultural theories can be seen to be quite useful to explain