SY3 Subcultural

Understood that males adopt 5 focal concerns: Toughness, Smartness, Excitement, Fate & Autonomy

A way of life, not a reaction to poverty.
He also believes that this lower class group has for centuries possessed their own culture and traditions which are totally different from those in the higher classes.

that delinquency is a collective rather than an individual response to status frustration and their position in the class structure; this would explain the activity of gangs and violent groups.

Crimes including joy riding and vandalism are crime that requires no real reason to be committed, unlike murder- a crime that can be provoked.

His analysis ignores working class delinquent girls altogether.
Box questions Cohen’s assumption that working class boys originally subscribe to mainstream goals and values (what about underclass culture?)

Illegitimate Opportunity Structure:
Criminal, Conflict and Retreatist Subcultures

Ideas are based on 1920s Chicago gangs (outdated)
Retreatist subculture is popular in the middle and upperclass (although seems working class)

argues that crime is a cultural phenomenon – among particular groups that share deviant norms and values. He focuses on the underclass.
does not accept the idea that the underclass shares the same morals and values as the rest of mainstream society.

demonises single mothers and the underclass stating that they bring up their children to be criminal and deviant.
Not everyone on benefits is persistently welfare dependent – most go out and find employment.

Critiques the whole of the subcultural theory: brings in an element of the action approach, which focuses on the way behaviour is adaptable and flexible and involves dimensions of choice and free will