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Chapter 6 Social Structural Theories

© Susan Ragan/AP Photo

On June 15, 1975, 12-year-old Kody Scott graduated from elementary school in Los Angeles. During the ceremony, his thoughts were on “the hood” and his one ambition in life, which was to join the Eight Tray Crips, become a “ghetto star,” and major in murder, robbery, and general mayhem. He went straight from the graduation to his initiation into the gang, which involved taking part in the gunning down of 15 members of a rival faction of L.A.’s other notorious gang, the Bloods. Two years later, during a robbery in which the victim tried to run, Kody beat and stomped the man into a coma. A police officer at the scene said that “whoever did this is a monster,” a name Kody proudly took as his street moniker. “Monster” did time in juvenile detention and then served several prison terms. During one of these terms, he converted to Afrocentric Islam and changed his name to Sanyika Shakur. He also wrote Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, which provides a frightening portrayal of the violence of ghetto life. Shakur was paroled in 1995; returned to prison on parole violations in 1996, 1997, and 1998; and again was incarcerated for a shooting in 2000. Paroled again sometime later, he was rearrested in 2004 for “battery with great bodily harm” and again sent to prison. After being paroled for this offense, he was arrested in 2008 for carjacking and robbery and sentenced to 6 years and was paroled (yet again!) in 2012.

Shakur was allegedly the illegitimate son of an ex-football player named Dick Bass. His mother subsequently married another man and had four more children. She divorced their father when Shakur was 6 years old and had to raise the children alone. Shakur was mistreated by his stepfather and never included in family outings. He spent almost all his childhood on the wild and chaotic streets, which he says was the only thing that really interested him. As you read this chapter about disorganized neighborhoods, blocked opportunities to legitimate success, and values, try to imagine Shakur at the center of it all and how these things may have shaped his life.

Learning Objectives ❖ Understand the basic premise of the social structural tradition ❖ Be able to explain the assumptions of human ecology theory, its major finding, and criticisms aimed at it ❖ Describe the evolution of the anomie tradition and how the various versions differ ❖ Understand how many of these theories, while remaining structural, implicitly appeal to psychological constructs ❖ Know the basic ideas of subcultural theories—how they form and how the status concerns of young males are met in those subcultures ❖ Explain why gangs are formed, what their function is, and how they relate to social structure

The Social Structural Tradition

Social structure: How society is organized by social institutions—the family and educational, religious, economic, and political institutions— and stratified on the basis of various roles and statuses.

Consensus or functionalist perspective: A view of society as a system of mutually sustaining parts and characterized by broad normative consensus.

Almost all sociological theories of crime touch on social structure to some degree. Social structure is the framework of social institutions—the family and educational, religious, economic, and political institutions that operate to structure the patterns of relationships members of a society have with one another. Structural theorists maintain that wholes (e.g., societies, institutions, groups) are greater than the sums of their parts and that these wholes are real and enjoy an existence of their own separate from their individual members. Although groups cannot exist apart from the individuals who comprise them, once formed they take on an existence independent of any one individual. Structural theorists work from assumptions made from general models of society and deduce everyday experiences of individuals from those models. Their philosophy is summed up in Quetelet’s proposition as stated in Chapter 4: “Society prepares the crime, and the guilty are only the instruments by which it is accomplished.” They are thus interested in seeking the social structural causes of crime rather than why particular individuals commit crimes.

Structural criminologists tend to assume that human nature is socially constructed, an unconstrained vision position that avers that all human traits and characteristics are specific to local cultures. This is in opposition to the constrained vision that maintains that there is a human nature common to all cultures, although cultures determine the form of its expression (Mallon, 2007). Given the socially constructed assumption, the task of structural criminologists is to discover why good social animals commit antisocial acts. If human nature is socially constructed, the presence of criminals reflects defective social practices such as poverty, competitiveness, inequality, and discrimination rather than defective human materials such as impulsiveness and lacking in empathy.

Broadly speaking, structural theorists follow one of two general models of society—the consensus perspective or the conflict perspective. This chapter examines the consensus perspective (sometimes known as the functionalist perspective), which views society as a system of mutually sustaining parts characterized by broad normative consensus. Functionalists often draw analogies with the physical body comprising specialized parts (heart, lungs, brains, kidneys, etc.) that function in unison to keep the whole body healthy. When any one of these parts malfunctions, all the other parts, and thus the whole body, are negatively affected. Likewise, because social institutions are also integrated parts of a larger whole (the social body), a change in any part affects the proper functioning of the entire social system. Anything that threatens that normative consensus is dysfunctional and therefore undesirable. Consensus theorists are aware that conflicts between individuals and groups with different interests occur. However, they believe these conflicts can be patched up by a mostly neutral legal system that all parties are said to respect. The legal system functions as society’s “immune system” protecting the other social institutions from harm. Law is said to reflect society’s deeply held values and is deemed legitimate by almost all segments of society.

The Chicago School of Ecology The first criminological theory to be developed in the United States was human ecology, developed at the University of Chicago during the 1920s and 1930s primarily through the works of Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay (1972). The Chicago school borrowed heavily from biological ecology with the intent of “achieving a thorough-going natural science treatment of human behavior” (Hawley, 1944, p. 400). Ecology is a biological term describing the interrelationships of plants and animals and their environment—how each affects and is affected by the other. Long-term occupation of a particular ecological niche implies a high level of adaptation to the point that the niche becomes a “natural area” for the organisms occupying it. Sometimes non-native species may invade these niches and come to dominate them, even driving the former species to extinction. Anyone living in the southeastern United States is familiar with the huge problems caused by an alien plant introduced from Japan called kudzu. Kudzu is a fast-growing weed that outcompetes all native flora by growing around them, blocking their sunlight, siphoning off their moisture, and eventually suffocating them. This biological process of invasion, dominance, and succession, describing the course of occupation of ecological niches by species of plant or animal life previously occupied by other species, was borrowed whole and imported into human ecology.

Human ecology: Describes the interrelations of human beings and the environments in which they live and views the city as a kind of superorganism with areas differentially adaptive for different ethnic groups.

Social ecology: Term used by the Chicago school to describe the interrelations of human beings and the communities in which they live.

Transition zone: An area or neighborhood in the process of being “invaded” by members of “alien” racial or ethnic groups bringing with them values and practices that conflict with those established by the “natural” inhabitants of the area.

Social disorganization: The central concept of the Chicago school of social ecology. It refers to the breakdown or serious dilution of the power of informal community rules to regulate conduct in poor neighborhoods.

Human ecology describes the interrelations of humans and the environments in which they live and views the city as a kind of superorganism with areas differentially adaptive for different ethnic groups (e.g., Little Italy, Chinatown). When natural areas are invaded by alien ethnic groups, large increases in deviant behavior ensue. In their analysis of Cook County Juvenile Court records spanning the years from 1900 to 1933, Shaw and McKay (1972) noted that the majority of delinquents always came from the same neighborhoods. This suggested the existence of natural areas that facilitated crime and delinquency independent of other factors. Their findings also increased confidence among sociologists in their assertion that the environment was more important than ethnic group or individual differences in explaining criminal behavior. It was not claimed that residential areas “caused” crime; rather, it was claimed that crime was heavily concentrated in certain neighborhoods regardless of the ethnic identities of their residents.

Previous research in social ecology characterized the spatial patterns of U.S. cities as radiating outward from central business and industrial areas in a series of concentric circles or ecological zones. As shown in Figure 6.1, Zone I was the Loop area of Chicago and Zone II was the factory zone around which earlier Chicago residents had built their homes but was then inhabited by the poorest residents. This was the so- called transition zone where social changes leading to delinquency mostly occurred. This zone was inhabited by native and foreign immigrants because the cheapest rents were there. In response to increasing factory expansion, some Zone II residents invaded Zone III, the zone of working-class homes, making this zone less desirable, and those who could afford to do so moved out. Successive waves of immigrants invaded and occupied these old inner-city neighborhoods, just as they had in the British cities studied by Mayhew and Fletcher during the 1800s, discussed in Chapter 4. This process had a rippling effect, like a stone dropped in a river. Successive waves of newcomers to the poorest neighborhoods precipitate constant movement from zone to zone as more established groups seek to escape the intrusion of the newcomers. Urban decay and crime are consequences of this population movement. Note that delinquency rates decreased linearly from 9.8 incidents per 100 juveniles in the poorest zone (the inner semicircle in Figure 6.1) to 1.8 per 100 in the most affluent zone (the outer semicircle).

Figure 6.1 Zone Map of Male Delinquents in Chicago, 1925 to 1933

Source: Shaw and McKay, 1972, p. 69. Copyright © by the University of Chicago Press. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.

Social Disorganization The decline in crime and delinquency that occurred from the inner city outward was not in itself theoretically significant or useful. What Shaw and McKay needed was a mechanism that explained it. That mechanism was social disorganization, by which they meant the breakdown of the power of informal community norms regulating conduct. Social disorganization is created by the continuous redistribution of neighborhood populations, bringing with them a wide variety of cultural traditions sometimes at odds with traditional American middle-class norms of behavior. Neighborhoods invaded by members of alien racial or ethnic groups became rife with conflicting values and conduct norms and lost their sense of community. The movie Gran Torino, starring Clint Eastwood, highlights the alienation felt by Eastwood’s character as his neighborhood, formerly populated by white working-class families, became populated by Asian immigrants.

In the largest study of the effects of diversity on a neighborhood, Robert Putman (2007) used the Social Capital Benchmark Survey of close to 30,000 interviews in 41 locations across the United States. His concern was the effects of racial and ethnic diversity on social capital, which refers to the web of social networks that connect people and breed norms of reciprocity, trustworthiness, and sense of belonging. Putman showed that diversity can have a devastating effect on communities by reducing social capital and thus the kind of informal social controls that prevent criminal activity. He concluded that the greater the diversity, the greater the distrust, not only of strangers but also of one’s own ethnic or racial group. In high-diversity locations only about 30% of respondents said they trusted their neighbors “a lot,” whereas in homogeneous areas of the country 70% to 80% said they trusted their neighbors “a lot.” Putman concludes that

Social capital: The store of positive relationships in social networks built on norms of reciprocity and trust developed over time upon which the individual can draw for support.

inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors regardless of the colour of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more but have less faith they can actually make a difference. (p. 151)

Social disorganization impacts crime and delinquency in two ways. First, the lack of informal social controls within neighborhoods facilitates crime by failing to inhibit it. Second, in the absence of prosocial values, a set of values supporting antisocial behavior is likely to develop to fill the vacuum. Slum youths thus have both negative and positive inducements to crime and delinquency, represented by the absence of social controls and the presence of delinquent values, respectively. These conditions are transmitted across generations until they become intrinsic properties of the neighborhood. Figure 6.2 is a diagrammatic presentation of the theory.

Figure 6.2 Diagrammatic Presentation of Social Disorganization Theory

Shaw and McKay worked under the assumption that effective neighborhoods were characterized by warm emotional bonds based on shared ethnicity and values and that social control was born from this shared intimacy. Although rooted in the social disorganization approach, Robert Sampson (2004) updated the notion of neighborhood control of crime without reference to the narrow focus of traditional ethnicity-based emotional ties with his concept of collective efficacy.

Collective efficacy is the shared power of a group of connected and engaged individuals to influence the maintenance of public order. Modern neighborhoods exercise social control based on shared rational goals using shared expectations that others can be counted on to take action to prevent crime (neighborhood watches, voluntary associations, demand for police services, etc.). As we would expect from individuals bonded by shared interests rather than shared ethnic ties, neighborhood collective efficacy is dynamic and task specific rather than static and generalized. A study by Sampson, Raudenbush, and Earls (1997) surveyed individuals, rather than looking only at census data as Shaw and McKay had done, and found that collective efficacy had a positive impact on crime rates in Chicago. We should note that the same things that predict the loss of collective efficacy—concentrated poverty, lack of home ownership, rundown buildings, family disruptions, and so on—are the things that predict social disorganization. These factors accounted for 70% of the variance in collective efficacy among the 343 neighborhood clusters examined. Thus it would seem that, like deterrence, collective efficacy works the least where it is needed the most.

Collective efficacy: The shared power of a group of connected and engaged individuals to influence an outcome the collective deems desirable.

Evaluation of Social Ecology/Social Disorganization Theory Shaw and McKay’s theory points out that crime is concentrated in socially disorganized areas inhabited by economically deprived people. But causal direction has always been a problem. Are neighborhoods run down and criminogenic because people with personal characteristics conducive to both crime and poverty populate them, or do neighborhoods somehow “cause” crime independent of the characteristics of people living there? After all, when formerly blighted areas become “gentrified” and middle-class people move in, the neighborhood is no longer “criminogenic.” Some theorists argue that ecological factors have no independent effect on crime once the human composition of areas is taken into consideration. Others argue the opposite, while still others argue that people and places are equally important in explaining crime.

The “people versus places” argument was best stated by Ruth Kornhauser’s (1978) question, “How do we know that area differences in delinquency rates result from the aggregated characteristics of communities rather than the characteristics of individuals selectively aggregated into communities?” (p. 104). In other words, do neighborhoods make people or do people make neighborhoods? Obviously, choices people make are often constrained by factors beyond their power to control, but people must bear some responsibility for the state of their environments. The people versus places issue has been well researched, with the overall conclusion being that neighborhoods do have effects independent of individual differences, although individual differences matter more (Webster, MacDonald, & Simpson, 2006; Wright, 2009).

Related to this issue, Osgood and Chambers’s (2003) large study of social disorganization theory in rural settings also traced social disorganization to high population turnover and ethnic diversity but identified high rates of female-headed households as the most important factor in explaining crime rates. The most notable finding of the study was that “a 10 percent increase in female-headed households was associated with a 73 to 100 percent higher rate of arrest for all offenses except homicide [a 10% increase in female-headed households was associated with a 33% increase in homicide]” (p. 6). Another study looking at both neighborhood and individual influence on crime (Wikstrom & Loeber, 2000) concluded that neighborhood effects were related to delinquency only for boys who began committing delinquent acts during adolescence and that boys who began prior to adolescence were equally delinquent across all 90 of the Pittsburgh neighborhoods they studied.

Ecological theory cannot account for why the majority of people in disorganized neighborhoods do not commit serious crimes or why among those who do a very small minority commits the majority of them. The concept of ecological fallacy states that we cannot make inferences about individuals and groups on the basis of information derived from the larger population of which they are a part. Even Shaw and McKay (1972) showed that Asians and Jews living in high-crime areas had very low crime rates. To find high crime rates in a neighborhood with a large Asian population and then to assume that Asians commit crimes at a rate matching the neighborhood rate is an example of the ecological fallacy. Low Asian crime rates in high-crime neighborhoods also suggested that the rejection of group and individual differences as explanations for crime and delinquency was premature.

Ecological fallacy: The process of making inferences about individuals and groups on the basis of information derived from a larger population of which they are a

part.

Anomie: A term meaning “lacking in rules” or “normlessness” used by Durkheim to describe a condition of normative deregulation in society.

Mechanical solidarity: A form of social solidarity existing in small, isolated, prestate societies in which individuals sharing common experiences and circumstances share common values and develop strong emotional ties to the collectivity.

Organic solidarity: A form of social solidarity characteristic of modern societies in which there is a high degree of occupational specialization and weak normative consensus.

The Anomie/Strain Tradition

Émile Durkheim’s Concept of Anomie French sociologist Émile Durkheim provided criminology with one of its most revered and enduring concepts—anomie. Anomie is a term meaning “lacking in norms.” Of course, no society can lack norms and be a society; what is really meant by anomie is a breakdown or weakening of existing norms. Norms can be weakened if there is an abundance of contradictory norms, a situation that exists when people with different backgrounds live side by side, as we saw in the discussion of human ecology. Durkheim was greatly concerned with social solidarity and the threat posed to it by social change.

Durkheim distinguished between mechanical and organic solidarity. Mechanical solidarity exists in small prestate societies where individuals share common experiences and circumstances and thus common values and strong emotional ties to the collectivity. This is basically the same idea at the societal level that Shaw and McKay emphasized at the neighborhood level. Under these circumstances informal social controls are strong and antisocial behavior is minimal. Organic solidarity is characteristic of modern societies with high degrees of occupational specialization and diversity of experiences and circumstances. This diversity weakens common values and social bonds, and antisocial behavior grows.

Durkheim argued that because crime is found at all times and in all societies, it is a normal and inevitable social phenomenon and even socially useful (functional) in that it serves to identify the limits of acceptable behavior. Too much repression of deviant behavior would lead to a pathological conformity that would stifle creativity, progress, and personal freedom. Crime is one of the prices we pay for personal freedom and social progress. Durkheim (1982) even asserted that when crime drops significantly below average levels (such as during wartime), it is sign that something is wrong.

Although Durkheim (1982) believed that crime was “a normal phenomenon of normal sociology,” he did not imply that the criminal “is an individual normally constituted from the biological and psychological points of view” (pp. 106–107). He also asserted that in any society there are always individuals who “diverge to some extent from the collective type,” and among them is the “criminal character” (p. 101). Durkheim thus left room for psychologists and biologists to get into the criminology game.

Durkheim (1951) also set the stage for later extensions of anomie theory by addressing “strains” when he wrote that although humans are similar in their “essential qualities, one sort of hereditary will always exist, that of natural talent” (p. 251). The crux of the crime problem at the individual level is that “human activity naturally aspires beyond assignable limits and sets itself unattainable goals” (p. 247). When people get less than they expect, they are ripe for criminal behavior.

Robert Merton’s Extension of Anomie Theory Robert Merton (1938) expanded anomie theory, based on agreement with Durkheim that the inability to attain resources legitimately generates unhappiness (strain) and sometimes leads to efforts to obtain them illegitimately, to develop his strain theory. Whereas social disorganization theory assumes that the rejection of conventional middle-class values via the intergenerational transmission of deviant values was productive of crime, Merton argued that it was the acceptance of middle-class values that generated crime by placing too much emphasis on financial success. The central feature of Merton’s theory is that American culture defines monetary success (the “American Dream”) as the predominant cultural goal for which all its citizens should aspire while at the same time American social structure restricts access to legitimate means of attaining it to certain segments of the population. The disjunction between cultural goals and the structural impediments to achieving them is the anomic gap in which crime is bred.

Strain theory: The inability to attain resources legitimately generates unhappiness (strain) and sometimes leads to efforts to obtain them illegitimately.

There are a number of differences between Durkheim and Merton on the notion of anomie. Durkheim had a constrained naturalistic view of human nature, whereas Merton had a social structuralist view. This difference led Durkheim to see society as the “good guy” preventing the natural greedy impulses of individuals from using criminal means to obtain resources. Merton’s unconstrained vision, however, led him to view society (at least capitalist society) as a negative force that motivated such behavior. Rather than anomie being an occasional condition arising during periods of rapid social change as Durkheim saw it, Merton viewed it as a permanent condition of society caused by the disjunction

between goals and opportunities. For Merton, crime is woven into the fabric of American society because it arises from conformity to American values—a way disadvantaged people get what they have been taught to want—not from deviation from its values due to weakening of social bonds. For Durkheim, the freeing of natural greed, acquisitiveness, egoism, deviance, and crime are consequences of anomie; for Merton, they are socially constructed traits that are the causes of anomie (Passas, 1995).

Photo 6.1 Strain theories presume that low-income citizens envy the rich, but because they lack the means to become productive, they often turn to crime as an alternative pathway. These brand-new condos were built by tearing down some of the neighboring high-rise slum buildings in the Cabrini–Green public housing complex in Chicago. Police patrol the streets that separate the new housing, unaffordable to the ghetto residents, making sure that the new condos are safe from burglaries and robberies.

Cecil Greek

Conformity: The most common of Merton’s modes of adaptation; i.e., the acceptance of cultural goals and the legitimate means of obtaining them.

Modes of adaptation: Robert Merton’s concept of how people adapt to the alleged disjunction between cultural goals and structural barriers to the means of obtaining them. These modes are conformity, ritualism, retreatism, innovation, and rebellion.

Merton identified five modes of adaptation people adopt in response to this societal pressure, all of which, with the exception of conformity, are deviant.

1. Conformity is the most common mode of adaptation because most people have the means of legally attaining cultural goals at their disposal. Conformists accept the success goals of American society and the prescribed means of attaining them (e.g., hard work, education, persistence, dedication).

2. Ritualism is the adaptation of the “9-to-5” slugger who has given up on ever achieving material success but who nevertheless continues to work within legitimate boundaries because he or she accepts the legitimacy of the opportunity structure.

3. Innovation is the mode of adaptation most associated with crime. For Merton, crime is an innovative avenue to success—a method by which deprived people (the not-so-deprived also) get what they have been taught by their culture to want.

4. Retreatism is adopted by those who reject both the cultural goals and the institutionalized means of attaining them. Retreatists drop out of society and often take refuge in drugs, alcohol, and transience and are frequently in trouble with the law.

5. Rebellion is the adaptation of those who reject both the goals and means of American society but wish to substitute alternative legitimate goals and alternative legitimate means. Rebels may be committed to some alternative political system such as socialism, which was Merton’s preference. The cultural and structural context and the modes of adaptation to it are illustrated diagrammatically in Figure 6.3.

Figure 6.3 Diagrammatic Presentation of Anomie/Strain Theory

Merton never systematically explored why certain individuals took on one adaptation rather than another. In a sense, his theory of crime is about the envy and resentment his innovators feel about being left out of the American Dream. The power of relative deprivation is often accompanied by negative self-feelings, which in turn may motivate adoption of deviant coping patterns (Stiles, Liu, & Kaplan, 2000). Whatever the route to one adaptation or the other may be, Merton’s anomie strain theory has generated a great deal of interest and theoretical extension over the decades.

Institutional Anomie Theory

Institutional anomie theory: Messner and Rosenfeld’s extension of anomie theory avering that high crime rates are intrinsic to the structural and cultural arrangements of American society.

Decommodification: The process of freeing social relationships from economic considerations.

General strain theory: Agnew’s extension of anomie theory into the realm of social psychology stressing multiple sources of strain and how people cope with it.

Institutional anomie theory (IAT) extends anomie theory and claims that “high crime rates are intrinsic to American society: in short, at all social levels America is organized for crime” (Messner & Rosenfeld, 2001, p. 5, emphasis added). Messner and Rosenfeld (2001) show that inequality in the United States is not an aberration of the American Dream but rather an expression of it: “A competitive allocation of monetary rewards requires both winners and losers, and winning and losing have meaning only when rewards are distributed unequally” (p. 9). From this position a meritocracy (a society in which the greatest rewards go to those who merit them most by virtue of their talents and efforts) is both criminogenic and unfair. Sawhill and Morton (2007) also question the fairness of the American meritocracy when they write, “People are born with different genetic endowments and are raised in different families over which they have no control, raising fundamental questions about the fairness of even a perfectly functioning meritocracy” (p. 4).

IAT posits that the root of the problem is the subjugation of all other social institutions to the economy in the United States. American culture devalues the noneconomic function and roles of other social institutions and obliges them to accommodate themselves to economic requirements. Messner and Rosenfeld claim that a great deal of the focus of the family, religion, education, law, and government is brought to bear on instilling in Americans the beliefs and values of the marketplace to the detriment of the institution-specific beliefs and values they are supposed to inculcate. The dominance of the economy thus disrupts and devalues the prosocial functioning of the other institutions and substitutes an overweening concern for the pursuit of monetary rewards that, in common with Merton, IAT sees as profoundly criminogenic.

Messner and Rosenfeld’s plan to reduce crime is called decommodification. Commodification means the transformation of social relationships formerly untainted by economic considerations into commodities. Thus decommodification refers to policies intended to free social relationships from economic considerations by freeing the other social institutions from the domination of the economy. For instance, few people complain about finding time for their jobs as opposed to finding time for their families, and how many students go to college “to get a job” rather than for the love of learning? Freeing people from economic domination would allow individuals to construct their lives unconstrained by market considerations. According to IAT, this would reduce what they see as cutthroat competition, which in return would reduce crime.

Robert Agnew’s General Strain Theory Robert Agnew has made several attempts to fine-tune and reformulate strain theory, culminating in his general strain theory. Agnew identifies several other sources of strain besides the disjunction between expectations and actual achievements. Strain can also result from the removal of positive stimuli (Agnew uses the word stimuli to cover both physical and abstract things) such as the loss of a boyfriend or girlfriend or a job. These problems may induce delinquency or crime via efforts to prevent or regain the loss via illegal means or to gain revenge on those deemed responsible for the loss. Strain also arises from the presentation of negative stimuli such as child abuse or neglect and negative school experiences. These can lead to delinquency and crime via efforts to escape negative stimuli by running away from home and truancy.

We all experience multiple strains throughout our lives, but the impact of strain differs according to its magnitude, recency, duration, and clustering (miseries that cluster together produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts and may overwhelm coping resources). Agnew (2002) tells us that strain can result in crime and delinquency through the development of a generally negative attitude about other people: “Repeated or chronic strain may lead to a hostile attitude—a general dislike and suspicion of others and an associated tendency to respond in an aggressive manner” (p. 119). Thus Agnew views crime and delinquency as primarily the result of negative emotions that arise from strains, particularly from negative relationships with others, and not only from Merton’s blocked opportunities to financial success. The negative emotion most involved in crime is anger. Agnew asserts that people are most likely to react with anger when they blame their negative situations or relationships on others, and this anger leads to a desire for revenge.

One of the most positive aspects of general strain theory is Broidy and Agnew’s (1997) discussion of gender differences in the experiencing of negative emotions. Broidy and Agnew argue that females experience more strain in their lives than males but also commit much less crime, and they wanted to explore why. They find that males and females are burdened with different concerns and respond differently emotionally to failures to deal with these concerns satisfactorily. Whereas males are more concerned with material success, females are more concerned with maintaining close relationships with others. Unfulfilled male concerns can thus lead to property crimes to fulfill them, but female concerns cannot be fulfilled by crime. Broidy and Agnew also find that while males are more likely to respond to strain with anger, females are more likely to respond with both depression and anger. Unlike male anger, female anger is likely to be accompanied by fear, guilt, and shame, and females are more likely to blame themselves for their anger. Male anger is accompanied by moral outrage and placing the blame on others, and males are less concerned about hurting others. Broidy and Agnew claim that general strain theory is able to explain a lot about gender differences in criminal behavior.

Although Agnew added much to the understanding of crime from a strain perspective, his greatest contribution is to remind us that the most

important factor is not strain per se but how one copes with it. Although no one is happy when strained and may curse and throw things, few of us cope with it by committing crimes. How we cope with strain depends on things such as the level of social support we enjoy; the number, frequency, duration, and intensity of the strain-inducing circumstances we face; and what kind of person we are. According to Agnew (2002), the individual traits that differentiate people who cope poorly with strain from others who cope well include “temperament, intelligence, creativity, problem-solving skills, interpersonal skills, self-efficacy, and self-esteem.” He goes on to say that “these traits affect the selection of coping strategies by influencing the individual’s sensitivity to objective strains and the ability to engage in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral coping” (p. 123).

Thus crime is more likely when individuals have the personality traits leading them to low tolerance for strain. Among a large sample of youths, Agnew, Brezina, Wright, and Cullen (2002) found that youths with high levels of negative emotionality (the tendency to react to situations with anger and irritation) and low constraint (low self-control) were more likely than other youths to respond to strain with criminal behavior. Of course, these and the other traits Agnew mentions may also be the traits that move people in one or the other of Merton’s adaptations—negative and impulsive people are not very likely to achieve legitimate financial success. By adding these traits, Agnew has moved the anomie/strain tradition away from its “pure” sociological origins toward a more interdisciplinary future. Indeed, Agnew (2014) has recommended that research focusing on general strain theory should examine the interplay between genes and environment if we are ever to understand the origins of criminal behavior in any comprehensive sense.

Extending Anomie: Subcultural Theories A number of Merton’s former students took Merton’s basic ideas to develop what are known as subcultural theories. Subcultures emerge when a significant number of people feel alienated or are segregated from the larger culture and forge a lifestyle different from the mainstream culture and often at odds with it. Albert Cohen (1955) proposed a subcultural theory explaining how low-income youths adapt to the limited avenues of success open to them. Cohen maintained that most criminal behavior in low-income neighborhoods is not a rational method of acquiring financial assets, as Merton claimed, but rather an expression of short-run hedonism. Short-run hedonism means the actor is seeking immediate gratification of his or her desires without regard for any long-term consequences, just like the anelpis of cultural criminology discussed in the previous chapter. Much delinquent behavior is nonutilitarian, malicious, and negative and turns middle-class norms of behavior upside down (e.g., destroying rather than creating).

Research Snippet: The Strain of Imprisonment Surely, prison is an unpleasant place to be. Of course, a prison sentence is supposed to be a punishment, not a holiday. In prison, an inmate is likely to experience a host of strains as defined by Agnew’s general strain theory. Morris, Carriaga, Diamond, Piquero, and Piquero (2012) examined the relationship between prison strain and prisoner misconduct by analyzing data from prisons in a large southern state. The study found that prison strain was positively associated with prisoner violent misconduct. In short, the more painful the imprisonment, the more likely inmates were to engage in violence. The authors argued that steps should be taken to reduce prison strains for several reasons. For example, prisoner misconduct has also been shown to be associated with recidivism. Misbehaving behind bars increases the likelihood of returning to prison after inmates are released. In addition, corrections officers are often the victims of prison misconduct, and these officers deserve a safe and stable working environment. Prison does not have to be a cozy retreat; however, the evidence suggests that making the prison experience unduly miserable can have undesirable consequences.

Morris, R. Carriaga, M., Diamond, B., Piquero, N., & Piquero, A. (2012). Does prison strain lead to prison misbehavior? An application of general strain theory to inmate misconduct. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40, 194–201.

Because low-income boys cannot adjust to what Cohen calls middle-class measuring rods, they experience a status frustration and spawn an oppositional culture with behavioral norms consciously contrary to those of the middle class. Cohen saw criminal subcultures as a kind of mass reaction formation to the problem of blocked opportunities, although he saw status frustration, not blocked opportunities, as the real problem. Low-income youths desire approval and status (e.g., “juice,” “street cred”) like everyone else, but they seek it via alternate means. To gain status and respect, members of criminal subcultures establish “new norms, new criteria of status which define as meritorious the characteristics they do possess, the kinds of conduct of which they are capable” (Cohen, 1955, p. 66, emphasis in original). These status criteria are most often physical such as being ready and able to respond violently to challenges to one’s manhood or gaining a reputation as a “stud.”

Short-run hedonism: The seeking of immediate gratification of desires without regard for any long-term consequences.

Middle-class measuring rods: According to Cohen, because low-income youths cannot measure up to middle-class standards they experience status frustration, and

this frustration spawns an oppositional culture.

Status frustration: A form of frustration experiences by low-income youth who desire approval and status but who cannot meet middle-class criteria and thus seek status via alternate means.

Opportunity structure theory: An extension of anomie theory claiming that low-income youth join gangs as a path to monetary success.

Another influential extension of strain theory is Cloward and Ohlin’s (1960) opportunity structure theory. Cloward and Ohlin accepted that delinquents and criminals want middle-class financial success but have little interest in its usual indicators, preferring “big cars,” “flashy clothes,” and “swell dames” (p. 96). Their biggest contribution, however, was to point out that just as there are barriers to achieving legitimate success, there are barriers to achieving illegitimate (criminal) success—it takes more than talent and motivation to make it within either the legitimate or illegitimate opportunity structure. To obtain illegitimate opportunities, would-be crooks need a friend, relative, or acquaintance who can show them “the ropes.” Youths born into an established and organized delinquent subculture—the illegitimate “opportunity structure”—have a career advantage over “wannabe” outsiders. Individuals within an illegitimate opportunity structure join criminal gangs. The best example of this type of gang is organized crime gangs such as the Mafia, which has a pool of aspiring “sponsored” recruits.

Cloward and Ohlin identified two other gang types that develop from the frustration in low-income culture: conflict gangs and retreatist gangs. Conflict gangs are generated in slum areas with a high degree of transience and instability as opposed to stable areas with an established illegitimate opportunity structure. Members of these loose-knit gangs commit senseless acts of violence and vandalism, and their efforts to make a living from criminal activity tend to be “individualistic, unorganized, petty, poorly paid and unprotected” (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960, p. 73). Retreatist gang members are more “escapist” in their attitudes than conflict gang members in that almost all of them abuse drugs and/or alcohol. In both conflict and retreatist gangs, the concern is not with remote goals but rather with the immediate gratification of present wants.

Photo 6.2 Members of criminal subcultures seek status and respect through alternate means, placing value on the ability to respond violently to challenges and maintain “street cred.”

© iStockphoto.com/Yuri

Walter Miller’s Focal Concerns Walter Miller’s theory was based on a very large study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and conducted by Miller and seven trained social workers who maintained daily contact with subjects “for a total time period of about thirteen worker years” (Miller, 1958, p. 6). Miller took issue with the idea that gangs are formed as a reaction to status deprivation. Criminals may resent the middle class, but it is not a matter of “If you can’t join ‘em, lick ‘em” because their resentment is born out of envy for what middle-class people have, not for what they are. Middle-class traits such as hard work, stable habits, and responsibility are not appealing to them. Miller asserted that low-income values must be viewed on their own terms and not as simple negations of those of the middle class. He also identified six interrelated focal concerns as part of a value system and lifestyle from the realities of life on the bottom rung of society:

Focal concerns: Miller’s description of the value system and lifestyle of the lowest income classes; they are trouble, toughness, excitement, smartness, fate, and autonomy.

1. Trouble is something to stay out of most of the time, but life is trouble and trouble is something that confers status if it is the right kind (being able to handle oneself).

2. Toughness is very important to the status of low-income males—being strong, brave, macho, sexually aggressive, and unsentimental and “not taking any shit.”

3. Smartness refers to “street smarts”—the ability to survive on the streets using one’s wits. 4. Excitement is the search for fun, often defined in terms of fighting, sexual adventurism, gambling, and getting drunk or stoned. 5. Fate is a belief that the locus of control is external to oneself. 6. Autonomy means personal freedom—being outside the control of authority figures such as teachers, employers, and the police and thus

being able to “do my own thing.”

The hard-core low-income lifestyle typified by these focal concerns catches those engaged in it in a web of situations that virtually guarantee delinquent and criminal activities. The search for excitement leads to sexual adventures in which little preventative care is taken (fate), and the desire for personal freedom (autonomy) is likely to preclude marriage if pregnancy results. Miller was concerned that many low-income males thus grow up in homes lacking a father or any other significant male role model. This leaves them with little supervision and leads them to seek their male identities in what Miller (1958) called “one-sex peer units” (male gangs) (p. 14).

Miller’s ideas are given strong support by Elijah Anderson’s (1999) ethnographic work in African American neighborhoods in Philadelphia. The concentration of disadvantages in such neighborhoods has spawned a hostile oppositional culture spurning most things valued by middle- class America, as in “rap music that encourages its young listeners to kill cops, to rape, and the like” (p. 107). Anderson points out that although there are many “decent” families in these neighborhoods, the cultural ambiance is set by “street” families, which often makes it necessary for decent people to “code switch” (adopt street values) to survive. Striving for education and upward mobility is viewed as “dissing” the neighborhood, and street people do what they can to prevent their “decent counterparts from … acting white” (p. 65). The street code is primarily a campaign for respect (“juice”) achieved by exaggerated displays of manhood, defined in terms of toughness and sexuality, in a gang context.

Street Gangs Today Street gangs have changed and expanded dramatically since the days of the classical studies of Cohen (1955), Cloward and Ohlin (1960), and Miller (1958), but explanations for their formation remain much the same. That is, gangs are spawned in subcultures where mainstream values are spurned (Anderson, 1999). An accepted definition of a gang is “any transpersonal group of youths that shows a willingness to use deadly force to claim and defend territory, attack rival gangs, extort or rob money, or engage in other criminal behavior as an activity associated with its group, and is recognized by itself and its immediate community as a distinct dangerous entity” (Sanders, 1994, p. 20). Figures from the 2012 National Youth Gang Survey estimated that there were 29,900 gangs and 782,500 gang members in 2011 and that approximately half of all homicides in Chicago and Los Angeles during that year were gang related (National Youth Gang Center [NYGC], 2012).

Gang membership has increased dramatically since theorists such as Cohen were writing during the 1950s and 1960s. The increase has been largely attributed to the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs in the United States (Moore & Hagedorn, 2001, p. 2), a loss that has hit our most vulnerable citizens, the young and the uneducated, hardest. As cultural criminologists emphasize, the deindustrialization of America set in motion a chain of events creating a large segment of the population that has become economically marginalized and socially isolated from mainstream culture.

Marginalized and isolated people (mainly African Americans and Hispanics) have become known as the “underclass” or the “truly disadvantaged” (Wilson, 1987, p. 8), and the neighborhoods where they live are fertile soil for the growth of gangs. As shown in Figure 6.4, the NYGC (2012) survey of the racial/ethnic composition of gangs found that 46% were Hispanic, 35% black, 11% white, and 7% “other.” It is estimated that more than 25% of black males aged 15 to 24 in Los Angeles County are members of the nation’s two most notorious youth gangs, the Crips and the Bloods (Shelden, Tracy, & Brown, 2001, p. 28).

Figure 6.4 Race/Ethnicity of Gang Members, 1996 to 2011

Source: National Youth Gang Center, 2012

Why Do Young People Join Gangs? Irving Spergel (1995) writes that “youths join gangs for many reasons: status, security, money, power, excitement, and/or new experiences” (pp. 108–109). Joining a gang has become a survival imperative in some areas where unaffiliated youths are likely to be victimized. Having “homies” watching your back makes you feel safe and secure. Gang membership also provides means of satisfying belongingness needs— having a place in the world among people who care. Gang members often display their belonging through initiation rites, secret gang signals, special clothing, “colors,” and tattoos, all of which shout out loud: “I belong!” “I’m valued!” A youth camp counselor describes this function of gangs well: “The gang serves emotional needs. You feel wanted. You feel welcome. You feel important. And there is discipline and there are rules” (Bing, 1991, p. 12).

Theory in Action: Anthony and Nathaniel Cook and Oppositional Culture From early 1979 to September 1981, Anthony and Nathaniel Cook committed a series of racially motivated vicious murders that would make them the most notorious killers ever in Toledo, Ohio. Although it was later learned that Anthony committed his first murder in 1973, the first known murder as a sibling team began after Anthony was released from prison after serving 6 years for armed robbery. In May 1979, a series of badly beaten bodies were found in culverts, ditches, and car trunks all around Toledo, beginning with the abduction of a courting couple. The male of this couple was shot and killed, and his girlfriend was raped and stabbed but survived. The rampage ended when Anthony was arrested for the shooting death of Peter Sawicki. This murder occurred as Anthony was raping Sawicki’s daughter after he had shot her boyfriend. Sawicki had heard the shot and his daughter’s screams, had tried to intervene, and was killed (his daughter escaped and called the police). Cook was sentenced to life for Sawicki’s murder and the nonfatal shooting of Sawicki’s daughter’s boyfriend, but 17 years went by before DNA evidence revealed the full extent of the Cook brothers’ murderous rampage.

Photo 6.3: Anthony (right) and Nathaniel (left) Cook at sentencing hearing in 2000.

Toledo Blade

Anthony and Nathaniel Cook were born in Mobile, Alabama, in 1949 and 1958, respectively, when the state was highly racially segregated. The family, which included seven other children, migrated to Toledo, but the parents divorced, leaving their unemployed mother to care for their nine children. Anthony became a problem child after the divorce, as did the oldest brother, Hayes Cook II, who was imprisoned for rape. Anthony dropped out of school, soon became streetwise, and was arrested for armed robbery and sent to prison in 1973. Anthony complained that he was ill treated by white guards in prison and often declared that whites were his enemies.

It was shortly after Anthony Cook’s release from prison that Anthony and Nathaniel went on their deadly killing spree, which they supposedly dubbed “honky hunting.” The most heinous murder committed by them was the kidnapping, torture, rape, and murder of 12-year-old Dawn Backes. Anthony was suspected of this murder from the beginning, but the crime was not solved until the district attorney was persuaded to revisit the evidence with new DNA technology in 1998, which identified both Cook brothers as serial killers. The brothers pled guilty to nine murders. Anthony was given additional life sentences, and Nathaniel was sentenced to 20 years.

To what theory can we appeal to explain such evil behavior? The Cooks were certainly raised in adverse family circumstances in socially disorganized neighborhoods, but so were millions of other people who never killed anyone, never mind became serial killers. Neither can we appeal to anomie in Nathaniel’s case since he had a well-paying job as a long-haul truck driver. The murders were clearly racially motivated, so perhaps subcultural opposition to mainstream (white) society animated Anthony, if not Nathaniel, because Nathaniel never committed another major crime after Anthony was sent away for the Sawicki murder. Despite being in prison for armed robbery, and despite having killed 22-year-old Vickie Lynn Small prior to his imprisonment, Anthony Cook considered himself to be the

victim of mistreatment by white guards. He seemed determined to seek revenge for his perceived victimization by engaging in a frenzy of rape and murder of whites.

Discussion Questions

1. Criminological theories seek to offer “rational” explanations for criminal behavior. Is there any rational explanation for the behavior of Anthony Cook found in any of the theories in this chapter or previous chapters?

2. If you had to explain the behavior of Nathaniel Cook (who committed murders only at the instigation of his older brother), what theory, if any, in this chapter would suffice?

3. How would you personally account for the Cook brothers’ behavior?

Sources: Stiles, 2007; Toledo Blade (numerous articles on the case, particularly in 2000)

Social institutions (especially the family and the economy) satisfy most needs for most of us, but in the virtual absence of the influence of these institutions in the lives of those most affected by the economic and demographic transitions of the past few decades, the gang offers an attractive substitute means of achieving these needs. Thus the gang functions for many of its members as family, friendship group, play group, protective agency, educational institution, and employer.

As a structuralist sociologist, Martin Sanchez-Jankowski (2003) wants to focus less on the psychological rewards of gang membership and more on the relationship between the structure of society and the structure of gangs. He argues in the tradition of IAT, stating that the competitive nature of American society requires winners and losers, and gangs are composed of society’s losers. Sanchez-Jankowski also sees gang members in Mertonian fashion as accepting the economic principles of America and seeking economic success within the confines of the limited opportunities they perceive as being available to them.

Evaluation of the Anomie/Strain and Subcultural Tradition

Critical Thinking The use of intoxicating substances is common in our society. The data on substance use also suggest that it is fairly equally prevalent across social strata. This means that men, women, blacks, whites, the poor, and the affluent use substances at approximately equal rates (although the substance vary widely, e.g., crack vs. wine). Does this fact contradict the predictions made by social structure theories regarding substance use? Are social structure theories better suited for more serious types of crime like index crimes? If so, how can social structure theories reconcile the fact that national crime rates continued to decline during the recent recession?

The anomie/strain tradition has had a large impact on theory generation in criminology. Because of the emphasis on monetary success in the United States, Merton’s theory should best explain rational crimes netting perpetrators monetary gain. For instance, Bartol and Bartol (1989) claim that anomie theory’s strength lies in its “ability to explain why utilitarian crimes rates are so high in one society (e.g., the United States) and so low in another (e.g., England)” (p. 110). Ever since the mid-1980s, however, England has had higher rates of utilitarian crimes (e.g., burglary, auto theft) than the United States (van Kesteren, Mayhew, & Nieuwbeerta, 2000). It is nonutilitarian crimes such as murder, rape, and assault that are more common in the United States than in England, which supports Cohen’s contention that much of American low-income crime is emotionally driven, nonutilitarian, and malicious rather than rationally instrumental.

Agnew (1997) points out a potentially fatal flaw in Merton’s anomie/strain theory. A strict interpretation of it should lead us to predict a sharp increase in criminal behavior during late adolescence/early adulthood when many such individuals begin to seriously enter the job market. If there is a disjunction between cultural goals and structural impediments to achieving them, a number of young adults entering the job market will feel its bite for the first time and respond with one of Merton’s deviant adaptations. However, just when the alleged cause of criminal behavior becomes most salient for young people, we observe a significant decrease in antisocial behavior among them rather than an increase (see the discussion of the age–crime curve in Chapter 11).

Another flaw is that Merton never attempts to explain what it is that sorts individuals into his modes of adaptation beyond citing class-based socialization practices. In other words, he is basically saying that social class causes social class, and social class determines the mode of adaptation. Agnew’s general strain theory has attempted to account for the mode adopted by pointing to personality traits that help individuals to deal with strain—which is something we all experience in our lives—constructively rather than destructively, which may also sort people into different social classes (Wright, 2009).

IAT’s claim that the United States’ strong emphasis on competitive meritocracy makes it more anomic than other developed societies is not supported by the available evidence. Using data from the 1981 and 1991 World Values Survey, a massive annual undertaking covering 70% of the world’s population, Cao (2000) found that the United States was well below the total average anomie score of all countries. It was also found that the anomie scores of all Eastern European countries (with economies directly opposite of capitalism until the 1990s), and several

other capitalist countries (e.g., Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Spain), also had higher scores. While one might quibble about the measure of anomie used, the available evidence does not support the contention that the American economic system generates high levels of anomie, which in turn drives the American crime rate.

The subcultural theories look at patterned ways of life in areas whose members set themselves apart and pride themselves in their distinctiveness. It is this patterned way of life that sustains delinquent values and goals. However, a number of theorists have cast doubt as to whether there are distinct low-income subcultures in this sense. It is difficult to imagine that low-income subcultures arose by consciously taking steps to turn middle-class norms on their head, as Cohen’s reaction formation hypothesis supposes. Yet there are areas in our cities where middle-class values are disdained, not because they are defined as middle class but rather because they demand self-control, delayed gratification, and the disciplined application of effort (Anderson, 1999).

Photo 6.4: Crips gang members in Los Angeles flash gang signs. Gangs claim to replace the family cohesiveness the youths might not have at home, whereas symbols such as colors and signs clearly demarcate members from outsiders or rival gangs.

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

Miller’s work was criticized by Tittle (1983), who asked if the middle and upper classes embrace values opposite those with low incomes: Do they “value weakness, stupidity, boredom, and dependency?” (p. 341). This is a strange criticism because Miller (1958) explicitly states that these concerns are not confined to low-income individuals; it is their meaning and the ways they are expressed “that differs both in rank order and weighting” (p. 6). Presumably, we all understand that toughness, excitement, smartness, and autonomy mean vastly different things to middle- and low-income individuals.

As we have seen, Anderson supports Cohen and Miller in his contention that the street code is primarily a campaign for respect (“juice”) achieved by exaggerated displays of manhood, defined in terms of toughness and sexuality. These displays contribute greatly to the high rates of violence and out-of-wedlock births in the kinds of neighborhoods Anderson (and Cohen and Miller before him) describes. If these theorists are correct about the role of fate in low-income life, the whole anomie/strain argument about blocked opportunities may be off-base. If low- income individuals perceive their opportunities in a fatalistic, “live-for-the-moment” way, or spurn them as antithetical to the street code, their visions of reality and the values imparted by their subculture are blocking their legitimate success. Of course, one might argue that fatalism is generated by perceived blocked opportunities as well.

The anomie/strain tradition does not link crime straightforwardly to poverty but sees it having criminogenic effects only when coupled with a competitive culture that ties self-worth to monetary success. This leads us to a major issue in criminology: Does poverty cause crime or does crime cause poverty? Prominent criminologist Robert Sampson (2000) notes that “everyone believes that ‘poverty causes crime’ it seems; in fact, I have heard many a senior sociologist express frustration as to why criminologists would waste time with theories outside the poverty paradigm. The reason we do … is that the facts demand it” (p. 711). Frank Schmalleger (2004) also notes that the underlying assumption of all structural theories is that the “root causes” of crime are poverty and various social injustices. But as he also notes, “Some now argue the inverse of the ‘root causes’ argument, saying that poverty and what appear to be social injustices are produced by crime, rather than the other way around” (p. 223). This is an extremely important question, the answer to which points to opposite policy implications. Of course, neither may cause the other because some third set of variables may cause both crime and poverty.

Policy and Prevention: Implications of Social Structural Theories If social disorganized slum neighborhoods are the “root cause” of crime, what feasible policy strategies might be recommended to public policymakers? One of the first things you might want to suggest would be the strengthening of community life, but how do we go about it? Clifford Shaw began by securing funds for the Chicago Area Project (CAP), which consisted of a number of programs aimed at generating or strengthening a sense of community in neighborhoods with the help and cooperation of schools, churches, recreational clubs, trade unions, and businesses. Athletic leagues, various kinds of clubs, summer camps, and many other activities were formed to busy the idle hands of the young. “Street corner” counselors were hired to offer advice to youths and to mediate with the police on their behalf when they got into trouble. Neighborhood residents were encouraged to form committees to resolve neighborhood problems.

Chicago Area Project: A project designed by Clifford Shaw to “treat” communities from which most delinquents came.

Despite the money and energy invested in CAP from 1932 to 1957, its effects were never evaluated in any systematic way. Similar programs in other cities had a number of positive outcomes, but their impact on crime and delinquency rates was negligible. Writing about the overall impact of CAP-type programs, Rosenbaum, Lurigio, and Davis (1998) concluded that there were “few positive program effects. The local programs did not affect official crime rates and in some cases were associated with adverse change in survey-based victimization rates” (p. 214).

Table 6.1 summarizes the key concepts of each of the theories presented in this chapter as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

The ideas of anomie/strain theory had tremendous impact on public policy via President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. The reasoning was that since crime is perceived as an activity engaged in mostly by the poor, fewer poor people would mean fewer crimes. The poverty rate fell, but the expected bonus of crime reduction did not materialize. As many billions of tax dollars were spent on antipoverty programs during the three decades separating 1963 and 1993, crime rates soared. Specifically, as the poverty rate in the United States decreased by about 23%, we

saw an overall increase in the crime rate of approximately 350% (Walsh & Ellis, 2007).

If crime is caused by a disjunction between cultural values emphasizing success for all and a social structure denying access to legitimate means of achieving it to some, rather than poverty per se, the cure for crime is to increase opportunities or dampen aspirations. The latter option is not unacceptable to policymakers of either the right or the left, so we are left with the task of trying to increase opportunities. Following in the footsteps of CAP, Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin developed a delinquency prevention project known as Mobilization for Youth (MFY), which concentrated on expanding legitimate opportunities for disadvantaged youths via a number of educational, training and job placement programs. MFY programs received generous private, state, and federal funds and served as models for such federal programs as Head Start, the Job Corps, the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA), and affirmative action (LaFree, Drass, & O’Day, 1992).

Some unknown number of people were diverted from a life of crime because of the opportunities presented to them by such programs, but unfortunately their heyday occurred at the same time the United States was undergoing a huge jump in crime from 1965 to 1980. This unfortunate convergence provided conservatives and neoclassical criminologists with arguments against the use of social welfare policies to combat crime and toward the kinds of crime control mechanisms addressed in Chapter 5.

The policy recommendation of institutional anomie theory would be to tame the power of the market via decommodification. For instance, the decision to have children could be freed from economic considerations by granting government-guaranteed maternity leave benefits and family allowances/income support, and higher education could be accessible to all people with talent without regard for the financial ability to pay—in other words, policies that ensure an adequate level of material well-being that is not so completely dependent on an individual’s performance in the marketplace.

If this sounds too socialistic, you may be surprised to learn that many items on the 1928 economic platform of the American Socialist Party have been adopted in the United States. These items include a 40-hour workweek, unemployment benefits, social security, public works, legal trade unions, child labor laws, and government unemployment offices. Other reforms predating 1928, such as a graduated income tax, free education for all children, and the abolition of child labor have been so integrated into American life that few today would call them “socialist” or “un-American,” although they all have their origins in left-wing thought (Walsh, 2009).

Any policy recommendations derived from subcultural theories would not differ from those derived from ecological or anomie/strain theories. Changing a subculture is extremely difficult. Insofar as a subculture is a patterned way of life, we cannot attack the problem in parts and expect to change the whole. One possible strategy would be to disperse “problem families” throughout a city rather than concentrating them in block- type projects as is typically done. But even if this was politically feasible, rather than breaking up the subculture and its values, it may result in its displaced carriers “infecting” areas previously insulated from deviant values.

The gang problem offers obvious policy recommendations in theory, such as increasing low-skill work opportunities by somehow dissuading American companies from moving their operations overseas and by strengthening the other social institutions for which gangs are a substitute. Gangs will always be a problem while legitimate social institutions in our poorest areas are too weak to provide young people with their basic needs.

Summary ❖ Social structural theories focus on social forces that influence people to commit criminal acts. Ecological theory emphasizes that “deviant places” can cause delinquent and criminal behavior regardless of the personal characteristics of individuals residing there. Such areas are characterized by social disorganization, which results from diverse cultural traditions within slum areas. ❖ One of the most interesting early findings of this perspective is that the same slum areas continued to have the highest crime rates in a city regardless of the ethnic or racial composition of its inhabitants. More recent ecological studies find that neighborhoods do have effects independent of the people who live in them, but most effects are mediated by individual differences. ❖ Collective efficacy is the opposite of social disorganization but does not focus on emotional bonds tied to ethnicity. The concept is about a neighborhood’s ability to mobilize its residents as an effective force to fight problems, including crime. ❖ Anomie/strain theories focus on the strain generated by society’s emphasis on success goals coupled with its denial of access to some to legitimate opportunities to achieve success. Merton’s strain theory focuses on the ways people adapt to this situation via conformity, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion, and innovation (the modes of adaptation). Although the latter four modes are “deviant,” they are not all criminal. The innovator and retreatist modes are considered the most criminal. ❖ Institutional anomie theory argues that the United States is literally organized for crime because the institutional balance of power strongly favors the economy. All other American institutions are subordinate to our highly competitive economy, and the competition would be meaningless if there were not both winners and losers. ❖ General strain theory argues that there are many other sources of strain besides Merton’s disjunction between goals and means. These strains result in negative emotions that adversely affect relationships with others and may lead to crime. The important thing is not strain but rather how people cope with it. Among the many attributes Robert Agnew lists as coping resources are temperament, intelligence, and self-esteem. ❖ Subcultural strain theories have slightly different emphases. Albert Cohen noted that low-income boys, knowing they cannot live up to the middle-class measuring rods, form oppositional gangs that perpetuate an oppositional subculture. These gangs usually reject both the goals and means of middle-class society, as gauged by the malicious and nonutilitarian nature of many of their crimes. ❖ Walter Miller augments Cohen’s assertion that low-income culture is oppositional to middle-class culture with his theory of focal concerns. Focal concerns—trouble, toughness, smartness, excitement, fate, and autonomy—are behavioral norms of low-income culture

that command strong emotional attention. Miller’s thesis is supported by later work done by Elijah Anderson. ❖ Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin emphasize that people have differential access to illegitimate, as well as legitimate, means to success and that sociological and psychological factors limit a person’s access to both. ❖ Youth gangs have been noted throughout recorded history. The prevalence of gangs in the United States is greater than ever before and has been attributable to the deindustrialization of America. Deindustrialization has affected minorities the most and has tended to leave a sizable number of them marginalized from mainstream society and living in disorganized neighborhoods. The gang becomes an attractive option to many of these youths because it offers them many of the things the ineffective social institutions in those neighborhoods do not.

Exercises and Discussion Questions 1. What is your position on the “kinds of people versus kinds of places” argument in ecological theory? Do places matter independent of

the people living in them? If they both matter, which do you think matters more? 2. Is the American stress on material success good or bad overall? Is greed “good”? Does it drive the economy? Would we be better off

psychologically with less greed? 3. Are low-income delinquents reacting against middle-class values, as Cohen contends, or is there a low-income culture with its own set of

values and attitudes to which delinquents are conforming, as Miller contends? 4. Go to the latest version of the Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) and determine the 10 cities with the highest crime rates. Then use any

Internet search engine and determine the average income and unemployment rates of those cities. Is there a pattern? 5. Debate whether poverty causes crime, crime causes poverty, or something else causes both poverty and crime.

Useful Websites Chicago Area Project. www.chicagoareaproject.org

Chicago School of Ecology. www.csiss.org/classics/content/26

Émile Durkheim. www.emiledurkheim.org

General strain theory. http://www.slideshare.net/monroyd/agnews-general-strain-theory

Youth gangs. www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/167249.pdf

Chapter Terms Anomie 105

Chicago Area Project 117

Collective efficacy 104

Conformity 107

Consensus (or functionalist) perspective 101

Decommodification 108

Ecological fallacy 105

Focal concerns 111

General strain theory 108

Human ecology 102

Institutional anomie theory 108

Mechanical solidarity 105

Middle-class measuring rods 110

Modes of adaptation 107

Opportunity structure theory 110

Organic solidarity 105

Short-run hedonism 110

Social capital 103

Social disorganization 102

Social ecology 102

Social structure 101

Status frustration 110

Strain theory 106

Transition zone 102

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