6.4 Subcultural Theories of Crime
Culture consists of tangible things that you can touch as well as ideas, attitudes, and beliefs. The style of our buses in the United States compared to those in other countries becomes part of our culture, just as our norms about how close you should stand to other passengers on the bus are part of our culture (Conerly et al., 2024). Societies have a mainstream culture consisting of the conventional norms and status quo. Oftentimes, subcultures will also be present in a society. Subcultures are groups that share a specific identity that differs from the mainstream majority, even though they exist within the larger society (Conerly et al., 2024). Subcultural theories of crime view crime as a result of either conformity to a subculture or rebellion against the mainstream culture.
First, take a look at the context in which many of these theories developed. Following the housing boom and baby boom of the 1950s, the United States moved into an era of revolution in the 1960s and ’70s. Many social norms were challenged, ranging from rebellions against mainstream music and clothing to larger demands for change in civil rights for marginalized groups. Inequalities were brought out into the open and sociologists took notice.
Merton’s strain theory, as we discussed in Chapter 5, made a lot of sense to some criminologists in this setting, and they began to see how well it fit with certain groups or situations. Scholars within The Chicago School expanded the notions of strain and anomie, building upon Merton’s work, to explain how this might apply to everyday life for a broader population. Many subcultural theories combine elements of structural theories with components of learning and interactionist theories to explain how subcultures develop and may facilitate criminal offending. In this chapter, we will discuss theories on the subculture of violence, cultural deviance, and the code of the streets, as well as criminological explanations of gang formation, including status frustration theory and differential opportunity theory.
Deviating From the Dominant Culture
The dominant culture in a society is promoted as the only acceptable way to live, behave, and believe, whether or not smaller groups who are not represented in this dominant majority agree. The norms and values of the dominant culture are even considered “right” when they contradict what is actually preferred by smaller, less powerful groups. These other groups often develop their own subcultures, which may not align with the dominant culture and are considered deviant.
Among the sociologists in The Chicago School, the subcultures they witnessed in urban Chicago were the subject of much of their research. Most of the (especially early) theorists were part of the dominant culture in the United States. However, it is in this area that Black scholars were finally able to gain prominence by explaining what the experience is like from inside a subculture, rather than lo