Encyclopedia of Sociology

CRIMINAL AND DELINQUENT SUBCULTURES

delinquent behavior. Observing that this type of
behavior occurs most frequently among working-
class boys, Cohen hypothesized that this type of
delinquent subculture was formed in reaction to
status problems experienced by working-class boys
in middle-class institutions such as schools. Many
working-class boys are inadequately prepared for
either the educational demands or the discipline
of formal education, and they are evaluated poorly
in terms of this ‘‘middle-class measuring rod.’’
Working-class girls are less pressured in these
terms, Cohen argued, because they are judged
according to criteria associated with traditional
female roles, and they are subject to closer con-
trols in the family.

The solution to their status problems, as some
working-class boys see it, according to Cohen’s
theory, is to reject the performance and status
criteria of middle-class institutions, in effect turn-
ing middle-class values upside down. The theory
thus seeks to account for the highly expressive and
hedonistic quality of much delinquency and for
the malicious and negativistic quality of vandalism.

Cohen did not attempt to account for the
delinquent behavior of particular individuals or
for the behavior of all working-class boys. Most of
the latter do not become delinquent—at least not
seriously so. They choose instead—or are chan-
neled into—alternative adaptations such as the
essentially nondelinquent ‘‘corner boys’’ or the
high-achieving ‘‘college boys’’ described by Wil-
liam Foote Whyte (1943).

The forces propelling youngsters into alterna-
tive adaptations such as these are not completely
understood. Clearly, however, working-class and
lower-class boys and girls tend to be devalued in
middle-class institutional contexts. Their margin-
ality sets the stage for subcultural adaptations.
Delinquents and criminals occupy even more mar-
ginal positions. This is particularly true of persist-
ent delinquents and criminals who commit serious
crimes, in contrast to those who only rarely trans-
gress the law and with little consequence. When
marginality is reinforced by labeling, stigmatization,
or prejudicial treatment in schools and job mar-
kets, ‘‘problems of adjustment’’ magnify. The com-
mon ecological location of many delinquents, in
the inner-city slums of large cities, and their com-
ing together in schools, provides the setting for

‘‘effective interaction.’’ The result often is the

formation of delinquent youth gangs, an increas-

ingly common organizational form taken by delin-

quent subcultures (see Thrasher 1927; Klein, 1995;

Short 1997).

There is no universally agreed-upon defini-

tion of youth gangs. For theoretical purposes,

however, it is useful to define gangs as groups

whose members meet together with some regulari-

ty over time and whose membership is group-

selected, based on group-defined criteria. Similar-

ly, organizational characteristics are group deter-

mined. Most importantly, gangs are not adult-

sponsored groups. The nature of relationships

between young people and conventional adults is

the most critical difference between gangs and

other youth groups (see Schwartz 1987). Gang

members are less closely tied to conventional insti-

tutions and therefore less constrained by institu-

tional controls than are nongang youth. Group

processes of status achievement, allocation, and

defense are more likely to result in delinquent

behavior among gangs than is the case among

adult-sponsored groups.

HOW DO CRIMINAL AND DELINQUENT

SUBCULTURES GET STARTED?

Delinquent and criminal subcultures have a long

history in industrialized societies (Cressey 1983).

Herman and Julia Schwendinger (1985) trace the

origins of adolescent subcultures, including delin-

quent varieties, to social changes that began in the

sixteenth century. Traditional economic and so-

cial relationships were greatly altered with the

advent of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution

in Western Europe, leaving in their wake large

numbers of unemployed persons and disrupting

communities, families, and other primordial groups.

Cut adrift from traditional crafts and communi-

ties, thousands roamed the countryside, subsisting

as best they could off the land or by victimizing

travelers. The ‘‘dangerous classes’’ eventually set-

tled in cities, again to survive by whatever means

were available, including crime. Criminal subcul-

tures and organizational networks often devel-

oped under these circumstances.

The Schwendingers emphasize that criminal

subcultures developed as a result of structural