CRIMINAL AND DELINQUENT SUBCULTURES‘‘crazy’’ things that happened to them when they
were under the influence of drugs. The latter, in
particular, became legendary within the group,
being told and retold with nostalgia and humor
when members of the gang were together. The
subculture of this gang contrasted sharply with
that of other gangs that were participating in a
well-developed conflict subculture.
LEVELS OF EXPLANATION OF CRIMINAL
AND DELINQUENT SUBCULTURESThe theories of criminal and delinquent subcul-
tures are macro-level theories (Short 1998). Their
purpose is to identify what it is about political,
economic, and other social systems that explain
the emergence and the social distribution of these
phenomena. Other theories at this level focus on
the impact of local and broader community oppor-
tunities on delinquent subcultures and on youth
subcultures generally. Walter Miller (1958) related
lower-class culture to gang delinquency, while Rich-
ard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) found that
different delinquent subcultures were associated
with the availability of legitimate and illegitimate
economic opportunities in local communities. Gary
Schwartz (1987) stressed the importance of local
community youth-adult authority relationships in
determining the nature of youth subcultures, in-
cluding the extent and the nature of delinquent
activities associated with them. Mercer Sullivan
(1989) related gang adaptations to more global
economic developments such as the transfer of
manufacturing jobs from the United States to
other countries and an increasingly segmented
labor market, which has resulted in the concen-
tration of low-wage and surplus labor in inner-
city minority communities (see also Hagedorn
1987, 1998).
William Julius Wilson (1987) provided the
most compelling theoretical argument relating eco-
nomic changes to crime and delinquency among
the ‘‘truly disadvantaged.’’ Wilson argued that a
permanent underclass emerged in the United States
during the 1960s and 1970s. Research on delin-
quent subcultures supports this argument and
documents related changes in gang membership.
Because fewer good jobs were available to poor,
minority young men, more gang members contin-
ued their association with gangs as they entered
adulthood. In the past, gang members typically
‘‘grew out of’’ the gang to take jobs, get married,
and often become associated with adult social
clubs in stable, ethnically-based communities. These
options have become less viable among the poor
of all races, but minorities have increasingly be-
come the truly disadvantaged. Gang organization
has been affected by this change, as older mem-
bers assume or continue leadership roles. The
result often has been that gang involvement in
criminal activities has become more sophisticated
and instrumental, and younger members have
been exploited in criminal enterprise. Relation-
ships between young people and conventional
adults also suffer, as older, stable role models and
monitors of youthful behavior are replaced by
young adult, often criminal, role models for the
young (see Anderson 1990, 1999).Sullivan’s study of groups and young males in
three Brooklyn communities—black, predominant-
ly Latino, and white—is particularly significant in
this regard. The young men in Hamilton Park, the
white group, were able to find better jobs than
were the others at all ages. More important, be-
cause ‘‘they had become more familiar with the
discipline of the workplace,’’ as they grew older
they were able to secure better-quality jobs and to
hold on to them, compared to the minority youth
studied by Sullivan. Familiarity with the discipline
of the workplace is a type of human capital that was
made possible by an important type of social capi-
tal—the superior personal networks that the Ham-
ilton Park youth shared with the adult community
(Sullivan 1989, pp. 105, 226). The minority youth
were disadvantaged, with respect to both human
and social capital, in the family and in other ways
(see Coleman 1988). Thus, while individual hu-
man and social capital are acquired through per-
sonal experience, communities and neighborhoods
also vary in their stock of human and social capital,
qualitatively and quantitatively—yet another way
in which delinquent and criminal subcultures re-
flect aspects of their ‘‘parent’’ (larger) cultures.
All macro-level theories make certain assump-
tions about the individual level of explanation.
The most prominent of these assumptions is that
individuals learn subcultural norms, values, and
the behaviors they encourage, by interacting with
others in their environment. The general process-
es of learning have been well established by re-
search and theory (see Bandura 1986; Eron 1987).