5.Group autonomy. They defied or ignored authority figures. Even within the gang,
the leaders had little power. They resisted any attempt to control their behavior,
except as imposed informally by gang members acting as a group.Walter B. Miller (1970) agreed, but he argued that it is not just lower-class boys
in gangs whose norms and values differ from those of the dominant society; it’s the
entire lower class. In other words, behavior that the main society might consider
deviant actually reflects the social norms of the lower-class subculture. They have six
core values that differ from those of the main society:
1.Trouble. The subculture has trouble, chronic and unsolvable: for men, fights; for
women, pregnancy. They value ways of avoiding or getting out of it.2.Toughness. People in the subculture are constantly facing the challenges of fights
or physical deprivation, and they value physical prowess, bravery, stoicism.3.Smartness. The subculture does not value “book smarts,” intellectual knowledge
about the world. But it values “street smarts,” the ability to avoid being duped,
outwitted, and conned and to successfully dupe, outwit, and con others.4.Excitement. The subculture values looking for thrills, flirting with danger, risk
taking.5.Fate. In the dominant culture, people believe that they are responsible for their
own destiny. In the subculture, people value the idea that most of their everyday
activities are determined by forces beyond their control.6.Autonomy. Although their fate is determined by forces beyond their control, the
members of the lower-class subculture resist authority figures much more often
and vigorously than members of the dominant culture. The police are the enemy.
Social workers, case workers, and sociologists asking questions have a shady
hidden agenda.Miller implied, therefore, that lower-class culture was conducive to crime, despite
the overwhelming number of lower-class people who are law-abiding, decent citizens
and the many upper-class people who reverse Robin Hood’s ethic and rob from the
poor to give to themselves.
Cohen’s and Miller’s theories of crime rely on the public outcry about juvenile
delinquency in the 1950s. Today, sociologists find this work less compelling in an era
of organized gangs of lower-class males, whose motivations may be far more rational
than malicious pleasure and group cohesion.
Opportunity Theory
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin (1960) argued that crime actually arises from
opportunity to commit crime. Opportunity theoryholds that those who have many
opportunities—and good ones at that—will be more likely to commit crimes than
those with few good opportunities. They agreed, with Merton, that those who don’t
have equal access to acceptable means to achieve material success may experience
strain, but that doesn’t explain why most poor people are not criminals. In fact, stud-
ies show that most are “conformists,” with the same values and goals as the domi-
nant society.
Cloward and Ohlin emphasized learning—people have to learn how to carry out
particular forms of deviance, and they must have the opportunity to actually deviate.
DEVIANCE AND CRIME 181