Subcultural Theories of Deviance

Subcultural deviance refers to when a group within society develops its own values and norms that conflict with mainstream oneso – ften as a response to feeling excluded or disadvantaged. These groups, or subcultures, may see behavior labeled “deviant” by wider society as normal or even admirable within their own group. Sociologists study this to understand how inequality and belonging shape patterns of rule-breaking.

Key Takeaways

Subcultures: Groups that develop their own values, norms, and lifestyles that differ from mainstream society, often providing members with identity and belonging.
Deviance: Behaviors or attitudes that break social rules or expectations, which may be accepted within the subculture but condemned by wider society.
Theories: Sociologists like Albert Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin, and Walter Miller explained subcultural deviance as a response to blocked opportunities and social inequality.
Motivations: Feelings of status frustration, marginalization, or rebellion often drive individuals to join subcultures that redefine success and respect.
Relevance: Contemporary examples include online communities and youth cultures that challenge norms, showing how subcultural deviance continues to evolve in digital spaces.

Introduction to Subcultural Theories

Subcultural theory, developed by Albert Cohen (1955) and later expanded by others, argues that to understand criminal behavior, criminologists must look beyond individual motives and examine the collective culture of criminal subgroups.

This approach emphasizes that each subculture has its own cultural codes and social traits – including speech patterns, dress styles, emotional expressions, and shared life challenges.

Within these groups, criminal behavior often serves a functional purpose, offering members a way to resolve common frustrations or gain status when conventional routes are blocked.

According to subcultural theorists, offenders do not necessarily see themselves as criminal.

Instead, they conform to the expectations and values of their own group, which may directly conflict with those of mainstream society.

As a result, what is labeled “deviant” by one group can be seen as normal or even necessary within another.

Because deviant behavior stems from conformity to subcultural norms, these theories suggest that deviation from mainstream values is more prevalent in some social groups than others – particularly where opportunities and social recognition are limited.

Subcultural theory draws on two key sociological traditions (Williams, 2011) and has been shaped by several influential thinkers:

Albert Cohen, who proposed Status Frustration Theory;
Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin, who identified three types of deviant subcultures;
Walter Miller, who explored the focal concerns of the working class;
Charles Murray, who examined the underclass and crime.

Albert Cohen: Deviant Subcultures emerge because of Status Frustration

Status frustration theory was developed by sociologist Albert K. Cohen (1955) to explain why some young people – especially working-class boys – turn to delinquent or rule-breaking behavior.

Cohen’s theory suggests that school failure and class inequality can lead some young people to form subcultures that invert mainstream values—where being “bad” becomes a way of being “good” in their peer group.

Cohen believed this behavior was a reaction to their experiences in a society that values middle-class standards, particularly in schools.

Cohen built on Robert Merton’s strain theory, which suggested that crime results from the gap between society’s goals (like financial success) and the limited means some people have to achieve them.

However, Cohen shifted the focus to young people and the non-financial, rebellious acts often seen among them, such as vandalism or classroom disruption.

How Status Frustration Works

The Goal – Gaining Status: Young people are taught that success and respect come from doing well in school and earning qualifications.
Blocked Opportunities: Many working-class students struggle to meet these expectations because schools are built around middle-class values, leaving them at a disadvantage.
Feeling Frustrated: When they fail to gain respect through school achievement, these students experience “status frustration”—a sense of failure, unfairness, and alienation from teachers and the system.
Creating an Alternative: To cope, some form anti-school subcultures or gangs that reject school values and reward different kinds of behavior.
New Ways to Gain Respect: Within these groups, status comes from rule-breaking, being rebellious, or challenging authority. Delinquent acts become a way to gain pride and belonging when traditional routes to success are blocked.

Cloward and Ohlin’s Illegitimate Opportunity Structures

Cloward and Ohlin propelled Cohen’s subcultural theory further in proposing that there are three types of deviant subcultures. These subcultures can emerge in response to the “illegitimate opportunity structure” available to the deviant subcultures.

Illegitimate opportunity structures are situations or networks that allow people to achieve success through illegal means when legitimate ones are blocked.

These are criminal subcultures, conflict subcultures, and retreatist subcultures.

Criminal Subcultures (socialize young people into criminal activity)

Criminal subcultures emerge in stable, well-organized working-class communities where adult criminal networks – such as organized crime, gambling, or drug distribution – are already established.

In these areas, young people have role models and mentors who teach them the skills and codes of conduct needed to succeed in illegal activities.

These subcultures operate almost like training grounds for aspiring offenders, providing a structured system of apprenticeship, rewards, and status.

The criminal world offers an alternative route to economic success, where respect and power are earned through “professional” crime such as theft, fraud, or extortion rather than chaotic or violent acts.

Because of this structure, violence is usually minimized, as stability and trust are valuable within the organized network.

Conflict Subcultures (where there is little social cohesion)

Conflict subcultures develop in disorganized, unstable neighborhoods where there are few legitimate opportunities (like good jobs or schools) and no established criminal hierarchies to join.

In these areas, communities often experience high levels of poverty, social change, and residential turnover, leaving young people without consistent authority figures or role models.

As a result, young men often gain respect through physical strength, aggression, and territorial dominance rather than through financial success.

Violence becomes a way to achieve status – fighting over “turf” or reputation within the local area.

Conflict gangs are typically characterized by unplanned, expressive violence rather than calculated or profit-driven crime.

The main rewards come from status and recognition, not material gain.

Retreatist Subcultures (those who fail to gain access to the other two subcultures)

Retreatist subcultures are made up of individuals who have failed to succeed in both legitimate and illegitimate systems – the so-called “double failures.”

They cannot achieve social status through school, work, or organized crime, and often feel alienated from both mainstream and deviant peer groups.

As a result, members of this subculture retreat from the struggle for success altogether, turning instead to escapist activities such as drug or alcohol use.

Substance abuse and addiction become central features of this lifestyle, serving as a way to cope with feelings of failure, rejection, and social exclusion.

Retreatist subcultures are less about rebellion and more about withdrawal from both ambition and competition, representing a form of resignation to marginalization.

Walter Miller’s Cultural Deviance Theory

Walter Miller (1958), following Cohen and Cloward and Ohlin, revived interest in delinquency as a product of alternative values. He posits that the underclass is responsible for the majority of street crime.

Miller focused on gang delinquency in Boston during the 1950s, and asserted that delinquent activity is primarily motivated by an attempt to realize the values of the lower-class community in itself, which relate to toughness, adventure, and autonomy.

In contrast to other subcultural theories, Miller did not see deviant behavior occurring due to the inability of the lower/working class to achieve success, but in terms of the existence of a distinctive lower-class subculture.

Miller first presented his ideas in 1958 in his influential paper Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency.

He argued that certain values and lifestyles common in lower-class communities make delinquent behavior more likely – not because people reject mainstream values, but because they are conforming to their own subcultural norms.

Focal Concerns

Miller argued that, for centuries, the working class possessed their own culture and traditions fundamentally different from those of the higher classes.

This culture, Miller suggests, has been passed on for many generations.

In comparison to higher social strata, the lower classes are concerned with:

Toughness: Valuing physical strength, bravery, and the ability to handle oneself in difficult situations.
Smartness: the capacity to outwit and deceive others,including authority figures. This can result in crimes such as hustling, conning, pimping, pickpocketing, and petty theft.
Excitement: Seeking fun, thrills, and emotional intensity, often through risk-taking or rule-breaking.
Fate: The belief that little can be done to change social status and one’s way of living.
Trouble: Seeking conflict or risk as a way to prove toughness and gain respect.

Follow-up studies on class attitudes, contrary to Miller’s theory, have not uncovered any alternative set of lower-class values.

Some studies that incorporate miller’s concerns in their designs show that all youth, regardless of their delinquency or class status, evaluate conventional images of success equally highly and more highly than delinquent ones (Carey & McAnany, 1984).

Criticisms

Miller’s Cultural Deviance Theory has faced several criticisms:

Overgeneralization: Critics argue that he overstated the differences between lower-class and middle-class values, ignoring diversity within working-class communities.
Gender Bias: His focus on boys excluded girls and ignored gendered experiences of socialization and deviance.
Determinism: The theory can appear too fatalistic, implying that individuals have little control over their choices because they are shaped entirely by their upbringing and environment.

Charles Murray’s Underclass Theory of Crime

Charles Murray is an American writer and sociologist best known for his New Right perspective on poverty, crime, and social policy.

His work focuses on the idea of an underclass — a group at the very bottom of society who, he argues, live by a different set of values from the rest of the population.

Murray’s theories take a positivist approach, meaning he looks for patterns in behavior and culture to explain why certain groups — often the poor, ethnic minorities, and young males — are more likely to experience unemployment or engage in crime.

Murray’s Idea of the Underclass

Murray places the underclass at the lowest level of the social hierarchy — below the working class.

He describes this group as economically and socially excluded, often facing problems such as poverty, unemployment, poor housing, ill health, and limited education.

He controversially referred to this group as the “new rabble,” arguing that their way of life and values are passed down through generations, creating a self-reinforcing culture of dependency and deviance.

According to Murray, the underclass contributes to higher crime rates and social disorder due to several key factors:

Preference for Crime or Welfare over Work: Murray claimed that many people in the underclass are unwilling to work and instead rely on welfare benefits or criminal activity for income. He described them as “work-shy” and lacking motivation.
Criminal and Social Problems: He associated the underclass with high rates of crime, drug abuse, and family breakdown, and argued that these behaviors reflect a rejection of mainstream values such as hard work and personal responsibility.
Family Structure and Fatherlessness: Murray saw the rise of single-parent (female-headed) families as a key cause of social decline. He argued that without a father figure, children—especially boys—lack male role models who can teach discipline, self-control, and respect for authority. As a result, they may grow up without learning the values needed for steady work or responsible adulthood. Murray believed that married, two-parent families are the best environment for raising well-socialized children.

Criticisms of Murray’s Theory

Murray’s New Right approach has been widely criticized by sociologists for “blaming the victim” – that is, blaming poor people for problems caused by structural inequality.

Structural Causes: Critics argue that poverty and unemployment result from external factors like low wages, lack of jobs, and government cutbacks, not from laziness or poor values.
Shared Values: Studies (e.g., Dean & Taylor-Gooby, 1992) show that most poor people share mainstream values such as wanting to work and support their families.
Cause or Effect?: Critics question whether “underclass values” cause poverty, or whether poverty itself leads to feelings of hopelessness and dependency. Long-term joblessness can make people demoralized, not inherently lazy.
Family Idealization: The New Right’s emphasis on the nuclear family has also been criticized as moralistic and unrealistic, idealizing a “golden age” of family life that never truly existed.

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