Problem With Subculture - Bias in Subculture Theories of Delinquency (From New Perspectives on Urban Crime, P 17-34, 1981, Stephen Lagoy, ed. - See NCJ-84530)

• NCJ Number: 84532
• Author(s): M C Taylor
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Pilgrimage Press
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Subcultural theories of delinquency, which attribute delinquent behavior generally to lower-class males' efforts to achieve status to fend off the anxiety of failure to achieve middle-class success values, have not been empirically supported and appear to be limited in explanatory power.

Abstract

Subcultural theories view delinquency as a protest against social stratification. Delinquent subcultures are portrayed as the common solution of organized groups of lower-class boys to retrieve some measure of status apart from the middle-class and demonstrate their own values of masculinity. Such theories are too limiting in that no single delinquent subculture is a universal solution to status problems of lower-class male youth. Further, most youth, regardless of parents' income, participate only marginally in delinquency. Delinquent behavior stems generally from limited opportunities to express youthful aggression and energy. Also, delinquency is not the private domain of neurotic males overly concerned about their masculinity. Increasingly, females are participating in delinquent activity. Moreover, delinquency is essentially a small-group phenomenon rather than a subcultural manifestation. Much delinquency must be viewed as youth's attempt to put excitement into their lives and not just a behavioral pattern of youth under particular environmental influences. Fifty-one footnotes are listed.