Transcript Chapter_8_-_Strain

Strain
Two kinds of “Strain”
• Anomie (Emile Durkheim): Society cannot
regulate “natural” appetites of individuals
– Rapid social change breaks down social controls
• Strain (Merton) – Social change not required to
explain some types of crime
– Individual “appetites” originate in the culture
– Social structure limits the ability of certain groups to
satisfy these appetites
– Result: pressure on certain persons to engage in deviant
behavior
Goals and Means
• Aspiration for wealth – why?
– Materialism
– Personal value and social status
• Egalitarianism – everyone has an equal chance to gain wealth
– If you cannot it’s your own fault – perhaps you are “lazy”
– Society emphasizes institutionalized means
– Wealth can be secured through the Protestant work ethic:
• Hard work
• Honesty
• Education
• Delayed gratification
• “It’s how you play the game”
Origins and consequences of strain
• Lower classes may have fewer opportunities to gain wealth through
accepted means
– Limits imposed by social structure - not by talents or efforts
• Severe “strain” on lower class persons
– Lack of socially acceptable “means” to achieve ends
– Excessive emphasis on the “ends” - to become wealthy
– Little reward for following institutionalized means
– Those who use deviant means are not punished
• Overall social consequence of strain
– Merton - crime is a rational choice – a way to adapt to strain
• Higher crime rates in the lower classes due to restricted
opportunities
Individual responses to strain
• Conformity with goals and means
– In stable society, most persons will keep trying even if
they do not succeed
• Innovation (accept goals, seek out new means)
– Non-criminal adaptations – training, education
– Criminal adaptations – steal, deal drugs
• Ritualism (reject goals, accept means)
– Achieve minimum success
• Retreatism (reject goals and means)
– Drop out – vagrants
• Rebellion: replace socially accepted values with new
values
– Political rebellion, spiritualism
Explaining gang delinquency - Cohen
• Mostly not caused by strain
– Non-utilitarian, malicious, negativistic (vandalism)
• Intangible goals
– status and self-worth
• Who?
– Youths without ascribed status (from a poor family)
– Youths who cannot gain achieved status (competition
with others)
• Cohen’s theory similar to Merton’s “rebellion”
– Form that “rebellion” takes is shaped by a group - not
just by an individual
Explaining gang delinquency –
Cloward and Ohlin
• Goals are both tangible (Merton) and intangible (Cohen)
• Goal of serious delinquents: conspicuous consumption
– Fast cars, fancy clothes, “swell dames”
– Clashes with conventional values
• Serious delinquents are looked down on:
– What they do not want (middle-class lifestyle)
– What they do want
• If they lack licit and illicit opportunities to get what they
want, may form a violent or “conflict” gang to express
their anger
Criticisms of strain theory – Kornhauser
• Strain is evenly spread through society
– As much for the rich (always want more) as the poor
• Economic gain not a cultural value - it is intrinsic
• Hard work (Protestant ethic) is a very weak value,
easily overcome by gain motive
• Aspirations and expectations
– Delinquent youths may not be “strained” – they may
have low aspirations and/or low expectations
Defenses of strain theory - Bernard
• Strain not evenly spread through society
– Concentrated in lower classes
• Delinquents do have a gap between expectations and aspirations
• Strain is primarily structural – not cultural
– Illusion of street-corner men who generate “public fictions” to
justify themselves: “too much of a man for any woman”
– These excuses are misinterpreted as components of a “lower-class
lifestyle
• Adaptations described by Merton are real
– Simple reactions to socially structured situations that individuals
cannot control or overcome
Elaborations of Strain theory
Cullen
• Structural inequalities encourage deviance
– Inequal legitimate opportunities caused by social
structure
• Deviant response varies according to “structuring
variables”
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Social/economic circumstances
Technological advances
Specific opportunities (e.g., Columbian drug cartel)
Individual psychological responses:
Social structural inequality  frustration  crime
Agnew
• Juveniles stressed by “noxious”, negative
interpersonal relationships
– If home or school is the locus, may not be able to
escape
• Delinquency and drug use a way to cope or
manage the strain
– May provide “relief” from stresses
Messner and Rosenfeld
• Agree with Merton - high levels of crime explained by
cultural pressures for tangible success
• Lack of strong prohibitions on using illegitimate means
• Social institutions - families, schools, politics – are
subservient to the economy (“institutional anomie”)
• Expanding opportunities may cause more crime unless
culture changes
– Newly “enabled” persons lose their excuse to stay poor