Subcultural Theory
...came to express similar feelings. In the course of following meetings, they focused their interaction on a common fate. Unable to compete for middle class values they rejected them and malicious and violent. This would have happened at the peak age that delinquency starts, (13-15) and these ‘gangs’ will have carried on until the twenties. Albert Cohen states that the crucial condition for the emergence of new cultural forms is the existence of ‘in effective interaction with one another, of a number of actors with similar problems of adjustment.’ (A. Cohen – 1955 – pg59). This general trend is coherent with findings from the British crime survey: - The crimes become more serious with age, as more feasible opportunities of crimes such as joy riding and mugging arise. Other factors are also involved in the relationship shown. Factors such as parental control and changing hormone levels contribute to the trend. It is shown in the previous diagram that males commit more crimes that females. The general pattern is that an age-crime curve does exist for females, but the rate of offending is lower at all ages. Subcultural theory is theory that can help explain the reason why the male level of offending is higher than females. It is widely exclusive to males, and male hormones are more naturally aggressive that females’, and are more prone to socialise aggression. Male pride and the reluctancy to back down to peer pressure gives rise to the nature of offences being more criminal. However subculture theory is not the main cause of gender differentials. Many physical attributes that women have help to explain the gap. Women generally do not have the physical strength and agility to feel confident in committing certain crimes like housebreaking. If they met a house resident of the opposite sex, then the odds of escaping are far smaller that if the roles were reversed. Crimes such as mugging are often carried out against the female sector of the population, as they are deemed as being the weakest, and the vast majority of males have an advantage over females in this crime. Therefore the vast percentage of muggers will be males. Another major factor is the difference in treatment of boys and girls in the early stages of development. Aggressive tendencies are more accepted in boys and girls are subject to greater supervision and control. Social control theory states that reciprocal bonds to society like commitment, attachment, involvement and belief are stronger in women due to their nurturing role and therefore restrains them from committing crime. Is there a relationship between social class and criminal involvement? Official data shows that there is a clear link between these two factors. A Home Office study of prison populations’ show there is 18% upper class (compared to 45% of the population) and 82% lower class (compared to 55% of the population). Subculture theory goes a long way in explaining the relation between social class and criminal involvement. The difference in class is one of the major factors in the development of subcultures in schools. The feeling of the working class boys being inadequate to middle class, leads to the development of a ‘gang’ in which criminal acts such as vandalism, violence and joyriding became their form of release....