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uestion21---------Assess sociological contributions to ourunderstanding of delinquency.his question is asking for a critical assessment of sociological explanations ofdelinquency. Its wording should tell you that sociological accounts of delinquency are

problematic and therefore easy to criticise. In general, crime and deviance essays are popularamong students, but you must make sure that you link your answer to the question.

One of the major sociological contributions to our understandingof delinquency can be found in Cohen's work, Delinquent Boys.For Cohen, delinquency is a collective and frequently nonutilitarian deviant act found among lower-working-class boys.According to Cohen, all boys aspire to the middle-class value ofsuccess, such as is achieved through educational qualifications.However, the evidence suggests that it is middle-class boys and'respectable' working-class boys who mainly achieve educationalsuccess. In comparison, boys from the lower working class moreoften than not under-achieve in education. Cohen argues thatlower-working-class boys are unable to compete in the educationsystem because they are culturally deprived. This results in 'statusfrustration' for them. One way in which they solve this problemof 'status frustration' is to react collectively by turning middle

The essay launches straight inwith Cohen's work on delinquencysubculture. It offers a detailedbut short explanation of hiscontribution to the understandingof delinquency. You could spendlonger on Cohen but this wouldbe at the cost of other materialand would limit your range ofcontributions.

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Question2In this second paragraph I haveused of the workof Hargreaves tosupport Cohen. Again,note howconcise this paragraph is. Itwouldbe easy to write reams abouttriple failures but this would notnecessarily attract any moremarks.

The essay now moves away fromsupporting evidence to criticalevidence.

lower-working-class pupils in the school were labelled as 'triplefailures'. The boys had failed the eleven-plus, were in the bottomstream, and were at the bottom of the bottom stream. The teacherstended to see these pupils as 'worthless louts'. Hargreaves arguedthat this resulted in the emergence of an anti-school peer groupin which anti-school delinquency was awarded status. Therefore,for Hargreaves, delinquency is the result of negative labelling.

However, Box disagrees with Cohen. He claims that lowerworking-class boys do not have the same middle-class values asthe school, but the way they are seen as failures leads to resentment. For Box, this resentment can result in the lower-workingclass boys turning against authority, and consequently formingdelinquent subcultures.

Miller also criticises Cohen's argument that delinquency is causedby 'status frustration'. For Miller, delinquency is the result of thedifferent and distinctive culture of the lower working class.According to Miller, lower-working-class life is characterised by aset of 'focal concerns', that is areas of interest and involvementwhich consist of: being in trouble rather than out of it; being toughand masculine; being smart and street-wise; enjoying excitingactivities; being free; and having a fatalistic attitude, whichmanifests itself in a belief in luck or chance - if you get caught,that's just the way it goes. Miller claims that these focal concernsare likely to lead lower-working-class boys into trouble with theauthorities. The values within this subculture are exaggeratedbecause of status insecurity.Bordua claims that for Miller's portrayal of lower-workingclass life to be accurate, the whole class must be cut off andisolated from the rest of society, and social agencies and institutions have no impact on it. It may be that Bordua seriously underestimates the diversity of values, beliefs, and life styles in today'smulticultural society. In addition, it is difficult to demonstrate thatlower-war king-class boys either accept or reject middle-classsuccess goals. Two British studies, Learning to Labour by Willis,and Schooling the Smash Street Kids by Corrigan, seem to suggest

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delinquent, but may in fact be a natural response to the boys'position in the class structure.

In a similar way, Corrigan shows that football hooliganism as aform of delinquency can be a response by young lower-workingclass males to the alienation of both school and dead-end workingclass jobs. Football hooliganism is a form of behaviour whichenables them to do something worthwhile, in that they canachieve status from their actions. Football hooliganism is similarto truanting and other deviant behaviour in that it gains respectfrom other boys. However, Corrigan can be criticised. Evidencesuggests that football hooliganism is not just a lower-workingclass pastime. Recently evidence from television documentarieshas demonstrated that in some cases football hooliganism ishighly organised and involves males with 'respectable' middleclass jobs in the City. Furthermore, it is doubtful whether manylower-working-class youths can afford to travel abroad to watchfootball matches and participate in football hooliganism inforeign countries.

Matza argues that these theories of delinquency subculturetend to present delinquency as a widespread, collective, lowerworking-class activity, whereas in reality many delinquent actsare committed by individual youths and not necessarily by groupsof lower-working-class youths. Matza also argues that lower-working-class youths do not regularly take part in delinquent activity,rather they drift in and out of delinquent ventures. Therefore,unlike some of the other theories concerned with juvenile delinquency, Matza sees delinquency as a voluntary activity and nota way of life which is caused by social forces or subculturalnorms.

All of the theories and writers that have been discussed can becriticised for ignoring middle-class delinquency and female delinquency. Chambliss shows how similar delinquent behaviour

In this paragraph, I have usedCorrigan's work on footballhooliganism to support thesubcultural approach to delinquency. However,the sameparagraph also criticises Cohen.Note how I have used Corrigan'sown example of footballhooliganism to evaluate his work.I don't know much about football,but logic dictates that theaverage lower-working-class boycan't afford to travel across theworld to watch a game of soccer.

Chambliss' work on crime can beapplied to a number of crime anddeviance essays, so make sure

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Question 21 _work. Becker claims that if a fight occurs in a working-class area,the police are more likely to label this as a show of delinquency.However, if a fight occurs in a middle-class area, the police aremore likely to see this as a demonstration of 'high spirits'.

The final paragraph commentson the lack of explanations forfemale delinquency. Again this is acriticism which can be used in anumber of crime and devianceessays. Don't worry if you makethe same evaluation point in anumber of essays. Some examplesjust have more uses than others.

Finally, all the above material can be criticised for ignoring femaledelinquency. It can be argued that if Cohen is correct, then justas much criminality should be seen amongst lower-working-classgirls. Recent studies on female crime by sociologists such asCampbell, suggest that there has been a rise in female delinquency. However, as Smart argues, while sociology and criminology are dominated by men and are about the study of men,much female crime will continue to go uncovered.

This essay question is quite straightforward. The only problem is that there is so much informationavailable that you will have to choose what to include and what to exclude. This is not the easiestthing to do when you are under pressure, so you need to practise this skill. Crime and devianceis arguably one of the most interesting areas on the sociology syllabus. It is also one of the mostpopular. This means that some students know more about crime and deviance than other topics.Do not let this lead you into spending more time on crime and deviance at the expense of othertopics in the examination. You really need to spend an equal amount of time on each essay.Related questions1 'Crime is mainly a working-class, male and urban phenomenon.' Discuss.2 Why do delinquent subcultures develop?3 How have functionalist theories of crime and deviance explained youth crime?