Criminal Subcultures: Emergence, Impact, and Policy

Posted on Jun 10, 2025 in Social sciences

Instrumental Subcultures: Conditions for Emergence

In neighborhoods with existing opportunity structures, some young people face blockages in legitimate opportunities.
These individuals may have already adopted a subcultural solution to their status problems and may take a further step: engaging in professional crime.
This involves a shift from expressive crime (destructive, malicious) to disciplined, instrumental, career-oriented offenses.

Characterized by drug use and a sense of apathy or detachment.
Individuals who fail to integrate into the middle-class cultural world, but either:
1. Have an attachment to the law, or
2. Lack the skills to succeed in criminal subcultures.
Given this frustration, these young people often take refuge in drugs.

Miller: Juvenile delinquency in the U.S. is not primarily characterized as constituting a distinct subculture. Instead, criminal activities often align with certain lower-class values such as masculinity, autonomy, and rejection of authority, which explains violent behavior.
Sykes and Matza: Young offenders do not possess a value system fundamentally different from the majority. They do not claim that violence is inherently good, but rather, in certain situations, “no man would react to a provocation” (referring to Techniques of Neutralization).

Increase training and work opportunities.
These proposals guided the policies of Democratic administrations in the U.S. during the 1960s.
One method involved transforming criminal gangs into legitimate business organizations. However, this is challenging to implement as the commercial sector is often unfamiliar territory for these youth.

Avoid societal devaluation of young working-class individuals. This is challenging as it confronts the ideal of “competitiveness” in the market.
Prevent individuals from developing techniques of neutralization. To achieve this, address feelings of injustice and improve the legitimacy of the criminal justice system.

Current concerns regarding criminal subcultures are focused on:

Neighborhood Gangs: Gangs that typically commit crimes within a specific territory and are located in urban slums.
Ideological Subcultures: (e.g., Skinheads, Neo-Nazis) Youth gangs who commit crimes against minority groups (immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, etc.).

The 1980s and 1990s saw a significant rise in neighborhood gangs in the U.S.
Characteristics of 1980s and 1990s Gangs:
1. Primarily located in urban slums.
2. Increasing focus on drug trafficking.
3. More deadly gang violence, often linked to arms availability and territorial control.
4. Permanent members often face difficulty finding legitimate employment for a living.

Ecological Thesis: The process of industrialization leads to the creation of homogeneous ghettos of poverty.
Subcultural Thesis: Individuals are influenced by consumer culture, seeking status through the possession of outward signs like clothing. Those who participate in gangs often display these signs of wealth and position within the neighborhood.
- Instrumental Subcultures:
  1. Cultural pressure to achieve economic success,
  2. Lack of legitimate opportunities,
  3. Presence of an illegitimate opportunity structure.

These youth subcultures are not identified by territory but rather by shared forms of dress, music, ideology, and so forth.
Ideological subcultures are a version of the former, specifically characterized by the use of violence.
Of particular importance are the Skinheads.
From the mid-1980s until 1994, over 80,000 acts of violence against foreigners were committed in Germany.

Not located in a particular neighborhood.
Violence is justified as defending the group’s values, often involving the obligation to intimidate individuals whose ethnicity, sexual orientation, or nationality are perceived to threaten the survival of the “white race.”
Contact with racist and neo-Nazi propaganda.
Use of alcohol as a sign of virility.
Distinctive Skinhead aesthetic (e.g., cropped hair, tight pants).

For Neighborhood Gangs:
1. Rebuild communities to promote social relations among members.
2. Invest more in education to improve job opportunities.
3. Reduce racial segregation to combat gang cohesion.
For Skinhead Violence:
1. Avoid ideological discourses that stigmatize minorities.
2. Prosecute Nazi propaganda.
3. Prohibit racist concerts.