Cloward and Ohlin argued that the different kinds of illegitimate opportunities available in poor urban neighborhoods lead to three types of criminal subcultures. List the three types of criminal subcultures and provide 2-3 sentences description of each.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Three types of criminal subcultures: criminal, conflict, and retreatist. Criminal subcultures develop among lower-class adolescent boys in neighborhoods with open illegitimate opportunity structures. These neighborhoods are characterized by systematic, organized crime, and they provide an outlet in illegal employment for youths to attain wealth and “get paid” via illegitimate means. Conflict subcultures develop in disorganized communities where illegitimate opportunities are largely absent and those that exist are closed to adolescents. Such neighborhoods are characterized by social instability, and youth growing up in these conditions are deprived of both conventional (legitimate) and criminal (illegitimate) opportunities. Retreatist subcultures are associated with drug use and the drug culture among some lower-class adolescents. Cloward and Ohlin characterized adolescents in retreatist subcultures as “double failures” who cannot find a place for themselves in either criminal or conflict subcultures. While this is closely related to Merton’s concept of retreatists, Cloward and Ohlin directed attention to the social environment and the conditions that help to explain the formation of each type of deviant subculture.