Subcultural theory, developed by Albert K. Cohen in the 1950s, explains juvenile delinquency as a collective response to status frustration in a class-stratified society. It argues that marginalized youth form subcultures with alternative norms and values that reject those of mainstream society. These subcultures provide an alternative system of status and recognition, often encouraging deviant or criminal behavior that, within the subcultural context, is seen as normal and rewarding.
Key Points
Subcultural Theory
Main Proponent: Albert K. Cohen
First Formulation: 1955
Country of Origin: United States
Core Idea: Juvenile delinquency emerges from collective responses to status frustration. Youth in disadvantaged social classes create subcultures with alternative values that reward deviant behavior.
Foundation for: Delinquent Subculture Research, Learning Theories, Anomie and Strain Approaches
Theory
Cohen’s core argument is that many juvenile offenders are members of delinquent subcultures—groups with norms and values opposed to those of the dominant society. These subcultures emerge as a collective solution to the status problems faced by working-class boys in a stratified society.
According to Cohen, these youths aspire to middle-class goals but lack the means to achieve them. Confronted with repeated failure and status deprivation, they experience frustration and loss of self-respect. To resolve this, they form alternative subgroups that define success on their own terms, in direct opposition to middle-class standards. Within these subcultures, behaviors that mainstream society labels as deviant or criminal become valued and rewarded.
Delinquent subcultures offer their members prestige and identity. Their norms justify and celebrate acts that society condemns. Hostility toward mainstream values eliminates guilt, creating solidarity among members. Cohen identified several key characteristics of these subcultures (Downes & Rock, 2007):
- Nonutilitarian: Deviant acts are committed without economic motives.
- Malicious: Acts are designed to annoy or harm others.
- Negativistic: Rules are broken precisely because they exist, rejecting conventional morality.
- Versatile: A wide range of deviant behaviors is encouraged.
- Hedonistic: Focus on immediate pleasure and excitement.
- Resistant: Opposition to external pressures of conformity, loyalty to subcultural values.
Importantly, subcultural theory is not purely a learning theory but a hybrid drawing on learning, anomie and strain, and social structure. Cohen’s focus was specifically on juvenile delinquency and did not aim to explain all crime.
He later explored other forms of subcultures, while subsequent researchers built on his framework to analyze gangs, youth groups, and deviant subcultures in different settings. At its core, subcultural theory emphasizes that social inequality leads to alternative value systems among marginalized groups, explaining how deviance can become normal and even necessary within those contexts.
Implications for Criminal Policy
Like anomie theories, subcultural theories highlight the role of social inequality in producing crime. Cohen’s work implies that effective criminal policy must address the root causes of status frustration—particularly the class-based barriers faced by marginalized youth. Social policy measures such as improving education, reducing poverty, and promoting social mobility can reduce the appeal of deviant subcultures.
At the time subcultural theory emerged in the United States, there was political interest in anti-poverty programs as a form of crime prevention. While Cohen himself did not articulate detailed policy recommendations, his work underscores the importance of social policy as crime policy. In this view, rehabilitative efforts should focus on education and transmitting prosocial values, offering alternative paths to status and respect.
Critical Appraisal & Relevance
Cohen’s subcultural theory made a crucial contribution by arguing that crime can be conformist behavior within an alternative normative system. For members of delinquent subcultures, deviant acts are not perceived as deviant at all, but as expected and rewarded behaviors. This insight anticipated later sociological and interactionist theories that emphasize the relativity of deviance and the social construction of crime.
Historically, this was a major theoretical shift away from biological determinism and the notion of “born criminals.” Cohen, influenced by the Chicago School and by Thrasher’s work on gangs, reframed delinquency as an adaptive response to blocked opportunities and class-based status frustration. His theory highlighted the collective, social nature of crime, moving criminology toward sociological explanations that foreground learning, group dynamics, and structural inequalities. In this sense, Cohen’s work helped lay the foundation for understanding deviance as socially produced rather than biologically inherent.
However, Cohen’s theory also has significant limitations. Empirically, it was based primarily on studies of North American youth gangs, limiting its applicability. It’s important to recognize that the “gangs” and “subcultures” Cohen described were not highly organized or violent in the way modern stereotypes might suggest. Rather, they were often informal, fluid peer groups of working-class boys who spent time together in neighborhoods and street corners, developing shared values that clashed with mainstream expectations. Critics argue that such models cannot explain white-collar crime, adult offending, or crimes committed by women, and that many youth groups lack the consistent, structured norms Cohen postulated.
Additionally, Cohen’s model has been critiqued for its determinism: it can appear to reduce criminal behavior to a near-inevitable response to status frustration. Later theories, such as techniques of neutralization, challenged the notion that subcultural values are fully internalized and coherent, suggesting instead that many offenders drift between conventional and deviant norms.
At the same time, Cohen’s theory both challenged and reflected the social anxieties of its era. On one hand, it broke with biological determinism by highlighting structural inequalities and class-based frustration as drivers of crime. On the other, it portrayed delinquent subcultures as threats to social order that needed integration and control. This tension gives the theory an ambivalent quality, blending reformist critique with conservative concern about maintaining cohesion.
Today, the concept of a clearly bounded subculture itself is debated. Many sociologists argue that the sharp division between “mainstream” and “subculture” assumed by Cohen no longer holds in a postmodern, pluralistic society marked by fluid, overlapping, and hybrid identities. Rather than monolithic subcultures with fixed norms, contemporary sociology often speaks of scenes, milieus, or neo-tribes. Despite these shifts, Cohen’s core insight—that social inequality generates divergent value systems and adaptive strategies—remains influential, even if its conceptual framework requires updating.
Literature
Primary Literature
- Cohen, A. K. (1955). Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press.
- Cohen, A. K. (2016). Kriminelle Subkulturen. In: Klimke, D. & Legnaro, A. (Hrsg.) Kriminologische Grundlagentexte. Springer VS: Wiesbaden. S. 269–280.
Secondary Literature
- Cohen, Albert K. & Short, J. (1968). Research in Delinquent Subcultures. In: Journal of Social Issues, 20–37.
- Downes, D. M. & Rock, P. E. (2007). Understanding Deviance: A Guide to the Sociology of Crime and Rule-breaking (5th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Miller, W. B. (1958). Lower-class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency. In: Journal of Social Issues, 15, 5–19.
- Thrasher, F. M. (1927). The Gang. A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Whyte, W. F. (1943). Street Corner Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Yablonski, L. (1959). The Delinquent Gangs as a Near Group. In: Social Problems, 7, 108–109.