CONCEPTS

Sociologist Robert Agnew (1992) reformulated the strain theory of Robert Merton and suggests
that criminality is the direct result of negative affective states - the anger, frustration, depression,
disappointment, and other adverse emotons that derive from strain. Agnew tries to explain why
individuals who feel stress and strain are more likely to commit crimes and offers more
explanation of criminal activity among all elements of society rather than restricting his views to
lower-class crime (Siegel, 2004). He finds that negative affective states are produced by a variety
of sources of strains, such as:
1. Strain caused by the failure to achieve positively valued goals. This type of strain occurs when a
youth aspires to wealth and gain, but lacking financial and educational resources, would assume
that such goals are impossible to achieve.
Another example: Mar wants to study in college but because his parents could not afford to send
him in school may end up as a construction worker.
Strain caused by disjunction of expectations and achievements. This aspect happens when
people compare themselves to peers who seem to be doing a lot better financially or socially.
Example: San is a graduate of criminology who took and topped the board examination but
because of height requirement she may wait for the approval of her height waiver but San knew
that her classmate who took the board exam thrice already and had a high ranking father was
successful in the recruitment using other eligibility. San using Agnew's general strain theory may
feel stress and frustrated.
Removal of positively valued stimuli. The loss of positive stimuli may lead to delinquency as the
adolescent tries to prevent the loss, retrieve what has been lost, obtain substitutes, or seek
revenge against those responsible for the loss.
Example: Jay had a brother and somebody killed his brother. In retum, out of anger because that
person killed his ever loved brother, Jay might kill also the person who killed his brother.
Presentation of negative stimuli. Strain may also be caused by the presence of negative stimuli.
Example: During the first day of board examination, the proctor did not allow you to take the said
exam because you arrived one hour already. In this case, you as the examinee may feel frustrated
or worst you may seek revenge against the proctor.

CONCEPTS
This theory combines the effects of social disorganization and strain to explain how people living
in deteriorated neighborhoods react to social isolation and economic deprivation. Because of the
draining. rustrating and dispiriting experiences, members of the lower class create an
independent subculture with its own set of rules and values. This lower-class subculture stresses
excitement, toughness, risk-making. fearlessness, and immediate gratification. Subcultural norms
such as being tough followed by he lower-class may tend to clash with conventional values--the
norms set by the society. Example, sum dwellers or informal settlers are forced to violate the law
because they obey the rules of the deviant culture with which they are in close and immediate
contact. In short, those who are economically deprived and iving in disorganized areas in order to
gain success may resort to crige and delinquency (Siegel, 2004).
CONCEPTS
Albert K. Cohen (1918-2014) first articulated the theory in his classic book, "Delinquent Boys."
Cohen's position was that delinquent behavior of lower-lass youth is actually a protest against
the norms and values of the middle-class US, oulture. Because the social conditions make them
incapable of achieving success legitimately, lower-class youths experience a form of culture
confid that Cohen labels status frustration. Status frustration refers to the state where youths are
incapable of achieving their legitimate goals in life because of the social conditions that they are
into, such as having poor parents and living in slum areas. With this, Cohen was able to believe
that because of status frustration lower-class boys who suffer rejection by middle-clas (rich)
people may tend to form deviant subcultures and Cohen called it: the corner boy, the college boy,
or the delinquent boy (Siegel, 2004).
1. The Corner Boy
The corner boy role is the most common response to middle-class rejection. He is not a chronic.
delinquent but may be a truant who engages in petty or status offenses, such as sex before
marriage and recreational drug abuse.
2. The College Boy
The college boy embraces the cultural and social values of the middle-class. He actively strives b
be successful by those standards.
3. The Delinquent Boy
The delinquent boy adopts set of norms and principles in direct opposition to middle-class
values.
He strives for independence and that nobody can control his behavior, he may join gang and
willing to take risks and violate the law.
By introducing the corner boy, college boy, and delinquent boy triad, Cohen helps explain why
many lower-class youth fail to become chronic offender (Siegel, 2004).

CONCEPTS
Differential Opportunity Theory is the output of the classic work of Richard A. Cloward (1926-
2001) and Lloyd E. Ohlin's (1918-2008) *Delinquency and Opportunity.* This theory is a
combination of strain and disorganization principles into a portrayal of a gang-sustaining criminal
subculture. The main concept of this theory states that people in all strata of society share the
same success goals but those in the lower-class have
limited means of achieving them. People who perceive themselves as failures with conventional
soot wil seek alternative or innovative ways to gain success, such as joining drug syndicate and
any other lorns of ilegal activites, Because of the differential opportunity. kids are also likely to
join one of ties: types of gangs:
1. Criminal Gangs: Exist in stable lower-class areas in which close connections among adolescent,
young adult, and adult offenders create an environment for successful criminal enterprise such as
joining gang.
2. Conflict Gang: Thrive in highly disorganized areas marked by temporary residents and physical
deterioration. Members of the conflict gang are tough adolescents who fight with weapons to
win respect from rivals and engage in destructive assaults on people and property. They are
willing to fight to protect their own and their gang's integrity and honor.
3. Retreatist Gang: Retreatists are double failures because they are unable to gain success
through legitimate means and unwilling to do so through illegal ones. They have tried crime or
violence but are either too weak or scared to be accepted in criminal or violent gangs.
Ohlin and Cloward agreed with Cohen (previous lesson) and found out that independent
delinquert subcuitures exist within society. Youth gangs are important part of the delinquent
subculture. Speaking d subculture, this would refer to groups that are being formed with the
values and norms that would clast or in conflict with the dominant culture (general society).
Although Cloward and Ohlin believed that not al crminal behaviors (Siegel, 2004).
ilegal ads are committed by gang youth; they are the source of the most serious, sustained, and
cost.

CONCEPTS
Neutralization Theory (1957) is identified with the writings of David C. Matza (1930-2018) and his
associate Gresham M. Sykes (1922-2010). They viewed the process of becoming a criminal as a
learing experience in which potential delinquents and criminals master techniques that enable
them to counterbalance or neutralize conventional values and drift back and forth between
illegitimate and
canventional behavior. One reason it becomes possible, Its because of tre subter anean vaue
stuctre of American Society. Subterranean values are morally tinged influences that havesbecome
entrenches in the culture but are publicly condemned. These are values that are condemned in
public but may be practiced privately: Example: viewing porographic films, drinking alcohol to
excess, and gambling on sporting events.
Matza further argued that even the most committed criminals and delinquents are not involved
in criminality all the time; they also attend schools, family functions, and religious services. Their
behavior can be conceived as falling along a continuum between total freedom and total restraint
This process, which Matza calls drift-refers to the movement from one extreme of behavior to
another, resulting in behavior that is sometimes unconventional, free, or deviant, and at other
times constraint and sober,
A person according to Matza may learn techniques of neutralization in order to temporanly * drift
away" from conventional behavior and get involved in more subterranean values and behaviors
including crime and drug abuse. The following are the techniques of neutralization for a person
to justity his law-violating behavior and drift away from the rules of the normative society and
participate in subterranean behaviors (Siegel, 2004):
1. Denial of Responsibility. Young offenders sometimes claim their unlawful acts were simply not
their fault They made me do it
2. Denial of Injury. Criminals are able to neutralize their behavior by denying the
* 3.
wrongfulness of their act. "They have insurance." "What's one ballipen to a big store?"
Denial of Victim. Criminals would neutralize their acts by maintaining that the victim of crime
"had it coming." In this case, the criminal would blame his victim.