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Status Deprivation and Delinquent Behavior

1963; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 4; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1533-8525.1963.tb01582.x

1533-8525

Albert J. Reiss, A. Lewis Rhodes,

Social and Cultural Dynamics

THE relationship between delinquent behavior and life style in the slums of London and Paris reported over a hundred years ago finds its counterpart in contemporary metropolitan America.' Evidence for the population of the present study shows that official delinquency rates vary inversely with socioeconomic status.2 There are some who argue that differential enforcement of the law and handling of law violators from the socioeconomic levels of the population accounts for these observed differences in official rates of delinquency., But assuming the relationship between delinquent behavior and socioeconomic status to be valid, the question quite naturally arises, what is there about low socioeconomic status that generates high delinquency rates? One explanation for this relationship is Albert K. Cohen's theory of subcultural delinquency. A too brief statement of his theory is that working-class boys, to the degree that they value middle-class status, experience status frustration when in status competition. Status frustration generates a problem of adjustment and places these boys in the market for a solution. Delinquency is often a collective subcultural solution to this status frustration because it provides criteria of status which these adolescents can meet.4 Cohen's theory necessarily postulates that adolescents have developed a conscious awareness or perception of differences in class