The Pressure to keep up with everyone else: The idea that there is far more than an

individual’s decision about whether to commit crime, was advanced by Emile Durkheim in the late 1800’s. He believed there was more than individual choice at play and that society could exercise a coercive power over people from within that society (Martin, Michael & McIntyre 1994). He also did not believe that crime was necessarily a bad thing for a society, that all societies have crime, and that crimes are actually a breach of a certain moral code and that was why punishment was required (Garland 1983, p65-6).

Durkheim’s theory was developed by Merton in the 1930’s as he looked at American society around the time of the Great Depression. He talked about the American dream, and unlike in France and Britain where class and privilege was still an issue, America had no such system, just old money, and new money. Merton replaces Durkheim’s conception of insatiable passions and appetites with the assumption that human needs and desires are primarily the product of the social process i.e. cultural socialisation. For instance people reared in a society where cultural values emphasise material goals will learn to strive for economic success. Merton focuses on the extreme emphasis on material goals that characterises the cultural environment of American society. In this respect, Merton’s description of American society is quite similar to Durkheim’s observations regarding the unrelenting pursuit of economic gain in ‘the sphere of trade and industry’. However, Merton extends this materialistic portrait to include all of American society. Merton not only argues that all Americans, regardless of their position in society, are exposed to the dominant materialistic values, but that their cultural beliefs sustain the myth that anyone can succeed in pursuit of an economic goal (Rock, 2002, p53). Therefore the dream was that no matter where you came from you could ‘make’ money and ‘live the dream’. Merton then talked of the ‘strain’ felt by individuals who

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realised they actually could not achieve this dream by legitimate means. Crime happened due to the desire to have the wealth by any means. In this context Merton argued, the condition of anomie which Durkheim had regarded as exceptional, was visited upon people in boom and slump but otherwise held at bay by social regulation, becomes routine, a built in and unintended feature of society (Downes and Rock 2005, p115). Although Merton only regarded his theory as being applicable to America, the criticism would still be that it does not explain why not all who fail to ‘live the dream’ go on to commit crime, or why those who have wealth and are ‘living the dream’ still commit crime. He tried to explain that the majority will continue to conform to social norms, but that certain sections are more prone to anomie, but again there is the question, why doesn’t all of that section of society feel the ‘strain’? There will be several references in the review of the effects of poverty and socio- economic conditions, the links rather than causal effect of poverty, but not all living in these conditions choose to commit crime. However this ‘strain’ was mentioned by several of the young people who were interviewed, as they asked the question when talking about others in society ‘why should they have all the money’ and some did not regard it as wrong to take that money by any means.

In the 1950’s and 1960’s, theories concerning culture and sub-culture came to prominence, and Albert Cohen took Merton’s strain theory to introduce such notions, as like Merton, he believed that conflict within society could actually be normal (Downes and Rock 2003, p145). He believed that each culture or sub-culture developed as a response to ‘strain’, and each one was different depending on the individuals and peers within the group. The main plank of Cohen’s theory was his characterisation of gang delinquency and his assumption that it amounted to a ‘way of life’ in deprived inner city areas (Downes and Rock 2003, p145). The young men, and it was largely young men, this later being levelled as a criticism that female sub-cultures were not considered, had no access to the middle class ambitions and status they were judged against. They therefore formed groups of their own in which alternative forms of status and appreciation could be achieved (Newburn 2007, p197-8). This is supported by Harding in his recently published book, ‘The Street Casino: Survival in violent street gangs’, where he talks of the desire for ‘street capital’ i.e. reputation as a main requirement of gang life.

Cloward and Ohlin in 1960 looked to develop this theory further and asked under which conditions, will people experience strains and tensions that lead to delinquent solutions? In

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part, the answer was that disparity between what lower class youths are led to want and what is actually available to them, is the source of a major problem of adjustment (Newburn 2007, p198). The author has experienced this when speaking to young people in Fairfield about available jobs in 2008, where a young unemployed man stated he would not apply for any job with a salary of more than £10,000 as he felt these jobs were ‘not for him’. Has this young man been socialised to accept ‘his lot’, to fail to aspire, and so avoid strain and possible damage to the existing society. Cloward and Ohlin also argue that individuals have different access to achieve the normal goals of society by legitimate or illegitimate means, and that some do not have access to either means of achieving these goals. So although the young people were seen as a problem in the UK and the USA, the differences in people’s lives having an effect on the sub-cultures being formed was possibly one of the reasons that different versions of American and British sub culture theory emerged. Living conditions in the USA and England and Wales are different and people’s surroundings will be the next area examined.

4.6.2 The influence of people’s physical surroundings:

It was at the beginning of the