street crime essay pdf

1.12. Street Crime, Corporate Crime, and White-Collar Crime

Shanell Sanchez

As previously demonstrated, crime can be broadly defined, but the two most common types of crime discussed are, street crime and corporate or white-collar crime. Most people are familiar with street crime since it is the most commonly discussed amongst politicians, media outlets, and members of society. Every year the Justice Department puts out an annual report titled “Crime in the United States” which means street crime but has yet to publish an annual Corporate Crime in the United States report. Most Americans will find little to nothing on price-fixing, corporate fraud, pollution, or public corruption.

Street Crime

Street crime is often broken up into different types and can include acts that occur in both public and private spaces, as well as interpersonal violence and property crime. According to the Bureau of Justice (BJS), street crime can include violent crimes such as homicide, rape, assault, robbery, and arson. Street crime also includes property crimes such as larceny, arson, breaking-and-entering, burglary, and motor vehicle theft. The BJS also collects data on drug crime, hate crimes, and human trafficking, which often fall under the larger umbrella of street crime. [1]

Fear of street crime is real in American society; however, street crime may not be as rampant as many think. In a 2017 report, the BJS found that the rate of robbery victimization increased from 1.7 per 1,000 persons in 2016 to 2.3 in 2017. Overall, robbery happens to a small percentage of Americans, which also seems to be a similar trend when looking at the portion of persons age 12 or older who were victims of violent crime. The BJS noted an increase from 0.98% in 2015 to 1.14% in 2017, but note the small percentage overall. Further from 2015 to 2017, the percentage of persons who were victims of violent crime increased among males, whites, those ages 25 to 34, those aged 50 and over, and those who had never married. There are clear risk factors that can be taken into account when attempting to develop policy, which is discussed in subsequent chapters of the book. There were also areas where the BJS noted a downward trend in crime, such as the decline in the rate of overall property crime from 118.6 victimizations per 1,000 households to 108.4, while the burglary rate fell from 23.7 to 20.6. [2]

Polls have consistently found that people are worried about crime in the United States, specifically street crime. Riffkin (2014) found that people worry about various crimes such as homes getting burglarized when they were home, the victim of terrorism, being attacked while driving their car, murdered, the victim of a hate crime, and being sexually assaulted https://news.gallup.com/poll/178856/hacking-tops-list-crimes-americans-worry.aspx . Most people in society, people can go about their daily lives without the fear of being a victim of street crime. Street crime is important to take seriously, but it is reassuring to note that it is unlikely to happen to most people. The conversation should happen around why fears are high, especially amongst those less likely to be a victim. For example, elderly citizens have the greatest fear of street crime, yet they are the group least likely to experience it. Whereas younger people, especially young men, are less likely to fear crime and are the most likely to experience it. [3]

Because Americans are often fearful of street crime, for various reasons, resources are devoted to prevention and protecting the public. The United States spends roughly $265.2 billion dollars a year and employs more than one million police officers, almost 750,000 correctional officers, and more than 490,000 judicial and legal personnel on street crime. [4] The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) estimated in 2015 that financial losses from property crime at $14.3 billion in 2014 (FBI, 2015a), but keep that number in mind for a minute. [5] Although it is crucial to recognize that street crime does occur, and it impacts certain groups disproportionately more than others, it is also important to recognize other types of crimes commonly talked discussed. In fact, the BJS does not have a link that directs people to the next two types of crime discussed when on their main page of crime types.

Corporate Crime

When most people think of crime, they think of acts of interpersonal violence or property crime. The typical image of a criminal is not someone who is considered a ‘pillar’ in society, especially one who may have an excellent career, donate to charity, devote time to the community, and engage in ‘normal’ behavior. [6] Corporate crime is an offense committed by a corporation’s officers who pursue illegal activity (various kinds) in the name of the corporation. The goal is to make money for the business and run a profitable business, and the representatives of the business. Corporate crime may also include environmental crime if a corporation damages the environment to earn a profit. [7] As C. Wright Mills (1952) once stated, “corporate crime creates higher immorality” in U.S. society. [8] Corporate crime inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined, by death, injury, or dollars lost.

Credit Suisse pled guilty to helping thousands of Americans file false income tax returns, and the company got fined $2.6 billion. Last year, BNP Paribas pled guilty to violating trade sanctions and was forced to pay $8.9 billion, which exceeds the yearly pocket yearly costs of all the burglaries and robberies in the United States ($4.5 billion in 2014 according to the FBI). Another example is health care fraud. The estimates suggest this costs Americans $100 billion to $400 billion a year. [9]

In 2001, the energy company Enron committed accounting and corporate fraud, where shareholders lost $74 billion in the four years leading to its bankruptcy, thousands of employees lost jobs, and billions of dollars got lost in pension plans. [10]

In addition to financial loss, corporate crime can be violent. In 2016, the FBI estimated the number of murders in the nation to be 17,250. [11] Compare 54,000 Americans who die every year on the job or from occupational diseases such as black lung and asbestosis and the additional tens of thousands of other Americans who fall victim every year to the silent violence of pollution, contaminated foods, hazardous consumer products, and hospital malpractice. [12] A vast majority of these deaths are often the result of criminal recklessness. Americans are rarely made aware of them, and they rarely make their way through the criminal justice system.

The last major homicide prosecution brought against a major American corporation was in 1980. A Republican Indiana prosecutor charged Ford Motor Co. with homicide for the deaths of three teenage girls who died when their Ford Pinto caught on fire after being rear-ended in northern Indiana. The prosecutor alleged that Ford knew that it was marketing a defective product, with a gas tank that crushed when rear-ended, spilling fuel, where the girls incinerated to death. Ford hired a criminal defense lawyer who in turn hired the best friend of the judge as local counsel, and who, as a result, secured a not guilty verdict after persuading the judge to keep key evidence out of the jury room. [13]   https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fatal-ford-pinto-crash-in-indiana .

Sometimes the terms corporate and white-collar crime are used interchangeably, but there are important distinctions between the two terms. [14]

White-Collar Crime

In contrast to corporate crime, white-collar crime usually involves employees harming the individual corporation. Sometimes corporate and white-collar crime goes hand in hand, but not always. An example of white-collar crime would be the financial offenses of Bernard Madoff, who defrauded his investors of approximately $20 billion. Instead of trading stocks with his client’s money, Madoff had for years been operating an enormous Ponzi scheme, paying off old investors with money he got from new ones.

By late 2008, with the economy in free fall, Madoff could no longer attract new money, and the scheme collapsed, which resulted in hundreds of investors, including numerous charities, being wiped out. As of today, a court-appointed trustee has managed to recover about $13 billion, which is most of the money Madoff’s investors put into his funds. The trustee sold off Madoff family’s assets, including their homes in the Hamptons, Manhattan, and France and a 55-foot yacht named Bull. [15]

Dr. Sanchez’s Professor  in Graduate School

In 2008, many people were negatively impacted by Madoff, one of which was a former professor for Dr. Sanchez. He lost his retirement, which required him to keep teaching well into his 80s, as well as lost his home. The impact of Madoff was far-reaching and although most may call it a purely economic crime, people committed suicide and lost everything in this scandal.

No official program measures corporate and white-collar crime like there is with street crime occurring in the United States. Therefore, we estimate costs to society, and who the victims are. Additionally, unlike street crime where the crime can often be discovered instantly and investigated quickly, corporate and white-collar crime can take years to investigate and even longer to prosecute. Remember, Madoff was involved in fraud most of his working life but was not caught until he was nearing the end at the age of 71. [16]

• https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=316 ↵
• Morgan, R., & Truman,  J., (December 2018). NCJ 252472 ↵
• Doerner, W. G., & Lab, S.P. (2008). Victimology  (5th ed.). Cincinnati, Ohio: Lexis-Nexis. ↵
• Kyckelhahn, T. (2012). Justice expenditure and employment extracts. Bureau of Justice Statistics ↵
• FBI. (2015b), September 28). The latest crime stats were released. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice. ↵
• Fuller, J.R. (2019). Introduction to criminal justice. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press. ↵
• Horowitz, I. (Ed.) (2008), Power, politics, and people. Wright Mills, C. (1952). A diagnosis of moral uneasiness (pp.330-339). New York: Ballantine. ↵
• (2000). License To Steal: How Fraud Bleeds America's Health Care System. Westview Press. ↵
• Folger, J. (November 2011). The Enron collapse: A look back. Investopedia. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com/updates/enron-scandal-summary/   ↵
• FBI: UCR. 2016. FBI Murder. https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/murder ↵
• Mokhiber, R. Corporate crime & violence: Big business power and the abuse of the public  trust. Random House, Inc. ↵
• Steinzor, R. (Dec. 2014). It’s called 'Why Not Jail?': Industrial catastrophes, corporate malfeasance, and government inaction. Cambridge University Press. ↵
• Kleck, G. (1982). On the use of self-report data to determine the class distribution of criminal and delinquent behavior." American Sociological Review, 427-433. ↵
• Zarroli, J. (2018). For Madoff victims, scars remain 10 years later, National Public Radio,  https://www.npr.org/2018/12/23/678238031/for-madoff-victims-scars-remain-10-years-later ↵
• Fuller, J.R. (2019). Introduction to Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford, Oxford University Press. ↵

1.12. Street Crime, Corporate Crime, and White-Collar Crime Copyright © 2019 by Shanell Sanchez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Street Gangs, Organized Crime Groups, and Terrorists: Differentiating Criminal Organizations

2013, www.InvestigativeSciencesJournal.org

Individually street gangs, organized crime (OC) groups, and terrorists all present serious problems for national and international law enforcement agencies. Imagine though if these three were connected or linked in substantive ways. Whether we want to accept this or not, the lines between these structures are often blurred and ill-defined. Each of these groups often takes on the characteristics of the other group, if not in motive then in technique. Additionally, these groups sometimes form alliances with one another further complicating law enforcement efforts to combat their criminal activity. Distinguishing these groups from one another, as well as outlining areas in which they overlap will help direct law enforcement toward a more successful pursuit of these groups.

Related Papers

Small Wars Journal

Carter F Smith

Military-trained gang members (MTGMs) have received military training such as tactics, weapons, explosives, or equipment, and the use of distinctive military skills. Gangs with military-trained members often pose an ongoing and persistent military and political threat. At least one-tenth of one percent of the U.S. population is an MTGM, and there are between 150,000 and 500,000 MTGMs. That number demonstrates an alarming domestic and national security threat that includes a number of potentially significant implications for government leaders in the U.S., and in other countries where third generation (3GEN) Gangs or Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) are prevalent. The intersection of MTGMs and criminal insurgencies threatens national security and communities, undermining the economic and political foundations of local and state government. These criminal organizations often behave like insurgents, engaging in governance to support the illicit marketplace or acting in police or social roles in the community. Counterinsurgency strategies, including cultural awareness should be implemented alongside traditional anti-gang measures.

MTGMs, whether from Street Gangs, Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMGs), or Domestic Terrorist Extremist (DTE) groups, have endangered U.S. communities since before the birth of the country. Early gang leaders acquired military training before and during the Revolutionary War, and continued their criminal activity as the population transitioned westward. The earliest MTGMs included river pirates, stealing cargo and attacking passengers along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, and later the street gangsters who controlled much of the criminal street business in New York, New York and some of the police and politicians of that time. Members of one DTE group started as a New York street gang, received military training and experience in Mexico during the Mexican-American War, and were released from active duty in the newly-named city of San Francisco, just before the Gold Rush of 1848. The issues of MTGMs today tend to mirror those in history, indicating that a solution to the problem is elusive, perhaps even unattainable.Survey results regarding the perception of MTGM presence in the Western United States are included, as are the results of the most recent Gang and Domestic Extremist Activity Threat Assessment (GDEATA) by the U.S. Army and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC). The connection of street gangs, OMGs, and DTEs to the military was examined, as were possible remedies for limiting the dangerousness of those criminals in the community. The note is intended to promote the awareness of the MTGM situation and encourage scholars and practitioners to conduct research concerning this issue in other locations in the United States and foreign nations towards identifying strategies to control the problem or mitigate the effects. The confluence of gangs and the military presents significant social and security challenges with significant national and global security potentials.

This research note reviews the state of military-trained gang members (MTGMs) in the Eastern United States. In each wartime era since the Revolutionary War, there have been MTGMs who engaged in criminal activities in civilian communities. The earliest MTGMs in the United States received their training in the colonial militia. One group started as a New York City street gang, received military training and experience in Mexico during the Mexican-American War, and were released from active duty in San Francisco, just before the Gold Rush of 1848. An individual MTGM started as a well-known crime boss in New York and joined the military to fight in World War I. Contemporary MTGMs challenge military discipline and threaten community security.

In an early exploration of the evolution of group violence in its most common form, John Sullivan found the beginning indicators of Third Generation (3GEN) Gangs, which pose a significant threat to the safety, security, and future of our communities. 3GEN gangs are highly sophisticated, with goals of political power or financial acquisition. First generation gangs are those considered primarily turf gangs. Some turf gangs evolve into drug gangs or entrepreneurial organizations with a market-orientation, thus filling the second generation. Gangs in the third generation include those with a mix of political and mercenary elements who operate or are at least capable of operating in the global community. Military-trained gang members (MTGMs) have been identified in every wartime period for the United States, and active duty MTGMs threaten the cohesiveness of military units and undermine the authority of military leadership, using the military to further their criminal organization’s goals. They are a clear threat to military discipline, bringing corrupt influences, an increase in criminal activity, and a threat to military family members on military installations.

Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice

Matthew Valasik

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to use nearly a century’s worth of gang research to inform us about modern terrorist groups, specifically the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Design/methodology/approach - A case study approach is employed, comparing and contrasting the competing theoretical frameworks of gangs and terrorist organisations to understand group structure, demographics, patterns of behaviour (e.g., territoriality, strategic and instrumental violence), goals, and membership patterns of ISIS. Findings - The qualitative differences of ISIS make them more comparable to street gangs than other terrorist groups. Practical implications - ISIS while being qualitatively different from other terrorist groups actually has many similarities with street gangs allowing for the adaptation of effective gang prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies. This paper highlights how the expansive literature on street gangs is able to inform practical interventions to directly target ISIS and deradicalise potential recruits. By introducing a gang-terror nexus on the crime-terror continuum this paper provides a useful perspective on the decentralised but dynamic nature of modern era insurgencies. This paper urges similar case studies of terrorist organizations to determine the extent to which they conform to street gang characteristics. Originality/value - Terrorist groups are often compared to street gangs, yet it has not been until the last few years that gang researchers (Curry, 2011; Decker and Pyrooz, 2011; 2015) have begun to compare and contrast these two deviant group archetypes. The goal of this paper is to use nearly a hundred years of gang research to better equip scholars and practitioners with a broader understanding of terrorism and insurgency in the era of globalisation by presenting a case study of ISIS using a street gang perspective.

Joshua Harms , Carter F Smith

Communities everywhere have experienced the negative effects of street gangs, domestic terrorists, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. The presence of these criminals increases the threat of violence to the community. When they have military training, the threat increases significantly. The problem addressed in this study was the growing presence of military-trained gang members in civilian communities. The purpose of the study was to determine the perceived presence of military-trained gang members in jails and community corrections and to examine whether there was a relationship between the perceptions of sheriff’s deputies regarding that presence and a number of variables.

Travis Linnemann

This paper engages the cultural politics of criminal classifications by aiming at one of the state’s most powerful, yet ambiguous markers—the ‘gang.’ Focusing on the unique cases of ‘crews’ and collectives within the ‘straight edge’ and ‘Juggalo’ subcultures, this paper considers what leads members of the media and police to construct—or fail to construct—these street collectives as gangs in a seemingly haphazard and disparate fashion. Juxtaposing media, cultural, and police representations of straight edge ‘crews’ and Juggalo collectives with the FBI’s Gang Threat Assessment, we detail how cultural politics and ideology underpin the social reality of gangs and thus the application of the police power. This paper, furthermore, considers critical conceptualizations of the relationship between police and criminal gangs.

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John P. Sullivan

This paper discusses the dynamics of the gang-crime-terrorism continuum and its relationship to ”generations of warfare” within the contemporary spectrum of conflict. The focus is to explore the potential for gang-terrorist interaction in the current and emerging conflict environment. The concepts of third generation street gangs (3G2), netwar, and fourth generation warfare (4GW) are applied to investigate the typologies and relationships of third generation street gangs and terrorist groups.

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Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) – commonly called drug cartels – are challenging states and their institutions in increasingly brutal and profound ways. This is seen dramatically in Mexico's drug wars and the expanding reach of Mexican organized criminal enterprises throughout Latin America and other parts of the world. This essay updates a 1998 paper ‘Cartel Evolution: Potentials and Consequences’ and examines current cartel and gang interactions. The paper links discussion of cartel phases to gang generations; updates and applies the discussion of third phase cartel potentials to Mexico; and assesses four alternative futures for Mexico, as well as their cross-border implications for the United States.

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What Is Crime?

Cite this chapter.

• Michael J. Lynch ,
• Paul B. Stretesky &
• Michael A. Long  

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M ost criminologists would probably argue that the definition of crime is defined by the state and is not something that they can do much, if anything, to change or influence. Crime is, in this view, what the law states. Using this legal definition, criminologists simply study the causes of crime to determine why some individuals violate the law— perhaps suggesting how various state agencies may do a better job reducing crime and apprehending offenders. We assert that this is a rather unscientific position on the study of crime that lacks both scientific rigor and academic purpose. In this chapter, we emphasize the point that criminologists cannot estimate the extent to which their empirical results reveal something about the causes of crime and that this situation has something to do with the definition of crime. Moreover, we suggest that what criminology really studies is mostly reflective of politics.

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Lynch, M.J., Stretesky, P.B., Long, M.A. (2015). What Is Crime?. In: Defining Crime. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137479358_3

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19 Street Culture and Crime

Mark T. Berg is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice at Indiana University.

Eric A. Stewart is Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University.

• Published: 28 December 2012
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Many studies on criminology emphasize the role of cultural mechanisms—the symbolic, relational aspect of social organization—in the uneven representation of crime in society. While dimensions of social structure are also important in this literature, it differs from other criminological research because of the explanatory power granted to culture to account for the origin and scope of socially disapproved behaviors. Cultural explanations still permeate research on criminal behavior in the urban metropolis, but recent questions about the etiology of violence within this environment appear to have revived the cultural perspective, raising the possibility that behavior is shaped by culture. This article reviews criminological research that ascribes criminal behavior to the interaction between individuals and street culture. It examines the propositions derived from urban sociology and recent cognitive-based accounts, focusing on the theoretical and empirical research involving serious crime, particularly violent behavior among individuals living in urban areas.

An extensive inventory of criminological research places emphasis on cultural mechanisms—the symbolic, relational aspect of social organization—to account for the uneven representation of crime within society. While dimensions of social structure are also critically important in this literature, what distinguishes it from other criminological research is the explanatory power granted to culture to explain the genesis and scope of socially disapproved behaviors.

Yet despite their scientific potential, cultural explanations have been the subject of sharp criticism both within and outside academia. Part of this treatment is related to the fact that culture itself is a highly abstract conceptual notion, making the assumptions of existing research especially vulnerable to misinterpretation. At minimum, a profitable theory is one that is testable, falsifiable, and simple. Many theories that specify culture as an organizing principle often articulate a disparate mélange of assumptions, and they do not approximate a sufficient theoretical perspective. These matters have diminished the appeal of cultural explanations, causing some analysts to reject them outright (e.g., Kornhauser 1978 ). As a consequence, for many years criminological research neglected any serious attempts to explain criminal behavior as a product of cultural mechanisms. Now the discipline appears to again be open to the potential for treating nonconventional culture as an influential variable in the explanation of criminal behavior.

Because it is a ubiquitous property of social life, culture has been invoked to account for differences in criminal behavior across multiple units of analyses (e.g., nations, states, neighborhoods, and individuals). Likewise, theories in this domain often vary in their analytical objectives; for example, some specify cultural variables to explain the spatial or temporal distribution of crime rates, while others model such differentiation among individuals or small groups. Criminological research that applies a cultural explanation to individual-level behaviors often explicitly or implicitly integrates a consideration of contextual processes. In fact, neighborhood context has long been salient to research on the normative dimension of criminal behavior because it is a social setting where network-based norms are inhered and enacted. As Matza ( 1964 , p. 25) has remarked, “the ideas and practices that are transmitted within groups and neighborhoods occupy a strategic position in the sociological view” of crime and delinquency. Any scholarly discussion of culture and criminal behavior must consider the social context in which individuals are embedded in order to fully explain the nature of these effects.

The current chapter concentrates on criminological research that specifies criminal behavior as a product of the interaction between individuals and a local cultural context. Specifically, we organize our discussion of existing material within a multilevel interpretation and delineate the linkage between individual and ecologically situated processes. Attention is paid to the theoretical and empirical research involving serious crime, particularly violent behavior among individuals who inhabit urban environments. Just as in the mid-20th century, cultural explanations still permeate studies of criminal behavior in the urban metropolis. More recently, however, questions about the etiology of violence within this environment have sparked an apparent revival of the cultural perspective, suggesting novel ideas about how culture operates to affect behavior. Taken together, these efforts prompt the following conclusions:

Neglected by researchers and overshadowed by alternative theoretical frameworks, cultural explanations are again reentering theoretical discussions about the etiology of crime. But unlike earlier intellectual trends, contemporary research commonly applies cultural principles mainly to explain violent behavior in urban contexts. Empirical studies have largely supported hypotheses derived from this work.

The contributions of Anderson ( 1999 ) and Wilson ( 1987 , 1996 ) set in motion current efforts of researchers to understand the interplay between neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, race, cultural organization, and patterns of socially disproved behavior, including violence and illicit marketplace activities.

When culture is invoked by contemporary scholars to explain urban violence, discussions often focus on the behavioral consequences of “social isolation” (Wilson 1996 ); however, alternative formulations derived from a cognitive interpretation of culture challenge the formal logic of this perspective.

In section I , we discuss assumptions contained in several early theoretical treatments of culture and criminal behavior, and we discuss the reasons that interest in cultural theories waned for a period of several years. Section II evaluates developments in the study of culture and criminal behavior; we focus specifically on the propositions derived from urban sociology and recent cognitive-based accounts. The chapter’s conclusions are reemphasized in section III .

I. Cultural Processes and Crime: Early Perspectives

A. shaw and mckay and neighborhood context.

Social scientists have long sought to explain patterns of unconventional behavior using the related conceptual devices of norms and values. Scholars in the Chicago School operated from this position while investigating the behavioral consequences of normative change among people undergoing the social transition from traditional settings to modern urban life (e.g., Park 1925 ; Thrasher 1927 ; Wirth 1938 ). Working in this intellectual climate, Shaw and McKay fashioned a pioneering model centered on the concept of “social disorganization” that implicated both the cultural and network-related aspects of neighborhoods as sources of delinquency. It is important to begin with the foundational work developed by these Chicago School scholars in order to make sense of the differences and similarities between traditional and contemporary explanations. By and large, scholarly treatments of Shaw and McKay gloss over the micro-level cultural component of their work; however, their ideas are critically important to understanding subsequent research in this domain, and continue to be of relevance to contemporary thinking.

Shaw and McKay’s ( 1942 , 1969 ) model conceived of the local neighborhood as an important context for delinquency because it represents a place where personal and primary group relations are formed; these ensuing relations are integral to mechanisms of social control (i.e., social regulation) and socialization (i.e., culture). As for the latter aspect of their model pertaining to the nature of cultural processes, Shaw and McKay ( 1942 ) theorized that the normative rationale for criminal behavior is transmitted through face-to-face interactions, eventually becoming embedded as a delinquent tradition within certain neighborhoods. Oral history or biographical data revealed that “these traditions of delinquency [were] preserved and transmitted” not only by peer contacts but also through the family network (Shaw and McKay 1971 , p. 260). Furthermore, Shaw and McKay formulated two key assumptions relating to the content of culture in poor, high-crime neighborhoods (see Kobrin 1971 ). First, they argued that delinquent norms coexist with mainstream norms. Stated in their words, the typical delinquent community is “often distinguished by a confusion and wide diversification of its norms or standards,” ranging from orientations that are strictly conventional to those that are delinquent in character rather than to a relative consistent and conventional pattern (Shaw, McKay, and MacDonald 1938 , p. 101). Second, Shaw and McKay stressed that the “dominant cultural tradition in every community is conventional, even in those having the highest rates of delinquents” (1969, p. 320). Put differently, they believed that while delinquent conduct norms are salient within high-delinquency neighborhoods, they are a numerical minority relative to mainstream norms (see Whyte 1943 ). Taken together, Shaw and McKay understood the culture of impoverished neighborhoods to be characteristically (1) heterogeneous or conflicting, (2) while largely conventional in nature.

Shaw and McKay’s ( 1969 ) explanation had a dual explanatory focus, one that emphasized the macro-social or community distribution of crime, and the other that elaborated the micro-social processes, particularly those occurring in primary groups, which facilitated the transmission of criminal traditions in high-crime areas. Shaw and McKay’s emphasis on neighborhood-based social networks as carriers of cultural resources effectively merged these macro and micro explanations. Social change or urban growth dynamics became a less salient premise for their model as it developed. Indeed, analytical and theoretical focus shifted from the linkage between urban growth dynamics and crime to that of social status and crime. Shaw and McKay ( 1942 ) slowly recast their explanatory framework to account for the link between neighborhood inequality and stratification and patterns of criminal behavior. As a result, their model attributed theoretical power not only to intergroup processes but also to the role of structural position in shaping criminal conduct norms in poor urban neighborhoods.

Subsequent theoretical treatments of cultural processes integrated conceptual developments from Shaw and McKay’s earlier model (see Short 1971 ). Kobrin ( 1951 ), for instance, theorized that a duality of conduct norms, rather than hegemony of either criminal or conventional norms, was “the fundamental sociological fact in the culture” of high-crime communities (p. 656). Also within the theoretical vein of social process, Sutherland’s ( 1947 ) model identifies a dynamic, ongoing course of interaction among individuals and groups that produces criminal acts (Matsueda 1988 ). His model assumes that differential social organization—or the relative exposure of groups and actors to ratios favorable and unfavorable to crime—is a feature of collectivities, including communities. Certain groups, such as youths from poor urban areas, theoretically are at risk for involvement in crime because their “social organizational context” exposes them to an excess of definitions favoring crime (Matsueda 1988 , p. 282). Also, Cloward and Ohlin’s ( 1960 ) strain-based theory modified the cultural aspects of Shaw and McKay’s thesis to suggest that the alignment between conventional and criminal networks was necessary to explain neighborhood variation in the nature of criminal activity.

B. Socioeconomic Position and Subcultural Models

As noted, characteristics of social structure, including inequality and stratification, became particularly salient in later variants of Shaw and McKay’s model in order to account for the relative stability of high-crime rates in impoverished areas. To be sure, Sutherland and others did not explicitly theorize the relevance of these characteristics for cultural processes or crime. Nonetheless, the linkage between social status and involvement in delinquency permeated subsequent developments in cultural theorizing. For example, Cohen ( 1955 ) developed a theory from these earlier theoretical strands—in addition to Mertonian strain theory—in which aspects of social status and cultural mechanisms were logically united. His perspective maintains that “structural deficits” experienced by working-class youths translate into “cultural deficits” when viewed against middle-class standards. Groups of working-class youths collectively reject middle-class values and devise an oppositional status system where respect is conferred to those who excel at criminal behaviors. Members of the so-called delinquent subculture develop dependence on their system for identity, which gives it a strong degree of salience. To account for the distribution of delinquency (including violence), Cohen’s ( 1955 ) theory grants causal power to group-based subcultural processes; moreover, it stipulates that these processes are disproportionately located among working-class youths.

Further evidence of a social status-culture link is evident in Miller’s ( 1958 ) perspective; he delineates the unique cultural conditions motivating lower-class adolescents to engage in delinquency. Miller posits that the lower-class cultural system is distinctive in its symbolic content, or what is referred to as “focal concerns.” Personal rank is earned by exhibiting behavioral hallmarks sanctioned by the lower-class cultural system; for example, displaying physical prowess in the face of a rival incurs a reputation for toughness—a core focal concern. Wolfgang ( 1958 , pp. 329–30) also tethered class and culture together to account for the social origins of serious offending. He reasoned that a “subculture of violence” exists among a portion of the lower class “where toleration—if not encouragement—of violence is part of the normative structure.” Building on these assumptions, Wolfgang and Ferracuti ( 1967 , p. 153) later proposed that among groups who display the highest rates of homicide “we should find in the most intense degree a subculture of violence.”

Combined, the foregoing authors set the foundation for a theoretical perspective invoking an oppositional culture to explain the distribution of violent behavior within the population, and it construes socioeconomic factors—namely class, sex, and race—as correlates of violent conduct norms (Luckenbill and Doyle 1989 ). These models assume that oppositional norms are endogenous to structural position and vary closely with the commission of violent behaviors (see Hirschi 1969 ). Providing support for these expectations, Heimer’s ( 1997 ) research revealed that “lower SES youths are more likely … to engage in violent delinquency because they have learned definitions favorable to violence through interactions with parents and peers” (p. 820). Likewise, Markowitz and Felson ( 1998 ) demonstrated that lower-class respondents in their study were more likely to emphasize retribution and courage, and these attitudes mediated status differences in violent conduct. Recall that some theorists claim that race differences in violence are attributable to differences in adherence to subcultural values. A study of prison misconduct found that African American inmates had higher rates of violence but lower rates of alcohol and drug offenses; these patterns mirror those observed in free society and support notions from subcultural theory about the role of subculture in explaining racial variation in offending (Harer and Steffensmeier 1996 ). Still, empirical studies have found that race differences in cultural beliefs are partially a product of differences in neighborhood contextual conditions. For example, multilevel research by Sampson and Bartusch ( 1998 , p. 800) discovered an “an ecological structuring to normative orientations” whereby alternative orientations are inhered in neighborhood context and not necessarily common to low-status individuals. These findings demonstrate the salience of neighborhood context, as opposed to only individual-level characteristics (e.g., race), in shaping demographic variation in normative orientations.

Moreover, Short and Strodtbeck’s ( 1965 ) multimethod study of gang youths found that middle-class youths, relative to their lower-class counterparts, were more adamantly opposed to negotiating compromises with conventional standards, while lower-class youths placed greater value on displaying a “tough-guy” reputation and displaying skills at fighting. Furthermore, Horowitz’s ( 1983 ) study of a poor Chicago community identified a distinctive set of values organized around a code of honor that conflicted with conventional standards of interpersonal conduct. She found that the behavioral imperatives of the code sanctioned violence as a means of achieving an honorable reputation in the face of challenges to self, especially those that occurred in view of an audience. Similarly, Schwartz’s ( 1987 ) ethnographic investigation detected community-level differences in the degree to which alternative conduct norms motivated youths to engage in criminal activity. His data showed that youths from the poorest urban neighborhood, who exhibited a relatively extensive involvement in delinquency, were exposed to a cultural milieu where violence was sanctioned, unlike those from the other less impoverished communities.

C. Criticism and Controversy

By the late 1970s, a wave of criticism upended the intellectual merit of theoretical perspectives that granted power to cultural mechanisms. For example, Suttles ( 1968 ) argued that residents of slum neighborhoods do not necessarily reject conventional norms but suspend them to negotiate a practical, rather than ideal, “personalistic order” because the standards of wider society are inapplicable within their environment (pp. 3, 6). Later, Kornhauser ( 1978 , pp. 76–79) argued in that culture is “attenuated” or “disused” in poor neighborhoods, and she challenged the importance of unconventional values for explaining criminal conduct (see Warner 2003 ). Furthermore, she reasoned that “slum life”—her reference to a distinctive culture among residents of lower-class neighborhoods—“lacks complete definition and manifests considerable in-authenticity” (p. 134). Kornhauser thus interpreted Shaw and McKay’s ( 1969 ) theory as a pure control model while accusing Sutherland ( 1947 ) of assuming a theoretical position of “boundless cultural relativism” and envisioning a society “without a center” (Kornhauser 1978 , p. 192). From Kornhauser’s perspective, Sutherland’s theory “contains a hidden but simple variety of structural determinism” (p. 190); moreover, it denies humans a distinct nature and assumes that all behavior is valued.

In a similar line of analysis, Kornhauser accused Miller ( 1958 ) of theorizing cultural processes that exist “only in his imagination” (p. 208). As for Wolfgang and Ferracuti ( 1967 ), their model is allegedly “restricted to the empty search for a subculture to account for the roots of violence” (Kornhauser 1978 , p. 188). More broadly, Kornhauser questioned whether a modern society could sustain a culture that genuinely sanctions predatory behavior, for it would have no value in societies whose existence depends on lawful interactions. Despite her critique, there was not a uniform scholarly opinion about the impotence of nonconventional culture as a causal mechanism. For example, an empirical study by Hindelang ( 1974 ) challenged prevailing notions about value consensus, suggesting that youths do not universally subscribe to a common value system irrespective of their delinquent involvement (e.g., Sykes and Matza 1957 ).

As time has revealed, the devastating consequences of Kornhauser’s critique for the theoretical vitality of cultural perspectives cannot be ignored (see Matsueda 1988 , 2007 ). But beyond this, the politically charged controversy involving the “culture of poverty” thesis further marginalized any discussion of culture in social science research. For these reasons, subsequent developments in criminological theory placed very little emphasis on cultural variation as an explanation of crime. Instead they held a consensus view of the social order and thereby sought to explain law violation only as a product of a breakdown in regulation (e.g., Bursik and Grasmick 1993 ).

II. Cultural Processes and Crime: Recent Developments

For many years, the controversy surrounding cultural models dissuaded young scholars from making a strong effort to examine unlawful or deviant conduct through a cultural lens (see Small, Harding, and LaMont 2010 ). Wilson’s ( 1987 ) research on the implications of urban poverty reignited scholarly interest in cultural explanations of unconventional behavior particularly within predominantly African American neighborhoods. According to his thesis, large-scale processes of deindustrialization—a loss of manufacturing jobs coupled with a decline in real wages among low-skilled workers—engendered an outmigration of middle-class residents and increased the proportion of impoverished families, all of which fueled an erosion of neighborhood social institutions. Wilson believed these transformations deprived residents of not only important institutional resources but also conventional role models who engage in legitimate adult behaviors. According to Wilson ( 1996 ), even though poor neighborhoods exhibit high levels of social integration, they are socially isolated from elements representative of mainstream society. Their social interactions are often “confined to those whose skills, styles, orientations and habits are not as conducive to promoting positive social outcomes” (Wilson 1996 , p. 64). Wilson believed that such social isolation contributes to the formation of “ghetto-related” cultural models. While these models may prove useful in the local milieu, they are inadequate to the attainment of success in wider society.

Expanding on these ideas, Sampson and Wilson ( 1995 ) proposed that the concentration of socioeconomic deprivation, together with social isolation, fosters cultural diversity and gives rise to “cognitive landscapes” or “ecologically structured norms” that are less apt to assign negative sanctions to violent and illegal conduct. Moreover, the sheer visibility of ghetto-related behaviors in public spaces, brought about by residents’ collective inability to contain them, gives the appearance to residents that these behaviors are acceptable. Sampson and Wilson ( 1995 ) suggest that residents of poor communities often behave in ways consistent with ghetto-related norms for two reasons: as an adaptation to structural constraints and because they are modeling conduct that is common in their neighborhood milieu—this conduct proves to be useful in local social interactions. Moreover, the authors imply that residents do not internalize or espouse ghetto-related norms, despite their behaviors (see Sampson and Bean 2006 , p. 16). Hence, deviant or illicit behaviors are not genuinely reflective of their actual normative orientation toward nonconventional models. Combined, Wilson, and Sampson and Wilson invoke culture to account for the disproportionate concentration of serious violence among residents of poor neighborhoods. Early theoretical models of culture and crime tended to exaggerate group-based differences in violent conduct norms by suggesting a strong and ubiquitous status-culture linkage, which seemed to invite sharp criticism. Sampson and Wilson’s framework implicitly adopts a notion of cultural effects conceived as practical devices —rather than oppositional values—that coexist alongside mainstream models and emerge as an adaptation to socioeconomic exigencies. Stated differently, residents of impoverished urban environments engage in illicit conduct because it theoretically serves various symbolic (e.g., status) or material (i.e., financial) needs in their local milieu. Nowhere do these models explicitly assume that members of these communities often act in accordance with internalized oppositional norms. By Sampson and Wilson’s account, most ghetto residents harbor mainstream beliefs; structural constraints cause a disjuncture between these beliefs and the nature of their actual behaviors. Neighborhood context is therefore granted a strong causal role in the genesis of illicit behavior.

Explanations derived from urban sociology do not specify a distinctive oppositional culture as did earlier theoretical statements in which culture is an organizing principle (e.g., Cohen 1955 ). By contrast, Anderson’s work (1999) recasts discussions of cultural processes in a way that appears to assign a unique cultural orientation to some residents of poor urban neighborhoods. More specifically, Anderson ( 1999 ) describes the existence of a “street code” embedded in the social fabric of an impoverished Philadelphia area. The street code he observes is a collection of informal rules that direct interpersonal public behavior, which provides a rationale “allowing those who are inclined to aggression to precipitate violent encounters in an approved way” (Anderson 1999 , p. 33).

At the heart of the street code is an emphasis on respect. Residents of poor neighborhoods, particularly young males, develop a social identity that is consistent with the street culture in order to manage the demands of a social context maintained by violence. In fact, Anderson ( 1999 , p. 131) observed adolescents who precipitated altercations with the primary focus of building respect on the streets; some appeared to crave respect to the point that they would engender their physical well-being. Within this context, it is imperative for an individual not to yield to challengers because doing so conveys weakness, which ultimately enhances the probability of future victimization.

Moreover, Anderson argues that beyond factors such as structural adversity and a history of racial oppression, a prevailing climate of legal hostility sustains the code of honor, making residents reluctant to ask the state to intervene in conflicts (see Cooney 1998 ). Many come to perceive the criminal justice system as unfair, unresponsive, and discriminatory against minorities. As a result, residents are unlikely to turn to the police or courts to resolve interpersonal disputes, making violence a more probable mode of conflict management.

Anderson ( 1999 , p. 82) also describes the urban landscape he observes as occupied by two coexisting groups of people: those who hold a “decent” orientation and those whose lives conform more closely to standards of the code—a group he refers to as “street.” All residents have a strong incentive to be familiar with the behavioral imperatives of the street code, regardless of whether they adhere more closely to the normative expectations of a conventional or oppositional orientation. Such knowledge is necessary for operating in public (Anderson 1999 , p. 33). Those cognizant of the street code recognize how to properly comport themselves, how to circumvent serious confrontations without losing respect, and the appropriate strategies to manage interpersonal conflicts, including incidents in which they were victimized. Residents who are ignorant of the rules of the code may inadvertently act in a manner that jeopardizes their own safety.

As Matsueda and colleagues ( 2006 , p. 339) note, the honor culture is an institutional feature of street life and it produces a “strong incentive to acquire knowledge of its expectations.” In this way, the street code represents an ecologically situated property that governs interpersonal action, independent of actors’ own cultural inclinations. As more people in a neighborhood engage in ways that conform to the street culture, the level of violence escalates and the number of people who rely on violence for defensive purposes increases.

Overall, Anderson’s perspective explicitly defines the existence of an oppositional culture that is derived from socioeconomic deprivation and that promotes violent behavior (e.g., Wolfgang and Ferracuti 1967 ); moreover, his perspective implies that in the presence of an oppositional culture, certain residents (i.e., decent) will commit socially disapproved behaviors at odds with their own orientation for reasons that are functional in their social environment.

B. Empirical Evaluation

A small but growing body of research involving survey-based indicators of oppositional conduct norms has examined propositions from contemporary cultural frameworks about the multilevel consequences of oppositional norms for violent behavior. These investigations focus on recent formulations; however, they also speak to the validity of earlier theoretical frameworks. Stewart and Simons ( 2006 ) found that neighborhoods with high levels of structural disadvantage and violence led adolescents to adopt a street code orientation when they believed that the use of interpersonal violence was justified to gain respect. Additionally, adoption of street code beliefs was predictive of violence, even after controlling for neighborhood disadvantage and experiences with racial discrimination. With the same data as before, Stewart, Schreck, and Simons ( 2006 ) observed that adolescents who lived in violent neighborhoods and embraced street code values were at heightened risk of being victimized.

A few multilevel studies have examined the role of cultural context in shaping violence, apart from individual-level measures of cultural processes. Insofar as an oppositional culture is a socially embedded property, it should exert an effect on behavior apart from an actor’s own orientation. A number of these studies focus on school culture, which is important because these environments represent one of the staging areas (besides the neighborhood) in which alternative cultural models are manifested and socially transmitted. However, the results of these studies are mixed with regard to contextualized school culture and violent beliefs as predictors of violence. For example, Ousey and Wilcox ( 2005 ) found that individual-level violence values were predictive of violence while a school culture of violence was not. By contrast, Felson et al. ( 1994 ) found that both a school-level cultural climate favoring violence and similar individual-level attitudes were predictive of violent offending (and property offending) among high school males. More recently, Stewart and Simons ( 2010 ) discovered that a neighborhood-level indicator of the street code predicted violent conduct among urban males, apart from an individual-level measure of the street code. Their findings thus suggest that the extent to which espousal of the street code is related to violence is not simply a product of individual cultural beliefs.

Other quantitative work relies on a measure of neighborhood socioeconomic conditions as a proxy for neighborhood-level oppositional culture. Generally, this research conforms to theoretical predictions about the way culture operates to affect violent behavior (see Simcha-Fagan and Schwartz 1986 ). For example, Baumer and colleagues ( 2003 ) discovered that victims of violence were more apt to resist an attacker in highly disadvantaged neighborhoods, which supports Anderson’s as well as Wolfgang and Ferracuti’s prediction about the importance of defending one’s reputation within an honor culture. Kubrin and Weitzer ( 2003 , p. 178) found that “cultural retaliatory homicides” in St. Louis were concentrated in impoverished neighborhoods where, far from being isolated events, they were “collectively tolerated, endorsed and rewarded by other residents.” More recently, Berg and Loeber’s ( 2011 ) analysis showed that the oft-cited positive effect of violent offending on violent victimization was magnified in the most disadvantaged Pittsburgh neighborhoods, whereas it was nonexistent in more affluent environments. Because other social processes are also correlated with neighborhood socioeconomic conditions, the possibility exists that the foregoing research is not sufficiently capturing the consequences of cultural mechanisms using measures that tap aspects of structural disadvantage. But as Sampson and Bean ( 2006 , pp. 32–33) remarked, unconventional conduct norms appear to “find continued expression in concentrated disadvantage.”

Perhaps the most useful empirical insights about the way culture operates to influence criminal behavior, especially serious crime, is found in recent qualitative studies. Much of this research subsumes nonconventional or oppositional norms and street code under the broad concept of “street culture.” Some scholars suggest that street culture entails multiple interrelated conduct norms, not all of which specifically require violence or criminal behavior, including a hedonistic pursuit of money, lack of future orientation, and an eschewal of personal responsibility. Based on Jacobs and Wright’s ( 2006 ) conceptual viewpoint, street culture is a “foreground property” that explains the correlation between motivation and the commission of armed robbery. Moreover, street culture allegedly obviates, almost in a deterministic manner, the utility of engaging in legitimate income-generating activities.

Consistent with Anderson’s assertions, other studies in this literature find that a deep distrust in agents of the criminal justice system contributes to the development of a retaliatory ethic in poor urban neighborhoods. A salient belief among offenders is that regardless of the circumstances, any interaction with police is likely to invite undeserved legal trouble; therefore, many strive to “avoid the police whenever possible” (Rosenfeld, Jacobs, and Wright 2003 , p. 298). As a response, a mode of aggressive “personal justice” receives strong social sanction, while conventional models of conflict resolution that invoke the legal system are far less salient. A recent study by Topalli ( 2005 ) demonstrates that “hardcore” offenders who inhabit poor urban landscapes are chastised and ostracized for cooperating with or contacting legal authorities to report a transgression committed against them. Local cultural standards placed an intense emphasis on retaliation and personal justice. As a result, offenders felt compelled to employ neutralization techniques in order to justify instances in which they failed to uphold an image of toughness.

We should add that contemporary studies that find that oppositional conduct norms are socially enforced reach conclusions similar to those from earlier criminological studies on cultural effects. Shaw and McKay ( 1971 ) found, for example, that the “delinquent group seeks … to regulate the behavior of its members … [and] inflicts punishment upon those who violate its rules” (p. 275). In fact, there are clear parallels between the findings of early ethnographies and those of the present day, with the main exception that current studies often focus on the cultural context of violence using samples of serious offenders.

C. State of Current Research and Alternative Perspectives

Overall, there is a theoretically informed body of evidence that provides good reasons to believe that involvement in serious crime is partially a function of oppositional cultural processes, and these processes are often concentrated and transmitted within resource-deprived environments. Not only are these findings useful in evaluating the merits of a culture-based theoretical perspective, but they also have the potential to redefine assumptions from alternative theoretical models. For example, systemic formulations of social disorganization assume cultural consensus, suggesting that the content of neighborhood culture is “not in competition with other cultural messages that encourage people to approve of violence” (Bursik 2001 , p. 77). Urban ethnographies, however, describe a social landscape that is at odds with this statement. As Bursik ( 2001 , p. 77) noted, although “this may appear a mundane issue, its resolution represents one of the key challenges to the viability of the systemic approach.” As we see it, an adequate theory of community effects must move beyond a pure control model and accommodate a broader understanding of cultural dynamics if the goal is to accurately predict individual variation in criminal behavior.

Still, important nuances in research on the cultural context of crime must be reconciled in order to develop a complete understanding of how culture actually influences serious offending. First, if values propel actors to criminal behavior, then we should not expect actors who espouse criminal values to frequently depart from their beliefs, nor should we observe people who harbor conventional values to frequently engage in serious offenses. But research contains myriad examples of these circumstances (e.g., Valentine 1978 ; Edin and Kefalas 2005 ); therefore, cultural frameworks that specify a values-behavior linkage are perhaps too deterministic or without agency and may over-predict the amount of offending that should theoretically occur. Insofar as people commonly behave in a manner inconsistent with the values they articulate, particularly with regard to the appropriateness of law violation, this perspective deserves logical clarification. In fact, analysts have criticized assumptions of cultural frameworks, more broadly, for suggesting that individuals are over-socialized into a social system and enact cultural rules “unproblematically” (DiMaggio 1997 , p. 265; see also Wrong 1961 ).

Second, following Wilson’s ( 1996 ) work, when culture is invoked by researchers to explain the impact of neighborhood disadvantage on delinquency, “emphasis is often placed on the isolation of residents from mainstream social networks and mainstream culture” (Harding 2007 , p. 342). As Small and Newman ( 2001 , pp. 35–38) note, in the wake of the social isolation thesis, the culture of poor neighborhoods is often conceptualized as oppositional, internally homogeneous, and devoid of conventional elements (e.g., Peterson and Harrell 1992 ; Massey and Denton 1993 ; Tigges, Browne, and Green 1998 ). Yet critics contend that the assumptions that have evolved from the social isolation thesis do not coincide with the nuanced nature of cultural effects described in some urban ethnographic work. By these accounts, poor neighborhoods manifest a variety of competing cultural orientations, some of which are conventional and some of which are illicit (see Rainwater 1970 ; Pattillo-McCoy 1999 ; Young 2004 ). Not all residents—or even a majority of them—sell drugs or routinely engage in violence (Small 2004 , pp. 7–11). In fact, Hannerz ( 1969 , p. 12) made the case that the cultural fabric of poor communities is not monolithic and distinct; he finds these environments to “consist of a web of intertwining but different individual and group lifestyles.” He introduces the concept of “cultural repertoire” to describe the litany of competing orientations and meanings selectively adopted by individuals in poor neighborhoods (1969, p. 186). These repertoires allegedly enable individuals to negotiate the contradictions between the culture of wider society and their own structural location. In short, there is a shortage of valid evidence to suggest that cultural isolation is an accurate description of the cultural context of poor neighborhoods.

Perspectives from sociology and cultural anthropology may offer a solution to the foregoing two issues that challenge the logic of cultural explanations. Based partially on Hannerz’s insights, sociologists have recently developed a cognitive perspective of neighborhood culture where it is defined as fragmented and composed of skills or habits (DiMaggio 1997 , p. 293; Small and Newman 2001 , pp. 34–36). For example, Swidler’s ( 1986 ) theory of culture as a “tool-kit” has steered intellectual attention away from the oft-cited notion that culture shapes human action by defining values. Her perspective posits, instead, that culture is more of a style or a set of skills than a collection of values that cause behavior to occur in a constant direction (p. 275). In theory, culture directs behavior by providing the kit from which actors select different tools to construct a “strategy of action.” For example, young men may sell drugs instead of holding a legitimate job not because they disavow the cultural status equated with maintaining a job but because the repertoire (i.e., skills, meanings) required for “playing that game” would necessitate fundamental cultural retooling (Swidler 1986 , p. 277; see Quinn and Holland 1987 ). In this way, the tool kit perspective assumes that people are “skilled users” of the heterogeneous or fragmented culture to which they are exposed. More important, it focuses on the sources of stability in a person’s beliefs, including the implicit cues embedded in a neighborhood context (DiMaggio 1997 ).

Similarly, cultural frames are part of an individual’s tool kit, serving as filters through which that person understands the way the world works (Goffman 1974 ). Benford and Snow ( 2000 ) posit that frames “simplify and condense the ‘world out there’ by selectively punctuating or encoding” various aspects within one’s present and past environment. Frames do not cause behavior as much as they make it more likely to occur (Lamont 1999 ; Lamont and Small 2008 , p. 81). Moreover, they structure how we interpret events and react to them. Frames thus define expectations about the practical consequences of various behaviors, and they influence one’s decision making irrespective of their own normative orientations. For example, people may strongly believe that violent retaliation is not appropriate, but they may react violently anyway because it protects them from falling victim to future exploitation in their neighborhood. Such radical departures from one’s values are more readily understood under a cognitive framework of culture.

Taken together, cognitive perspectives of culture presuppose that people often use norms, preferences, and standards “strategically” (DiMaggio 1997 , p. 265) instead of “slavishly” following them in a lockstep fashion. Cognitive perspectives are more theoretically sensitive than traditional interpretations of cultural effects, which imply a tight cause-and-effect relationship between values and behavior (e.g., Cohen 1955 ; Miller 1958 ). More important, these viewpoints are distinct from the conception of culture in poor neighborhoods as a configuration of coherent oppositional values. To be sure, there are elements of a cognitive perspective in Wilson’s ( 1996 ) description of how culture is used and why oppositional behavior is enacted . However, his research relies on the notion of “social isolation” as a basic premise to define the content of culture in poor neighborhoods.

More recently, Harding ( 2010 ) modified current thinking about culture, neighborhood effects, and unconventional behaviors in several ways: First, he interpreted the implications of cultural heterogeneity for adolescent behavior using the notions of culture as a tool kit and frame and, second, he developed his assumptions from Shaw and McKay’s ( 1969 ) theoretical formulation. According to Harding ( 2010 ), adolescents in disadvantaged neighborhoods are exposed to a diversity of contradictory cultural models, meaning that their cultural repertoire is constructed from a broader range of frames from which they can select styles of behavior. It is probable that youths from these neighborhoods will come into contact with a wide array of lifestyles. Within such contexts, illicit models of behavior will be encountered frequently, increasing the likelihood they will be “transmitted by precept” (Hannerz 1969 ).

Because neither conventional nor illicit orientations dominate the social landscape of disadvantaged neighborhoods, youths theoretically have a wider range of legitimate, socially supported alternatives from which to choose when deciding upon an appropriate course of action (e.g., whether or not to engage in violent retaliation). According to Harding, adolescents who are reared in these settings can readily observe examples of people who have achieved status and local success through conflicting means. Consequently, the drawbacks versus advantages of engaging in a particular behavior versus another may be poorly defined, providing a weaker signal about which option is the best course of action. On occasions when a particular option “doesn’t seem to be working out it is easier to shift course because another option is available—with local approval” (Harding 2007 , p. 349). As a result, youths are able to find sufficient normative justification to make an unobstructed transition from involvement in conventional behaviors to unconventional alternatives when conventional behavior becomes personally unfulfilling, ineffective, or encumbered by obstacles.

Similar to Shaw and McKay ( 1969 ), Harding ( 2010 ) assumes that neighborhoods marked by cultural heterogeneity supply a wider range of normatively reinforced options regarding conventional and illicit courses of action than neighborhoods with a more homogeneous culture. However, by integrating a cognitive conception of culture into neighborhood effects research, he extends this line of thinking beyond the problematic value-behavior formulation and thus clarifies the cultural mechanisms underlying the effects of neighborhood conditions on adolescent behavior.

Empirical research in criminology is only beginning to examine the validity of cognitive-based theories of cultural effects. Berg and colleagues (forthcoming) recently discovered in a multilevel study of urban youths that neighborhood disadvantage increased collective disagreement regarding the inappropriateness of prosocial conduct norms (i.e., cultural heterogeneity). The authors found that youths exposed to such a cultural milieu had a higher probability of committing violence. Furthermore, those who held a prosocial orientation were less likely to behave in ways consistent with that orientation if they resided in culturally heterogeneous neighborhoods. Combined, the findings of Berg and colleagues (forthcoming) thus suggest that cultural heterogeneity is tied to structural conditions and has negative consequences for youth behaviors.

III. Conclusion

Much theorizing in criminology takes as its starting point the notion that criminal offending is normative for certain people in society. An assessment of existing research makes it obvious that cultural variation is important to understanding patterns of criminal behavior. But this assertion is not without caveats. Overall, the field has evolved from a place where unconventional culture loomed large in theoretical discussions to a place where it was neglected and sharply criticized, and finally to a point now where it is once again granted causal legitimacy.

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