ALBERT COHEN

J AC O B
JALMASCO
ALBERT COHEN (1918-2014)
ALBERT COHEN

• Born June 15, 1918, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.

• Died November 25, 2014, Chelsea, Massachusetts
• He is known for his Subcultural
Theory of delinquent urban gangs, including his influential
book Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang.
ALBERT COHEN
• Cohen wrote about delinquent gangs and suggested in his
theoretical discussion how such gangs attempted to
"replace" society's common norms and values with their
own sub-cultures.
• He proposed two basic ideologies, the first of which is
called :
STATUS FRUSTRATION and the second is
REACTION FORMATION
 ALBERT COHEN
• Status frustration is a feeling of frustration experienced by
individuals when they are denied the opportunity of attaining social
status. It is the inability to achieve the same status as members of the
middle or upper class. It is a kind of reaction of feeling out of place in
society

• Reaction formation is the reaction from status frustration, and the

young men of the lower classes find themselves replacing their
society's norms and values with alternative ones.
 SUB-CULTURAL THEORY

• Cohen’s subcultural theory assumes that crime is a

consequence of the union of young people into so-called
subcultures in which deviant values and moral concepts
dominate.
• Sub-cultural theory became the dominant theory of its time.
DELINQUENT SUBCULTURES ARE, ACCORDING
TO COHEN (SEE: DOWNES & ROCK, 2007):

• Non-utilitarian (the deviant actions are not committed on the basis of

economic rationality)
• Malicious (the purpose of delinquent acts is to annoy or even injure others)
• Negativistic (criminal acts are committed precisely because of their
prohibition in order to consciously reject conventional values)
• Versatile (in the sense of various delinquent behaviors that occur)
• Hedonistic (the focus is on the momentary pleasure)
• Resistant (to external pressure of conformity and loyal towards their own
goup members, values and norms)