Reza Barmaki. Deviant Behavior. Volume 37, Issue 7. 2016.

Introduction

It has frequently been argued that Albert K. Cohen was the person who first developed the concept of “deviant subculture” in his Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955). In this article, however, I argue that the concept (although under different terms) was first developed by the group of sociologists that eventually became known as The Chicago School of Sociology. Key among them was W. I. Thomas who “epitomized the basic intellectual outlook of the Chicago school” (Janowitz 1966:viii). It was his notion of “the definition of the situation” that became the core of the concept of “deviant subculture” and that allowed for the emergence of a normative approach to crime and delinquency. Surprisingly, little has been written about this invaluable contribution to criminology in the existing criminological literature. Long ago Bordua (1961:120) noted the formative influence of the Chicago School in relation to the concept of deviant subculture and referred to it as “the classical view.” Over the years, others have noted the influence as well (see Quinney and Wildeman 1977; Frith 1984; Lejins 1987). Had these authors elaborated on their points, I would not have had much reason to write this article today.

In making my argument:

• I will provide an overview of concepts of “subculture” and “deviant subculture” that outlines their various meanings since the early twentieth century.
• I will provide an account of adumbration of “deviant subculture” (although under different terms) in the work of the Chicago School.
• I will then discuss the importance of the work of W. I. Thomas for the formation of the concept. This includes a discussion of his theoretical perspective, especially his key notions of “the definition of the situation” and “social disorganization”. It also includes a discussion of a number of influential theoretical explanations of youth delinquency of his time that he had to discredit in order to make his own theory acceptable.
• I will then discuss the influence of Thomas on the criminological work of other key members of the School.

At the end, I will provide some concluding remarks.

“Deviant Subculture”: An Overview

Over the years the term “subculture” has been used widely and with a variety of meanings. Its earliest uses were not in relation to deviance. The term was used generically with reference to the variety of cultural beliefs. For example, in her Field of Studies in Sociology: A Student’s Manual (1928) Vivien Palmer, a sociologist at Chicago University, used the term in reference to “variations in the prevailing culture of the land” (p. 73). These included beliefs reflecting regional location, rural or urban residence, religious and political affiliations, and occupational and class status. Nels Anderson’s The Hobo (1923) was one of the earliest studies of such occupational subcultures (i.e., migrant workers). Palmer (1928:76) referred to ethnic groups as “cultural groups.” In the 1940s sociologists were still using the term in Palmer’s sense. However, they had now added ethnic groups to the subcultural category (see, e.g., Lee 1945; Gordon 1947). In the 1950s sociologists began to refer to occupational beliefs as the “role set” (see, e.g., Parsons & Shils 1951; Bates 1956; Nadel 1957; Merton 1957; Gross, Mason, and McEachern 1958). From 1950s onward the term was used profusely by psychologists in reference to similar categories as those pointed to by sociologists (see, e.g., Christie and Garcia 1951; Strauss 1954; McArthur 1954; Vogt 1955).

Earlier uses of the term “subcultural” or “precultural” by philosophers and anthropologists were sometimes with reference to organic-physical factors underlying cultural products (Yinger 1960:626). For example, the Chicago University anthropologist Alfred L. Kroeber wrote: “Indeed, such more or less recurrent near-regularities of form or process as have to date been formulated for culture are actually sub-cultural in nature. They are limits set to culture by physical or organic factors” (1949:187). In his review of The Polish Peasant, which he found “fascinatingly interesting,” Kroeber used the term “culture segment” to refer to the Polish population in Chicago (1930:321). “Subculture” was also used in 1920s by the British psychologists in reference to any group of people that was believed to be harmful to society—alcoholics, criminals, mentally ill, unemployed, and so on —and therefore were considered to be “abnormal” or “subnormal” (Blackman 2014). Given the immense popularity of the biological sciences in late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it is possible that the term “subculture” was originally imported from the emerging field of microbiology where it was used in reference to methods of experimentation on microorganisms (see, e.g., Arms 1910).

By the 1960s the term had been connected to deviance and the concept of “deviant subculture” had become the stock-in-trade of theories of crime and delinquency (Miller, Cohen, and Bryant 1997). The concept was commonly used in explanation of youth delinquency. The origin of the concept has for long been disputed. Bell (2010) has suggested parenthetically that the concept was anticipated by Durkheim’s concept of représentation collective and his ideas about the normative sources of crime. Bell’s suggestion, however, is too general to be disputable. Blackman (2014) has argued that there existed a psychoanalytical conception of “deviant subculture” in the 1950s. However, as far as I can tell, the sources that he refers to do not support his argument. He refers to Bagot (1941), Ferguson (1952), Spinley (1953), Jephcott (1954), Mays (1954), Morris (1957), Kerr (1958), Trasler (1962). Bagot’s (1941) psychoanalytic approach to youth delinquency emphasized the socioeconomic condition of the family and the resulting child–parent relations as the cause of youth delinquency. In this regard, Bagot was in line with the psychoanalytical accounts of youth delinquency of his period. However, Bagot did not mention the role of a subculture as a factor in youth delinquency. More importantly, some of the research that Blackman has referred to are not psychoanalytical accounts of youth delinquency to begin with (e.g., May 1954; Morris 1957; Ferguson 1952; Kerr 1968; Trasler 1962).

Albert K. Cohen is often the individual that criminologists point to as the person who first introduced the concept into the field of youth delinquency. He seems to have been the first person to call it “delinquent subculture” (1955:25). He used the concept in reference to the working-class youth’s beliefs. A delinquent subculture was the result of failing to live up to conventional, middleclass criteria of personal achievement and worth that, nevertheless, had been internalized and could not be expunged from personality. It expressed a form of ego-related defensive adaptation (adjustive response) that emerged in response to the ensuing status-frustration. It denigrated conventional, middle-class methods of gaining status and, instead, promoted deviant means. This was why working-class youth’s behavior was “non-utilitarian, malicious and negativistic” [Italic original] (Cohen 1955:25). Despite their centrality to subcultural theories of deviance ever since, however, Cohen’s ideas were not altogether novel. In fact, beginning with W. I. Thomas, similar ideas were already employed by the sociologists of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s (these ideas will be outlined in the next section). Cohen (1968:152) himself wrote that his Delinquent Boys was the result of “a fusion of the Chicago and anomie traditions.” Merton’s theory of anomie had provided “the conception of socially structured strain” and the Chicago School had provided an account of the significance of “the role of interaction process in the creation, as well as the transmission, of culturally supported deviant solutions or deviant subcultures” (Cohen 1968:152). Furthermore, reminiscent of the Chicago School, Cohen (1958:21) pointed to the “repeated, emphatic, and articulate support and approval of other persons” as the social–psychological basis of delinquent subcultures (reaction-formation to status frustration was the psychological basis). Redolent of the School’s ecological studies, moreover, Cohen pointed out that such subcultures were concentrated in part of the city that were “highly mobile, working-class, impoverished, and characterized by a wide variety of indices of disorganization” (1958:25).

Variations on the same themes were produced by later authors. In Delinquency and Opportunity (1960), for example, Cloward and Ohlin produced similar ideas (Kobrin 1966; Merton 1997). Similar to Cohen, they combined Merton and the Chicago School (see Cloward and Ohlin 1960:x). Specifically with regard to Sykes and Matza’s (1957) analysis of neutralization techniques, Cohen (1958:21) himself argued that it was not really “an alternative explanation of delinquent behaviour” to his own [Italics in original]. Indeed, similar to Cohen, Sykes and Matza (1961:714) pointed to the frustration of the need for social “success” and “advancement” as the root of delinquent subcultures. They further argued that, in addition to delinquent values, delinquent youth also held conventional values that were “in agreement with the larger society” (1961:712). Elsewhere Matza (1961) wrote that the “delinquent code” promoted “anti-bourgeois” (p. 106) values in search of status (“rep”) (p. 109). In Delinquency and Drift (1964) he referred to “status anxiety” (p. 53) as the key motivational source of delinquents’ actions, which were approved by the group’s unwritten “code of delinquency” (alternatively “ideology of delinquency” or “delinquent subculture”) (p. 52). Even more directly reminiscent of the Chicago School, Matza wrote that, in addition to a craving for status, a search for “excitement” was at the root of delinquency and delinquent subcultures (1961:107). Elsewhere he imputed delinquency and delinquent subcultures to the same basic need: “a restless search for excitement, ‘thrills,’ or ‘kicks’” (Matza and Sykes 1961:713). Similar ideas were also produced by Howard Becker. In Outsiders (1963) he argued that a deviant subculture was a way of legitimizing status-achievement through unconventional venues. Jazz musicians, for example, had a “desire” (p. 91) for free self-expression and unconventional activities that produced a particular set of values and lines of activities that made them feel that they were “different from and better than” (p. 86) other people.

Of course, Marxist theorists of the late 1960s rejected all such “bourgeois structuralist functionalist” views that rendered a deviant subculture a solution to “frustrated social climber” (Young 2010:260). Instead, they viewed it as the expression of clash of opposing class interests and class struggle. Birmingham’s Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was at the center of such approaches. Important works of the Centre were produced by Clarke (1975), Phil Cohen (1972), Hebdige (1979), and Hall and Jefferson (2006). Postmodernists, in turn, rejected the Marxist conception. They argued that youth subcultures were a search for identity and style in a postindustrial, fragmented, consumer society marked by hybridity and fluidity. These loose and transitory subcultures allowed youth to construct temporary identities that gave their lives meaning. Such conditions had rendered traditional Marxist concepts such as “class interest,” “class consciousness” and “class struggle” meaningless (Muggleton 2000; Jenks 2005).

Despite the continuing conceptual confusion about “deviant subculture”, its popularity has continued unabated (Bell 2010). Along the way, however, many theoretical subtitles have been lost. In recent years the concept has been often generically defined by many authors as a set of unconventional values shared by members of a group that unifies them and prompts them to commit deviant behavior (e.g., see Deutschmann 2007; Holt 2007). Researchers have used this conception to explain a variety of deviant activities ranging from music subcultures and street gangs, to paedophiles and prison inmates, to cyberspace hate groups and hackers. Recently, new strands of subcultural theories have also emerged. A contemporary social–psychological theory claims that a “subculture” functions to effect the individual’s perception through “creation of salience” (i.e., rendering certain aspects of physical or social reality, or certain psychological or physical traits of individuals, as more important than others; Friedman and Waggoner 2010:326). A deviant subculture emphasizes deviant, hostile, and violent attributes of situations and individuals. Among the recent strands is the conception of gang subcultures, in particular, as instances of “hegemonic masculinity” (e.g., see DeKeseredy and Schwartz 2010). Conceived by feminists in the 1980s, the term refers to the ideological conceptualization of men as homophobic, misogynist, cruel, tough, competitive, aggressive, and self-reliant. As such, it promotes violent behavior and is a “specific strategy for the subordination of women” (Donaldson 1993:645).

The Chicago School and “Deviant Subculture”

In the early twentieth century sociologists gradually took over the discipline of criminology in the United States. A few of these either worked at the University of Chicago or studied there: Thomas, Burgess, Shaw, McKay, Wirth, Thrasher, and Sutherland. It was them who laid the foundation for a sociological approach to crime (Lejins 1987). They did not use the term “deviant subculture” (Gelder 1997). They did not even use the term “subculture.” They, nevertheless, did develop the conceptual equivalent to “deviant subculture.” They referred to it by terms such as

• “rules” of conduct (Thomas 1967:38), a “code” (Thomas [1923]1967:70)
• “peculiar canons and codes of conduct” (Burgess 1923:677), “criminal code” (Burgess 1930:194)
• “customs and traditions” (Shaw 1929:409), “social tradition” or “social values” (Shaw 1929:413)
• “social attitudes” or the “social definition of the situation” (Thrasher 1931:237), “morality” or “interpretation or definition” of events (Thrasher 1963:181), “code of conduct” (Thrasher 1963:200)
• “code” of conduct (Wirth 1930:491), “moral code” (Wirth 1931:489). The term meant normative deviation from “the dominant code or the generally prevailing definition in a given culture” (Wirth 1931:485–486)
• “deviant values” (Shaw and McKay 1942:171), or “delinquency values” (Shaw and McKay 1942:176)

Such codes were believed to be characteristic of certain parts of the city, which they referred to in their ecological and regional studies as “Delinquency Areas” (Shaw et al. 1929), “delinquency area” (Shaw 1931:13), “slum” (Thrasher 1963:3), “interstitial (crime-producing) area” (Thrasher 1933:501), and “disadvantaged areas” (McKay 1962:647). The concept was important because it allowed them to redefine the problem of deviance and crime from one caused by physiological and psychological defects to one caused by normative disorganization. They often pointed to W. G. Sumner’s Folkways (1906) as the place where the idea that deviance was related to culture could be found in an embryonic state. Louis Wirth wondered why it did not furnish “the starting-point for the sociologists’ research into delinquency and crime” sooner (1930:485). It was W. I. Thomas, however, who first developed the idea into a concept that allowed for a normative approach to crime and delinquency. This concept was “the definition of the situation,” which became the core of the notions (such as “code of conduct” or “morality”) that were used by the sociologists of the Chicago School. Thomas considered the notion to be “his most significant contribution” to sociology (Merton 1995:385). In Primitive Behavior (1937), his last work, he indicated that every aspect of culture could in fact be “approached in terms of the definition of the situation” (p. 8). The most systematic introduction to the concept was provided in the “Methodological Note” chapter of The Polish Peasant. The concepts introduced there came to have a “wide currency among sociologists” (Burgess 1945:475). Merton (1983) and Wiley (2007) have pointed to its immense influence on later generations of sociologists as well.

W. I. Thomas’ Theoretical Perspective

The concept of “The Definition of the Situation” was at the heart of Thomas’ theoretical understanding of society and the individual. However, he did not provide a concise, cohesive statement of his views on these matters in any single one of his publications. Rather, they were scattered throughout his extensive oeuvre. He combined three perspectives. First, the principles of Pragmatism and social psychology developed by the likes of “Baldwin, Dewey, Mead, and Cooley” (Sutherland 1945:430). Thomas himself made original theoretical contributions to the field. Second, the ecological views of Robert E. Park. Third, an evolutionary view of organic life and society inspired by Herbert Spencer (see Thomas 1903, 1909c). He had become “strongly impressed by Spencer’s Sociology” (Thomas 1939:103) during his stay in Germany in 1893 to study philosophy. However, he rejected a unilinear view of social evolution, along with its racist and colonial implications, as represented by Spencer.4 In line with Spencer, however, Thomas argued that the evolution led to an increasing “differentiation” and “division of labor” in all life forms and social organizations (1908a:735). The increasing differentiation and division was generally in the direction of the creation of the most efficient forms of sexual differentiation, physiological organs, psychological traits, collective organizations, and forms of behavior needed for maintaining life in a hostile environment. The conflictual nature of life—that is, the struggle to satisfy basic needs for food and reproduction— ensured this outcome. This meant that the differentiation/division was “adaptive.” These processes included the human species.

The “human nature, the external world, and the fundamental needs of life” were similar everywhere (Thomas 1905:450). Human beings were “animals” (Thomas 1908c:66). Similar to other life forms, humans had fundamental biological needs for food and sex (reproduction). In order to satisfy these needs they had to engage in a natural “struggle for life” (Thomas 1899:774). The “first law” of this struggle was “self-preservation” (Thomas 1904:305). The continuous satisfaction of these required a complex social organization because it was necessary for controlling a harsh environment (Thomas 1896, 1897, 1898). Nature made sure that meeting these needs was not easy (i.e., remained a “struggle”) in order to ensure the formation of the most efficient biological, physiological, psychological, and sociological organs and structures. All were forms of “adaptation to environment” (Thomas 1967:4). In fact, all purposive human activity could be reduced to efforts directed at environmental control and problem solving. The mind was “nothing but a device for manipulating the outside world” (Thomas 1908b:147). Environmental control required “attention” and “habit.” Attention was the “mental attitude” that took “note of the outside world” and manipulated it; as such, it was “the organ of accommodation” (Thomas 1909b:155). Habits were general tendencies to act in certain ways because they were tried and tested, safe and serviceable. As such, they were “moral, i.e., socially advantageous” (Thomas 1909b:155). Socially advantages habits, in turn, became customary forms of behavior. This was what Burgess (1930:186) had in mind when he wrote that “habit” in the individual was “an expression of custom in society.” A great part of human life was lived in the region of habit and custom (Thomas 1925).

Habits emerged as a result of regulation of psychological impulses (desires) that ultimately expressed the elemental biological needs for food and sex. These desires were (Thomas 1975:27–29):

• The desire for new experience, which sought gratification of appetites and new sensations. It resulted in action, change, danger, instability, social irresponsibility. As such, it was a source of deviance and a threat to the normative structure of society.
• The desire for security. This tendency resulted in conservatism, caution and avoidance of danger. As such, it was opposed to the desire for new experience. Its emotional expression was fear.
• The desire for response (i.e., craving for intimacy and personal attachment). Its emotional expression was love and affection. Its biological basis was reproduction. Family was its institutional expression.
• The desire for recognition (i.e., striving for social approval and status). It was of key importance for the development of human personality and self-esteem.

At the moment of birth, the desires were disorganized and undefined (Hinkle 1994). As such, they were the “inborn … original nature” of humans, the “call of the wild” in them (Thomas 1967:1). However, under the influence of the norms of the primary groups to which the individual belonged, these impulses gradually were organized around specific goals or objects (as sources of satisfaction of desires). An image of the legitimate methods of achieving these goals and objects also developed. Norms, in other words, set limits within which the desires might find expression. As such, they were prescriptive and evaluative, and functioned to transform individuals “impulsive behaviour” into “inhibited behaviour” (Thomas and Thomas 1928:1). This process allowed for the transformation of a desire into a “wish” (Blumer 1937:164). It also allowed for orderly and predictable satisfaction of them (wish-fulfillment). The use of legitimate methods of wish-fulfillment by individuals constituted conformity; the use of illegitimate methods, on the other hand, constituted deviance. Thomas adopted Cooley’s conception of primary groups, that is, groups characterized by face-to-face, intimate interaction that were fundamental in “forming the social nature and ideals of the individual” (Cooley quoted by Thomas 1975:30).

The four wishes were the invariant, unconscious motivations underlying human action (Park and Burgess 1969). An individual’s life could not be called “normal” if all four wishes were not satisfied in some measure (Thomas 1967:40). It was by capitalizing on three of these wishes (security, response, and recognition) that society secured individuals conformity to its normative structure. This was because they could only be satisfied through interaction and association with others. These associations, however, were often conflictual as individuals’ desires clashed. The conscious expressions of the wishes were “attitudes” (Thomas 1951:60). For example, the wish for status could express itself in a persistent, conscious liking (attitude) for engaging in public debates or dressing up conspicuously. “Personality” was the result of formation and integration of a particular set of attitudes in the individual in interaction with the primary group members (Thomas 1925:31). This made a primary group a “powerful habit-forming mechanism” (Thomas 1967:70). This was “the transcendent importance of the primary group” (Faris 1932:48).

The key methodological significance of the concept of “attitude” was that it avoided naturalistic explanations of human action in terms of direct expression of biological forces (instincts, drives, etc.). Contrary to these forces, attitudes were cultural products and “could be understood only with reference to the culture in which the individual participated” (Znaniecki 1950:578). Furthermore, the view of the “group” that it made possible was different from the one that emerged out of the evolutionary Social Darwinism of the earlier generation of American sociologists (Sumner, Veblen, etc.). That generation had explained human behavior as motivated by inherited biological and instinctual impulses (Hinkle 1994). In that conception a “group” was nothing more than a functional byproduct of aggregation of such impulses. A group conception based on “attitudes,” on the other hand, pointed to attitudinal similarity of the members as the source of group cohesion.

The social phenomena (sources of wish satisfaction) that attitudes were directed at constituted “values” (e.g., marriage, work). These imposed themselves on the individuals as given and provoked their reaction in particular ways (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958, vol. 2). Values and attitudes, in other words, referred respectively to “the objective cultural elements of social life and the subjective characteristics of the members of the social group” (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958:20, vol. 1). Similar to attitudes, values were not directly reducible to biological or psychological elements; they were mediated by norms of the group.6 A harmonious correspondence between the two rendered the social reality meaningful to individuals (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958, vol. 2).

Thomas’ Concept of “The Definition of the Situation”

Norms by which attitudes were formed were nothing more than commonly accepted “systems of definitions” (Thomas 1951: 228) or “uniform and permanent definitions of … situations” (Znaniecki 1919:290). The definitions were often expressed as a moral code and constituted the “morality” of the group. The most important parts of any “situation” were these definitions (Thomas 1928:2). Human behavior was ultimately “adjustive,” that is, an adaptation to the normative environment (Thomas 1967:4). From the individual’s point of view, “the central problem” of life was “adjustment” and mustering the needed “adjustive effort” (Thomas 1936:177). Imitation was the key method of learning the needed definitions for successful adjustment (Thomas 1912:740). However, individuals were capable of providing their own spontaneous definitions of situations. Such definitions were often maladjustive because they were hedonistic and individualistic. As such, they often clashed with the group’s utilitarian, collective definitions that required members to be unselfish when it came to activities related to satisfaction of their needs. Individuals own definitions, nevertheless, were potent reasons for action: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas and Thomas 1928:572).7At any rate, a failure to adjust constituted deviance, which prompted a reaction by the group. From society’s point of view, maintaining and promoting the adjustive forms of behavior on individuals” parts were the “central problem” of social life (Thomas 1937:1). To Thomas, there was no preexisting harmony between society and the individual (Hughes et al. 1955). The social definitions also defined values at which the attitudes were directed. As such, social definitions made reality “meaningful” to the individuals (Znaniecki 1934).

The study of behavior with reference to “situation” originated with experimental physiologists and psychologists who studied animals and children in order to determine habits, intelligence, and conditioned reflexes (Thomas 1928:2; also see Thomas and Thomas 1928:506). They prepared situations, introduced the subject into the situation, observed the behavior reactions, and then changed the situation and observed the changes in the reactions. This became the model for social psychology in the form of accounting for formation of personalities and attitudes by studying “the reactions of the individual to other persons or groups of persons” in real-life encounters (Thomas 1928:506; also see 1967:155). Situational studies were reactions to the individualistic tendencies of the prevalent social and psychological theories of the time (Bruno 1930). Lester F. Ward (1841– 1913), for example, rooted all human motivation for action in the psychological attribute of “feeling” or “desires” (Petras 1970:232). As a result, his sociology remained an individualistic one. This was despite the fact that it was he who originally moved American sociology from a biological plane onto a psychological one (Karpf 1932).

Social Disorganization and Deviance

“Social disorganization” (a period of crisis) occurred when existing attitudes did not correspond to existing values. This meant individuals’ fundamental wishes remained either unsatisfied or inadequately satisfied. This also meant that habits had become useless (Thomas 1909b). This, in turn, meant that the normative structure was in trouble. This resulted in the meaninglessness of life, disunity, and deviance. Periods of disorganization were brought about by rapid social and technological change and often resulted in the rise of new, functional attitudes that signalled the end of these periods of crises. This was the period of reorganization. The “social order” was nothing other than “a dynamic equilibrium of processes of disorganization and reorganization” (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958:1130, vol. 2). Thomas saw his own time as one such period. Louis Wirth (1940: 474–476) later produced a more elaborate list of types of social disorganization:

• Social disorganization produced by conflicts between norms. Tension arose from the expectation from the individual to conform to coexisting, mutually contradictory norms.
• Social disorganization caused by the coexistence of segmental, independent, non-contradictory systems of norms, each of which claimed the individual’s loyalty.
• Social disorganization caused by ambiguities of norms.
• social disorganization due to loss of belief in the intrinsic validity of norms, which rested on either charismatic, traditional, or rational bases. This type was suggested by Max Weber.

Migration was a key source of such periods of crises. The migrants’ attitudes often did not correspond to the existing values. The rural, European migrants to the United States in those days, for example, were too collectivist (community-oriented) to easily function in the existing individualistic culture. This also resulted in conflict between them and their children who absorbed the individualistic culture. Simultaneous possession of dissimilar or conflicting attitudes was socially dysfunctional and psychologically unpleasant for the new immigrant (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958:1135, vol. 2). This perspective made it possible to understand, as Louis Wirth (1930:486) was to write later, what was so “strange and baffling in the behaviour of the immigrant and especially his children.” It was life in a dual cultural milieu with its contradictory influences. This phenomenon was termed by Wirth (1930: 484) as “culture conflict”, which was a modification of the psychological term “mental conflict.” The latter referred to a subconscious, “inner urge or drive toward misdoing which was opposed to the real conscious desires of the individual” (Solomon 1917:212). In philosophical discussions of psychology it was referred to as the “divided will,” which resulted in “action contrary to volition” (Bradley 1902:290).

A number of sociologists at various universities made ample use of “culture conflict” concept in their work (Lejins 1987:977). Prominent examples were Thorsten Sellin’s Culture Conflict and Crime (1938a) and Frank Tannenbaum’s Crime and the Community (1938). The central theme of these works was that in undifferentiated societies, where culture was homogeneous and class differences were negligible, crime was largely absent. Such societies had no difficulty in controlling their members, maintaining integration, and passing on their social practices and attitudes to the future generations. Formal punishment was unknown and unnecessary. There was no formal criminal justice system composed of formal laws, police, courts, and jails. Instead, social control was through spontaneous and informal forces of communal opinion and the habitual approval of communal custom by all. In differentiated societies, however, the situation was reversed. The differentiation of conduct norms resulted in culture conflict and crime. There was also a formal justice system for dealing with the criminal. The professional criminal groups often formed specific cultures of crime, or “norm complexes” as Sellin (1938b:100) put it, that were in conflict with the criminal law.

Thomas and Youth Delinquency

Thomas paid special attention to youth delinquency, which he believed was increasing at an alarming rate. He rejected physiological explanations of delinquency, which often linked delinquency to various physiological changes that accompanied transition to puberty (e.g., hormonal change) (Thomas and Thomas 1928). He also rejected theories that accounted for criminality in terms of differences in “degree of mental endowment among races and populations and of inborn racial ‘psyches’” (Thomas 1936:184). He argued that research did not support such theories and that the so-called racial psyches’ degrees of endowment were not determined by inborn racial traits; they were the result of differential historical experience and socialization. He also rejected biological arguments that connected crime and delinquency to race and hereditary degeneracy. Basing their views on the then very reputable science of biology, hereditary theorists emphasized the greater influence of heredity over against environmental factors in shaping individuals’ fates. For social progress to take place, they argued, manipulating environmental factors alone was not enough; a sound heredity was also required. Environment did not create new heredity qualities; it only modified the effects of these qualities in favorable or unfavorable directions. This meant that there were people whom no amount of instruction would improve. The practical application of such views was “race hygiene” or eugenics. It prescribed methods such as confinement or sterilization for the inherently degenerate. Thomas, however, compellingly argued against such theories and their eugenicist implications.

Thomas also rejected popular psychological approaches that attributed adolescent delinquency to low levels of intelligence. These approaches viewed antisocial individuals either as feeble-minded or morons (a lower degree of mental deficiency than that of the feeble-mindedness). Both were believed to be hereditary defects. Thomas rejected psychological methods of identifying criminality by the level of intelligence. Although these methods were aided by modern statistical techniques, Thomas considered them just as naive as the older Lombrosian morphological and anthropological techniques that they had helped to dethrone. The only difference was that instead of measuring ears, nose, and arm’s length, they tried to measure intelligence. Thomas pointed out that there was “no general agreement as to the nature of intelligence” and no scientific method of checking whether the tests measured what their sponsors claimed (Thomas and Thomas 1928:332). Furthermore, if anything, research on prisoners had shown that certain criminals were of superior intelligence (Faris 1948). There was also a parallel development in psychological thought that described criminality in terms of emotional and not mental deficiency of the criminal (Tannenbaum 1938). Series of tests and other devices were used to show that the criminal was abnormal in psychiatric terms.

Thomas (1928) also rejected the Freudian viewpoint that attributed emotional disturbances and misbehavior to Electra or Oedipus complexes. Both of these supposedly had their origins in suppressed sexual interests and were compensatory reactions with fixations (on the father in the case of the girl and on the mother in the case of the boy). To him, and to the sociologists of the Chicago School in general, psychoanalysis represented a new version of instinct theory that they wanted to modify. It was William James who had initially introduced the concept of “instinct” into psychology in 1890 (Wiley 1986). James’ instinct psychology was a part of a broader movement in psychology which was known as “physiological psychology” at the time (Faris 1945:423). The movement was meant to be a break with a long tradition of cognitive psychology that had begun, in turn, as a result of a break with scholasticism in the seventeenth-century and that had continued until then. The cognitive tradition had focused, the movement argued, only on human mode of acquisition of knowledge and had neglected human behavior. As such, the cognitive tradition only emphasized the role of human reason and rational judgment and had neglected non-rational (biological and psychological) sources of human action. Not only physiological psychology emphasized the latter, but it also asserted its determining influence on cognition. It was in fact from then on that psychology was defined as “the science of behaviour” (Faris 1928:271). This approach to psychology often proposed one or a number of elemental tendencies or needs (such as selfpreservation, the will to power, imitation, food and sex needs, or instincts) as foundational to human action and thought. The complex manifestations of human life, in turn, was said to be the expression of these elements (or their combinations). The origins of these instincts were said to be of a pre-human or mythological age when “primitive man” was acquiring habits that were useful to him (Faris 1936:166). Thomas found this perspective inadequate and advocated the social psychology developed by the likes of Baldwin, Dewey, Mead, and Cooley. This approach was adopted by the Chicago school sociologists. As a result, they viewed human beings to be the products of culture, imagination, consciousness, experience, and interaction and not instincts. They argued that instincts were nothing but habitual and customary behavior parading as though rooted in nature. Even if they existed, they were modifiable by culture and experience. They argued that experience indicated that human nature showed a great degree of “plasticity” or “malleability” (as psychologists used the terms in those days). It was W. G. Sumner who had first demonstrated this point in his Folkways. He had pointed to the “infinite variability of human nature” (Faris 1945:424). The fact that instinct psychologists were producing different lists of instincts helped the sociologists’ argument. William McDougall, a famous proponent of instinct psychology at the time, produced a list of eleven instincts. William James himself had proposed about thirty-two of them. Furthermore, the Chicago sociologists argued that consciousness and imagination distinguished human “conduct” from animal “behaviour” (Faris 1945:425). They were interested in conduct and not mere behavior as were behavior psychologists (who called themselves “behaviorists”). The latter offered a list of inherited reflexes that through conditioning could be developed into a personality.

As a result, the initial reaction of sociologists to psychoanalysis was “almost invariably negative” (Burgess 1974: 32). However, the reaction became a positive one by 1930s. This was because by then Freud was seen to have amended his theories in accordance with the criticisms levelled against it. This was especially so in regards to the role of culture and social interaction. As a result, his concepts increasingly found their way into the sociological literature, including that of the Chicago School (Burgess 1974). Prior to Freud himself members of the revisionist psychoanalytic school had already made a shift from a biological determinism toward a cultural and social determinism. This school increasingly linked “individual neurosis” (“personal disorganization” in the Chicago School terminology) to “cultural neurosis” (equivalent of Thomas’ social disorganization). Karen Horney (1936:229), for example, argued that neurosis was caused by “the conflicting character of the demands” that a culture imposed on its individuals. She believed that such a situation was likelier under capitalism where competitiveness and individualism reigned.

Thomas pointed to social disorganization as the main cause of youth crime and delinquency. However, he argued that the youth experienced specific forms of disorganization. One type was due to the dissolution of the unity of common definitions into a multiplicity of smaller, and often conflicting, pockets of definitions. This type resulted in a decrease in the influence of the community over the young (demoralization) and, thereby, delinquency. Another type of disorganization was due to the disharmony between the young and the older generation. In this case, the unity of public opinion remained intact, however, it clashed with the new attitudes of the youth. These new attitudes resulted in forms of action divergent from those required by the community. The result was usually either a redefinition of the communal rules by the youth in their own favor, or, formation of completely new and deviant definitions. In either case, delinquent acts ensued. Delinquent acts caused by either type of disorganization, however, were rarely purely individual and often assumed a group character. The general tendency of the young, especially boys, with “new and socially nonsanctioned attitudes” was to form “close associations, ranging from a vague group united by mere frequency to intercourse to an organized gang” (Thomas and Znaniecki 1958:1204, vol. 2). The key reason for this was that the larger community did not sufficiently satisfy their desire for social approval and status. In a smaller group, however, the young could gain status. From this viewpoint, the formation of youth groups was a social necessity (or “functional” as was later asserted by social scientists). When a gang acquired traditions of delinquency they served as codes controlling the conduct of the individual member. Failure to understand this process, Thomas believed, was often behind observers’ misunderstanding of the causes of gang formation and gang-related youth delinquency. Thomas argued that the normative approach helped to “redefine the problem” of crime and delinquency (alternatively “misconduct” or “problems of adjustment”) by shifting the emphasis from the individual to the normative environment (Thomas and Thomas 1928:549). Understanding youth crime and delinquency now required an assessment of personalities from the perspective of individuals’ cultural matrix and its inconsistent or contradictory influences on them. This also allowed for a separation of crime (violation of the criminal code) from delinquency (violation of the communal code).

Thomas’ Influence on Criminologists of the Chicago School

Thomas’ concept of “the definition of the situation” and a diluted version of his four wishes became a key part of the School’s normative theories of crime and delinquency. Park (1925:675) pointed to those “fundamental wishes” as the foundation of society and social interaction. They were the “natural impulses of the child” (Hughes et al. 1952:57). The youth groups were “certainly one of the most important factors in the defining of the wishes and the forming of the characters of the average individual” (Hughes et al. 1952:62–63). Individuals desired social status and sought its satisfaction by entering into groups in which it could be satisfied. Such groups often held “peculiar canons and codes of conduct” that promoted particular lines of activity in relation to status achievement (Burgess 1923:677). In time, continuous performance of such activities became habitual and constituted personalities (or personality traits) of individual members. The key personality type that delinquent circles created was “egocentric personality” characterized by traits such as narcissism, distrust of others, self-righteousness, and defiance of authority (Burgess 1930:192).

Edwin H. Sutherland’s theory of differential association was built around the same principles (Vold 1951). It was first put forward in raw in his Criminology (1924), which was the most widely used criminology textbook used for sociology classes at Chicago university (Reckless 1970). The theory maintained that in contexts where criminal behavior was systematic (i.e., regular activity of a group such as a gang) individuals were provided with “definitions” that were often favorable to the violation of the legal code (Sutherland and Cressey 1960:78). These definitions often shaped the direction of individual’s motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes in the direction of criminal behavior. Key among such motives or drives was “achieving success” (Cressey 1960:3). Criminal behavior was seen by the individual to be the legitimate adjustive response to inaccessibility of conventional venues to social success.

In The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago (1927) Frederic Thrasher argued that a boy’s participation in the antisocial activities of a gang was the result of his failure at “wish-fulfillment” (mainly for status and adventure) under the condition of social disorganization (Zorbaugh 1927:135). Thrasher (1963) pointed to the key wishes for “new experience” (p. 68) and “status” (p. 204). Under such conditions a “morality” or “interpretation or definition” of events developed in response to the disorganized social environment (Thrasher 1963:181); alternative terms that he used were “morality” (p. 181), “community of habits, sentiments, and attitudes” (p. 195), and “code of conduct” (p. 200). In one of his later publications he used terms such as “social attitudes” or the “social definition of the situation” (Thrasher 1931:237). The gang’s morality defined “situation for its members” and secured “harmonious group action” (Thrasher 1963:194). An antisocial morality unified a number of individuals and promoted delinquent acts in search of wish-fulfillment.

Louis Wirth (1930:491) pointed to social disorganization—that is, availability of multiple “codes” of conduct—as the key cause of youth delinquency. He provided a detailed list of the forms of the causal link:

• Membership in groups with contradictory codes.
• Membership in a group with a partially conflicting code to that of the dominant society.
• Membership in a group with a totally conflicting code to that of the dominant society and from which the individual was completely alienated. This was usually the case in criminal gangs.
• Membership in a group which contained a blend of conflicting codes of conduct (for example, a family with parents from different racial or religious groups).

Wirth emphasized that it was not the culture conflict per se that made the individual a delinquent, but his inability to deal with it in a socially approved way. Furthermore, there were other venues, other than delinquency, open to the individual that could resolve the conflict: rumination, fantasy, suicide, or resorting to reformist/revolutionary activities. These arguments were early anticipations of both Merton’s “Social Structure and Anomie” (1938) and Cohen’s Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955). Merton (1997:520) himself pointed to the “complementarity” of his own ideas, and that of Cohen’s, with those of the Chicago School.

Using Park and Burgess’ ecological terms, Clifford R. Shaw (1931:225) argued that adolescent delinquency was the result of the “natural evolution” of their lives, that is, the unplanned interaction between them and the situations in which they lived. Delinquent adolescents often lived in a “delinquency area” characterized by physical deterioration, inferior economic status of the inhabitants, succession of ethnic groups, and existence of gangs (Shaw 1931:13–14). He used the terms “customs and traditions” (1929:409), “interpretations” (1930:4), and “moral code” (1938:46) to refer to the youth-gang culture. These provided the boy with “his definition of situation” (1930:3). He pointed to social disorganization—that is, “absence of the restraints of a well organized moral and conventional order” and presence of “confused cultural standards”—as the cause of youth delinquency and other forms of “personal disorganization” (1929:410). The psychological basis of crime and delinquency was frustrated wish-fulfillment, which was the result of lack of access to conventional “means of securing economic gain, prestige, and other human satisfactions” (Shaw and McKay 1942:171; also see Shaw 1938 and McKay 1949). These desires were later subsumed under the general desire for “upward mobility” (McKay 1962:647). A high incidence of crime and delinquency, nevertheless, indicated a breakdown of conventional institutions through which the needs of individuals were met. This, in turn, was often the result of either rapid social change (which rendered conventional institutions useless) or active discrimination (which denied individuals the satisfaction of their needs). Either way, the individual felt frustrated and upheld criminal norms that justified the use of illegitimate means of status achievement.

Conclusion

In this article I argued that the concept of “deviant subculture” was developed first by the Chicago School of Sociology and that W. I. Thomas’ notion of “the definition of the situation” was at the core of it. The notion allowed Thomas to redefine the problem of deviance and crime from one caused by psychological and physiological defects to one caused by normative disorganization. Normative disorganization prevented individuals from satisfying their elemental needs through conventional means. The formation of a deviant subculture by them was an adjustive response to the frustration of their needs. It allowed them to satisfy these needs through alternative methods.

As he articulated his own ideas, Thomas also provided extensive criticism of influential theories of crime and delinquency of his time. These criticisms were instrumental in debunking some of those theories. Furthermore, not only his work immensely influenced the work of his contemporaries, but it also anticipated the work of many later sociologists. Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin, and Sykes and Matza are only some of the most famous ones. All those who were influenced by Thomas, however, went on to produce original work of their own. In many cases they did this through articulating nuances of Thomas’ work. Hopefully, future researchers will further add to our knowledge of his normative approach to crime and delinquency. Of particular interest would be a detailed account of his view of the causal connection between a subculture of delinquency and the formation of deviant personality. I believe that such research will also help with rekindling an interest in the forgotten theoretical subtleties that he produced. These include the psychological and attitudinal bases of delinquent subcultures. Such details are often neglected in contemporary sociological discussions of deviant subcultures.