Social Class and Crime - Reasons for Working Class Crime | A Level Sociology

welcome to this tutor to you sociology topic video looking at social class and crime focusing on reasons for working class crime as we've gone through this series on theories of crime and deviant it's been evident that most theories of crime work upon the assumption that there are higher levels of working class criminality what we're going to look at

in this video is how to apply these theories to the characteristics of the working class to explain why they are more prominent in crime statistics the obvious explanation links to death and that those with the least access to resources in society are more likely to commit crime however social class explanations can also be applied across

different ethnic groups and genders that may have less access to resources than those in the middle classes in other words when we're talking about social class we're not excluding the intersectionality of people's social class their gender or their ethnicity If We Begin by looking at strain theories the basis of strain Theory as outlined by Merton was that

Society was unequal in structure and this meant that some people were unable to achieve the societal goals of wealth and power through legitimate means for Merton those most likely to feel the strain to anomy were located in the lower social economic classes as they were more likely to have legitimate opportunities for Success

denied consequently they were more likely to display deviant adaptations to strain such as retreatism or innovation similarly subcultural strain theories such as those suggested by Cohen and cl Nolan suggest that the blocked opportunities particularly of workingclass boys would lead them to seeking status or opportunities through subcultural forms whilst Cohen suggested this data's