Bio: (1918—2014) American sociologist and criminologist. Albert Cohen got a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University, and after that lectured at Indiana University and the University of Connecticut.

In Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955), Albert Cohen integrates “cultural transmission” theories of delinquency with a “psychogenic” perspective focused on individual psychology. He contends that gang subcultures offer alternative standards of achievement, allowing members to gain status in ways unavailable to them in mainstream society. Cohen argues that deviant subcultures and delinquent behavior arise as responses to adjustment difficulties produced by structural class inequalities. Recruitment occurs because these subcultures supply “answers” to the adjustment problems faced by successive cohorts of working-class boys—problems rooted in the status frustrations they encounter when judged by middle-class norms, especially in school. According to Cohen, gangs function as a reaction formation: young working-class males are rewarded for deviant behavior through the gang’s own value system, which provides them with a sense of belonging and an outlaw identity. Neighborhood subcultures continually draw in new generations of youths, serving as subcultural “carriers.” New cultural forms emerge and endure through interactions within youth peer groups, as young people collectively “solve” their shared adjustment challenges through delinquent practices. In this way, subcultures act as a microsociological link between class position, neighborhood environment, and delinquency.

Main works

Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang (1955).