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Theory of differential opportunity (Cloward & Ohlin)

The theory of differential opportunities combines learning, subculture, anomie and social disorganization theories and expands them to include the recognition that for criminal behaviour there must also be access to illegitimate means.

Main proponent

Richard A. Cloward und Lloyd E. Ohlin

Theorie

Cloward & Ohlin’s theory of differential opportunities represents a link between learning, subculture, anomie and social desorganisation theories.

On the one hand, the approach is based on Sutherland, starting from the assumption that criminal motives, techniques and rationalizations are learned through criminal associations. On the other hand, Cloward and Ohlin share with Merton and Cohen the notion that deviant behaviour is a consequence of the stratum-specific pressure to adapt, or more precisely of blocked access to legitimate means, and that this adaptation (according to Cohen) typically takes place collectively through interaction processes in groups.

Cloward and Ohlin see the answer, which is why not all persons suffering from adaptation problems become criminals, in the fact that access to illegitimate means can also be blocked for criminal action – the opportunities differentiate. For example, drug trafficking is more difficult to access in some parts of the city than in others. A person who intends to become a drug dealer not only requires drug suppliers, but also a customer base and a street corner where he can sell his drugs. Access to these means, however, is not open to everyone. It requires relationships with experienced people who are willing to share their knowledge and professional network.

The opportunity to break into cars also depends on the social situation of the environment, the car owner and the presence of possible accomplices. Socially disorganized neighbourhoods thus, according to Shaw and McKay’s theory, offer more access to criminal behaviour than others.

However, the theory of differential opportunities can also be applied within subcultural structures. So it seems obvious that delinquent gangs can only commit crimes if they have the means to do so.

At both the macro-social and subcultural levels, after Cloward and Ohlin, it can now happen that an individual has neither legitimate nor illegitimate means at his disposal. Since in such a case neither the legitimate nor illegitimate means are available to an individual, the authors speak of double failures.

According to Cloward and Ohlin, members of subcultures in such a dilemma react with random violence and intensified territorial expansion.

Altogether it can be said that Cloward and Ohlin aim more at the crime opportunity and less at the motivation for the crime. Crime is only possible if society, certain neighbourhoods, or delinquent subcultures provide illegitimate means. A certain kinship cannot be ignored with routine activity approach where, for example, the presence of an alarm system prevents the opportunity to commit a crime.

Implications for Criminal Policy

Just like the theory itself, the political demands and conclusions are a mixture of different approaches.

According to the theory of differential opportunities, rehabilitation is achievable by learning to conform to behaviour, good social policy, moral education, the resolution of problematic neighbourhoods, but also, to a certain extent, deterrence and situational crime prevention.

Above all, Cloward and Ohlin demand more education and improvement of the economic conditions for the US underclass in order to enable cultural and financial success for all members of society. This includes the establishment of social and political structures within vulnerable or socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods.

Critical Appraisal & Relevance

Cloward’s and Ohlin’s theory shares some strengths as well as some weaknesses of their related theories, which, however, are partly resolved by their combination.

What remains in any case is the criticism that not every offence needs specific opportunities or certain illegitimate means to be executed. Pure violence or kleptomaniac behaviour is obviously always and everywhere possible. The basic assumption of Cloward and Ohlin that criminal acts are in principle always reactions to status and adaptation problems is and remains debatable. Merton, Cohen and others have already been accused of this narrow view.

Nevertheless, the theory of differential opportunities succeeds in making clear the illegitimate means necessary for most crimes. This underlines situational elements in the criminological discussion on the one hand, and on the other hand plays with the idea of whether everyone would not end up acting criminally if they had the necessary access to it.

Literature

  • Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin (1960). Delinquency and opportunity: a theory of delinquent gangs. New York: The Free Press..

Further information

Learning/ Subculture

Learning theories assume that both deviant and conformal behaviours are learned in interactions with other members of society.

Learning theoretical approaches explain delinquency as behaviours that are processually passed on in groups and communities. Criminal behaviour is thus learned in the same way and through the same mechanisms as any other behaviour. Only the content of what is learned has to be differentiated. This idea can be described as a counter position to a purely static assumption of either criminal being or non-being.

The origin of criminal behaviour lies in the learning of criminal instincts, rationalisations and techniques, but also deviating motives and ideologies. Deviating behaviour therefore also requires prior practice.

Most theories of learning in criminology are similar in the way that learning takes place on the basis of one or more models. Thus, the persons from whom behaviour is learned and the social environment in which these processes take place are crucial.

Context

Learning theories in criminology are historically the result of the Chicago School on the one hand and first findings from psychological research on learning on the other.
As early as the 19th century, Gabriel Tardes’ theory of imitation had led to attempts to explain crime with learning and imitation processes.

Criminal behaviour is learned (as is norm-compliant behaviour). The learning process takes place in social groups, subcultures or through the media. In addition to skills and abilities that make criminal behaviour possible, justification strategies and techniques of neutralisation are also learnt.

It was not until Edwin Sutherland’s Theory of Differential Associations of the 1930s that the theories of social learning entered the criminological discussion. Sutherland was directly influenced by the socio-ecological considerations of the Chicago School around Park, Burgess, Shaw, McKay and others who sought the cause of crime not in the biology or personality of the perpetrator, but in their environment. Even more than that, Sutherland strongly opposed the biological view and postulated that criminal behaviour was processually learned and not inherited.

His central thesis (deviant behaviour is learned when attitudes predominate that favour violations of the law) is directly related to the theory of social disorganization, in which there is talk of residential areas in which predominantly criminal attitudes seem to exist. Sutherland thus describes the processes (namely: social learning) that ultimately give rise to delinquent behaviour in disorganised social spaces – but also in other ways.

Over the years, Sutherland’s theory has been extended and changed by himself, by Glaser’s thesis of differential identification, and above all by Cloward & Ohlin’s theory of differential opportunities.

Aker’s social learning theory, developed a few decades later, incorporates the concepts of operant conditioning, Bandura learning and Skinner behaviorism now established in learning psychology into the considerations of crime as a learned phenomenon.
Eysenck’s biosocial theses, on the other hand, include processes of classical conditioning in the search for the emergence of criminal behaviour.