Illegitimate Opportunity Structures

During the 1950s two predominant theories of criminal behavior were Edwin H. Sutherland's differential association theory and Robert K. Merton's anomie theory. Sutherland argued that criminal behavior is learned in the same manner as other behaviors; people who are socialized to sanction criminal behavior are likely to become criminals. Merton suggested that criminal behavior results when there is a discrepancy between the goals reinforced by society (e.g., earn a good income) and the institutionalized means for attaining these goals (e.g., complete a good education). Those whose access to legitimate opportunities is blocked in some way, perhaps due to poverty or the unavailability of good schools, may use illegal means to reach culturally valued goals. Richard A. Cloward and Lloyd E. Ohlin agreed that both theories had merit but added that a key channel of access to culturally valued goals was through illegitimate opportunity structures, especially in impoverished inner-city communities where legitimate means may be scarce.

This notion of illegitimate opportunity structures elaborates the notion that differential access to legitimate opportunities explains why some people are more successful than others. Rather than focusing on how access to wealth or social capital leads to financial success, Cloward and Ohlin argued that some people engage in crime and deviance because they have relatively greater access to illegitimate opportunities. These opportunities imply (a) a learning environment in which particular skills and values are acquired, and (b) opportunities to engage in criminal roles. For example, youth may find legitimate opportunities blocked, but those who have learned methods of delinquency and who have opportunities to engage in such practices—perhaps because their peers are delinquent—become delinquents. In the absence of illegitimate opportunity structures, people with blocked opportunities may experience problems of adjustment (e.g., anxiety or depression), withdraw from society, or turn to risky sexual behavior or drug use in an attempt to find other avenues of self-acceptance or peer-evaluated success. Some researchers argued that illegitimate opportunity structures became more prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s as many inner-city areas experienced a concentration of poverty due to the loss of skilled jobs in urban centers. Others pointed out that crime may also result in the attenuation of legitimate opportunities, such as when conventional residents flee high-crime neighborhoods. Hence, residents may be left with few options other than illegitimate opportunities.

In their seminal works, Cloward and Ohlin focused primarily on inner-city gangs and how their members accessed illegitimate opportunity structures as they engaged in particular forms of delinquency. Their studies have been criticized because they describe deviant subcultures with norms that are opposed to the [Page 472]widely accepted norms of the broader culture and focus on gangs as the main facilitator of delinquent behavior. Yet, even members of these presumed subcultures tend to sanction the legitimate norms of society, and most delinquency is not the result of gang behavior. Critics claim that delinquents who maintain that legitimate opportunities are blocked, whereas illegitimate opportunities are not, are engaging in rationalization for their failure to sufficiently inculcate the norms and practices of conventional society.

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