The Juvenile Gang: A Cultural Reflex

In the past decade, American sociologists study ing delinquency have become increasingly concerned with the effects of class differences on youthful deviance. Class research stems in part from a research interest developed during the Depression, yet sociologists have not always been accurate in depicting class differences and in claiming identification of exclusive criteria of differences between class groups. Some of the results have been a failure to comprehend realistically the full dimensions of the changing class structure in the United States and a readiness to attribute forms of youthful deviance, including delinquency, to reactive compensations of working-class youths toward middle-class values and limitations of egress from a restrictive background. In what tends to become a relatively simple and unencumbered view, there has been a conspicuous avoidance of reference to pervasive behavioral practices of various types which characterize the culture as a whole. A significant result of this avoidance, apart from its deceptive simplicity, is its failure to recognize a variety of hidden variables in the dynamics of delinquency and in the identification of delinquent types. Unlike scholars elsewhere, for reasons which may reflect the current American culture mentality, sociologists in the United States appear to be minimizing significant facts of intergenerational struggle.