Sociology: Outline and Assess Structuralist Theories of Crime and Deviance

All Structuralist theories of crime and deviance seem to suggest that crime is socially constructed rather than focused on the individual.
Albert Cohen, combining Structuralist and sub cultural theories drew on Merton's idea of strain but criticized Merton's ideas of crime being an individual response and believed that he ignored non-utilitarian crimes such as vandalism and joy-riding. Cohen was particularly interested in deviance which was not economically motivated but done simply for the thrill of the act.
Cohen believed that many 'lower-class' boys aspired to the values of 'middle-class' society but lacked the means to obtain anysuch success, thus leading to status frustration.…