ABSTRACT
The work of Walter Miller proposed a much more autonomous notion of lower class culture, claiming that delinquency was an extension of a separate and relatively self-governing value system responsive to adult working class culture. In a famous article Lower Class Culture As A Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency (1958) Miller argued that instead of being produced as a reaction to the dominant culture – an inversion of the ethics of the dominant society – lower class culture had its own established values or ‘vocal concerns’. Rather than constituting a counterculture, lower class delinquency is a direct expression of the dominant values or culture patterns of the lower class community. Thus lower class gangs were predominantly male and street orientated groups, and were an expression of a generic lower class cultural system. For Miller delinquency comes about from a clash of conduct norms or cultural understandings. Rather than being created as a reaction, sub-cultures are in direct conflict with dominant middle class values which may be inscribed in the laws. Miller is clear:
Miller recognised six focal concerns to lower class culture:
• Trouble Conflict with police, authority, state bureaucrats, and the issues around fighting or sexual activity for males, and the use of drugs.
