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Cloward And Ohlin Integrity

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When looking at the formation of gangs, Cloward and Ohlin place a large focus on juveniles having blocked legitimate opportunities leading them to experience a sense of strain. For Cloward and Ohlin, strain is defined as a feeling of injustice. Cloward and Ohlin argue that opportunities-such as education- are not equally distributed in the community. This implies that these juveniles have the “American Dream” mindset, however have no legitimate ways to achieve it because all of their opportunities are blocked. In following, these blocked opportunities produce strain. Because the juveniles have a feeling of injustice, they will search for alternative ways to achieve the “American Dream” and thus lead to illegitimate opportunities. However, illegitimate …show more content…
This gave them the illegitimate opportunities to obtain their dreams. As previously discussed, Pablo and Gus longed to be the people that flaunt their wealth by material things. Material things represents the “American Dream” for these men. Drug robberies often included a lot of techniques between the robber and the dealer. Pablo and Gus used violence that they learned in prison and applied it to the robbery situations. Pablo and Gus also enjoyed exerting power over the dealer during a robbery. This is a portion of their “American Dream” that they strived to obtain. During a drug robbery, the men would often obtain large sums of money that they later spent very fast. For the time being, this was satisfying. They were spending nights in clubs with women, traveling to the Dominican Republic, and were respected by others. However, as the men age, this line of work is no longer suitable, and they become what Contreras calls “fallen stars.” Pablo and Gus continue to struggle to obtain the “American Dream” as they struggle to find legitimate means to obtain …show more content…
Most of the time these means are achieved through illegal ways. Merton lays out five modes of adaptation for his theory including conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion. According to Merton, Pablo and Gus would be considered innovators because they accept the goals of society but often are unable to achieve them legitimately. For Pablo and Gus, the goals of becoming rich and having a high status in regard to others is enough to push them to look for alternative ways of obtaining the means. For these men, it is fairly easy to find an alternative because everyone around them is also finding alternative ways to achieve their

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