SUBTERRANEAN SOURCES OF SUBCULTURAL DELINQUENCY BEYOND THE AMERICAN-DREAM

Are subcultural forms of crime and delinquency wholesale rejections or distorted reflections of core values of marker-oriented societies? Cu rrent evidence casts doubt on the former position, while contemporary theory suggests the possibility that a culture of competition encourag es hierarchic forms of self-interest, leading to the acceptance of ine quality and anemic amorality and ultimately, to group-related delinque ncy, Oddly, the effects of this culture of competition and hierarchic self-interest have not previously been documented empirically in socio logical or criminological research, even though this step is fundament al and crucial to the argument that subcultural crime and delinquency derive from market-driven values. We analyze data from four sires in E ast and West Germany to identify the strands of a subterranean causal web that link core values of market society to subcultural delinquency .