Albert K. Cohen
Albert Kircidel Cohen (born June 15, 1918 in Boston , Massachusetts , † November 25, 2014 in Chelsea , Massachusetts) was an American criminologist who is counted among the classics of criminal sociology. He is the founder of the criminological subculture theory .
Life
Cohen studied at Harvard University and Indiana University . At Harvard he was a student of the sociologists Talcott Parsons and Robert K. Merton . In Indiana, under the influence of Edwin H. Sutherland , he turned to criminological issues. Since 1947 Cohen taught sociology and criminology at Indiana University and the University of Connecticut .
In his book Delinquent boys. The culture of the gang (1955) Cohen used a conception of subculture for a criminological analysis for the first time . The term subculture is used to describe smaller groups whose members know each other personally and differentiate themselves from the social environment (especially that of adults) through group-specific norms. In this context, criminal acts do not necessarily have an instrumental character; they can also have a symbolic function and be committed for themselves.
Fonts (selection)
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Delinquent boys.The culture of the gang . Free Press, Glencoe (Illinois) 1955.
- Criminal youth. On the sociology of youth gangs , Reinbek near Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1961.
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Deviance and control . Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs 1966.
- Deviation and Control , 4th edition, Munich: Juventa-Verlag, 1975, ISBN 3-7799-0134-X (first edition 1968).
- The elasticity of evil. Changes in the social definition of deviance . Blackwell for the Oxford University Penal Research Unit, Oxford 1974, ISBN 0631142800 .
literature
- Joseph Maier : Cohen, Albert K. In: Wilhelm Bernsdorf / Horst Knospe (eds.): Internationales Soziologenlexikon , Vol. 2, Enke, Stuttgart ² 1984, p. 148, ISBN 3-432-90702-8
- Siegfried Lamnek : Theories of deviant behavior I - "Classical approaches" . 10th, revised edition, Wilhelm Fink (UTB), Paderborn 2018, ISBN 978-3-8252-4925-0 , pp. 157-165.
Web links
- Thomas J. Bernard: Albert Cohen. American criminologist , Encyclopædia Britannica -Online, accessed August 13, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Obituary in ASA footnotes (English)
- ↑ Daniela Klimke and Aldo Legnaro (eds.); Basic criminological texts , Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2016, ISBN 978-3-658-06503-4 , p. 269.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Cohen, Albert K. |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Cohen, Albert Kircidel (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American criminologist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 15, 1918 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston , Massachusetts , United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 25, 2014 |
| Place of death | Chelsea (Massachusetts) , Massachusetts , United States |