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Sociological theories of crime
Gangs in Chicago
Sociological theories of crime
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Criminal and Delinquent Subcultures
Crime and delinquency subculture reflects on culture patterns surrounding crime and juvenile delinquency. It is created not only by individuals, but as one culture, the American culture. Subculture is derivative of, but different from some larger referential cultures. This term is used to share systems of norms, values, individual, groups and the cultural system itself. Criminal or delinquent subcultures indicate systems of norms, values, or interest that support criminal or delinquent behavior. That’s why many juveniles are linked to the same criminal acts as youngsters. They tend to follow a pattern that is expected in their age group, like stealing. Young people experience their opportunity as being blocked out. They engage in collective actions and adapt pro crime values that reinforce their delinquency.
In a book by Cloward and Lloyd they state that “The youngster who is motivated by a sense of injustice generally commits his first act of deviance in a crime of uncertainty and fear of disapproval”. This statement sounds like appreciation among delinquents is required to sustain satisfaction in their subcultures (p 161).
In criminal subculture the young drug dealers selling drugs was a way to be somebody, to get a head in life and to acquire things like jewelry, clothing, and cars, the symbols of wealth, power and respect. All the things delinquents want at a young age. Crime becomes meaningful to young men and women when they interact with one another and when they participate in youth culture (Sullivan, 1989). Youth violence is considered to be a serious contemporary problem, yet many delinquents are treated as an adult if the crime is function as an adult act.
I find this interesting because may delinquents share the same formality of values and norms that make up there culture. Every young male or female will have experienced some kind of influential crime. What one has done so will the other, that’s how I put it.
While delinquent subculture typically are associated with a broad range of illegal behaviors, among delinquent groups and subculture there is great difference in the nature and strength of group norms, values, and interests. Much of theses behaviors of highly delinquent crimes are results from the act of group processes rather than group norms. Like gangs for instants, they give fairly littl...
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...ncy and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs. New York: Free Press, 1960. p 161
Chin, Ko-lin. Chinatown Gangs: Extortion, Enterprise, and ethnicity. New York: Oxford University Press. 1990
Cohen, Albert K. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press, 1955
Cressy, Donald R, and Ward A. David. “Delinquent and Criminal Subcultures.” In S. E. Kadish, ed., Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice. New York: Free Press, 1983.
Durkeim, Emile. “Suicide: A Study in Sociology”, 1897 p 45.
Hawkins, Darnell F., Race, ethnicity, and serious juvenile Offenders. Thousand Oaks, Calif, Sage, 1998.
Schwendinger, Herman, and Julia Siegel Schwendinger. Adolescent Subcultures and Delinquency. New York: Prager. 1985
Shaw and McKay, “Social Disorganization”, in Radzinowicz and Wolfgang “Crime and Justice Vol.l, p. 415.
Short, James F. Jr. The Level of Explanation Problem Revisited- The American Society of Criminology, 1998 p. 36
Sullivan, Mercer L. “Getting Paid” Youth Crime and Work in Inner City. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press 1989.
Williams, Terry. The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring. Menlo Park, Calif, Addison- Wesley 1989.
Over the past 60 years there has been a recent phenomenon in the development and rise of gangs and gang violence. This is exceptionally apparent in South Central Los Angeles where the Bloods and the Crips have taken control of the social structure and created a new type of counter culture. Poverty in this area is an enormous problem caused by a shear lack of jobs; but just because there is a lack of jobs doesn’t mean that there will be a lack of bills to pay, so sometimes selling drugs in order to keep a roof over your head seems like the most logical option. Crime often times flourishes in these regions because the inconvenient truth is; crime pays. Senator Tom Hayden stated “It’s been defined as a crime problem and a gang problem but it’s really an issue of no work and dysfunctional schools.” this statement is in fact true, but with an exception it is a more broad issue than just involving school, and lack of jobs but goes beyond into social structure as a whole and more specifically the judicial system, this can all be supported by three sociologists Chambliss, Anderson, and Durkheim.
Miller, Walter B. "Lower Glass Culture and Gang Delinquency." Crime in Society. Edited by L.D. Savitz and N. Johnston. Wiley. New York. 174-185. 1978.
Tobin, Kimberly. Gangs: An Individual and Group Perspective. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2008. Print.
In the 1920’s there was a study conducted by Fredric M. Thrasher. Thrasher studied 1,313 gangs in Chicago and revealed the issue of gangs. He considered the poor in poverty as the area increasing in gangs. This area was known as the “zone in transition” and was referred as in his studies. Thrasher has many law reinforcement and social workers helping him bring a stop to this madness. According to Thrashers studies “Important variables such as the age of gang members or the organizational features of the gangs were not related in a straightforward way to differences in the behavior of gangs” (Cummings 6). Thrasher has analyzed these gangs in many ways to the extent or romantic life in gangs. He helped us distinguish the difference in stereotype gangs and then the actual facts involving them.
Albert Cohen was born on June 15, 1918, and is an American criminologist who has been widely acknowledged for his subcultural theory on gangs. He is also the author on a book dealing with the theory titled Delinquent Boys: Culture of the Gang. His theory itself was aimed at confronting the issue of delinquency, questions that he felt hadn’t been properly researched or answered by other theories. Some of these questions include why exactly delinquency takes place specifically in gangs? Why are working class youths attracted to a life filled with delinquent behavior? And another questions Mr. Cohen had was asking why so many delinquent acts are violent and mean spirited just for the sake of it, when they don’t even offer any financial benefit to the person causing the acts. Cohen came up with the idea that there wasn’t necessarily a general consensus that people shared in terms of values, but rather subcultural values that are shared by specific
Laub, J, & Sampson, R. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent lives: delinquent boys to age 70. The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
Many theories, at both the macro and micro level, have been proposed to explain juvenile crime. Some prominent theories include Social Disorganization theory, Differential Social Organization theory, Social Control theory, and Differential Association theory. When determining which theories are more valid, the question must be explored whether people deviate because of what they learn or from how they are controlled? Mercer L. Sullivan’s book, “Getting Paid” Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City clearly suggests that the learning theories both at the macro level, Differential social organization, and micro level, Differential association theory, are the more accurate of the two types of theory.
“Teen Gangs and Crime”. (1996, Feb. 9). Issues & Controversies On File. Retrieved Mar. 29, 2014, from Issues & Controversies database.
As a social process theory, drift and Neutralization sees a crime to be a part of wider social interactions. It views social order as non objective and non consensual and posits that there is not a single fundamental social goal that is held by all social groups; rather there are many different overlapping social values within a society, both conventional and delinquent: legitimate and illegitimate. Drift and Neutralization Theory posits that individuals learn values and delinquent behaviours through their exposure to sub-cultural values. “Deviant or delinquent (or criminal) subcultures do not reject ‘dominant’ values and beliefs. Instead, there is tension between inclinations to adhere to mainstream values and beliefs.” This sees that criminals can drift between deviant and conventional behaviours and how to use various techniques of neutralisation to rationalise their criminal activity. In analysing McVeigh’s motives, his learned sub cultural values can be examined to demonstrate how he was able to rationalise his violations of the law and how he came to drift from non delinquent to delinquent actions. The techniques of neutralisation; denial of responsibility, denial of injury, denial of
The Cocaine Kids: The Inside Story of a Teenage Drug Ring is an intriguing narrative of the experiences Terry Williams witnessed first hand while observing the lives of “The Kids” and their involvement in the cocaine trade. Throughout this piece, there are numerous behaviors displayed by the drug dealers that are each examples of and can be attributed to well-defined criminological theories. This paper will explore how such criminological theories are associated with how and why individuals are introduced into the world of drug selling, as well as, why they leave it. I will elaborate on this by revealing the motivations and conditions that seem to pressurize these individuals to be drug dealers. Although there are multiples shown, the specific theories I will explore are all based on the same idea that an individual becomes a criminal by learning how to be one through experiences, examples, role models, etc. Such theories include the theory of Differential Association, Subculture of Violence Theory, and the Social Learning Theory.
In the 1950’s, Cohen (1955) acquired Merton’s theory of crime further by concentrating on gang delinquency within the working class demographic. Cohen used the dominant knowledge of the anomie theory but narrowed its emphasis on this precise subculture and particularized it in order to clarify the features of gang delinquency. Comparable to Merton and Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin (1960) tried to clarify why certain individuals or groups are more likely to involve in criminal activities. They contended that people are strained when they fail to attain financial achievement through legitimate means. Cloward and Ohlin remained in...
Belliar, Paul E., and Thomas L. McNulty. 2009. “Gang Membership, Drug Selling, and Violence in Neighborhood Context.” JQ: Justice Quarterly 26 (4): 644-69. Web. 15 March 2014.
With the promise of a greater life by the gangs, the excited teens get attracted to the illegal activities of the mob (Bryman, 2008). Some of the teens are addicts of substances and they tend to believe that being in a gang will give them the freedom to continue using it. At home, the challenge can be bad since parents may not even have an idea of an addiction or ways of coping. Therefore, most teens are forced to join a mob because they have the desired freedom and access to the drugs. Some of the teens are pressured into joining a mob if their association will add to the mob’s criminal actions.
Hallswort, S. And Young, T. (2004) Getting Real About Gang. Criminal Justice Matters [online]. 55. (1), pp 12-13 [Accessed 10 December 2013]
Thompson, W. E. and Bynum J. E. (2010). Juvenile Delinquency: A sociological Approach Eighth Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.