The Impacts of Social Disorganization and General Strain Theory On Juvenile Delinquency Kevin Williams Georgia Gwinnett College Introduction When people think of the term “juvenile delinquency” they may think of the extreme regulations some schools have begun to enact upon individual students in response to major issues such as bullying and school shootings. Criminal prosecution seems to have become the normality in many bullying cases these days as some students can find themselves being suspended for making guns out of paper, or even drawing a gun. Though these “no tolerance” policies that some schools have come up with in order to prevent delinquency from happening may help deter these negative behaviors in some circumstances they are in no way a practical solution, overall. Rules are essential to order, but what are the reasons youth become delinquent and how can we identify the causes? Two theories that present strong cases towards why youth commit delinquency are the General Strain Theory and Social Disorganization Theory. At the micro level, General Strain Theory attempts to identify different types of strains that can result in juvenile delinquency. These include a loss of positive stimuli, the preventing an individual from attaining their goals, and introducing negatively-valued stimuli. At the macro level, Social Disorganization attempts to identify the structural and cultural contributions to juvenile delinquency, ranging from areas of poverty to disorganized schools, and the impact these types of structures can have on juvenile delinquency. Four empirical journal articles have been chosen to identify what contributes to juvenile delinquency using the selected theories previously mentioned. These art... ... middle of paper ... ...ive relationship when observing bullying and crime rates. Secondly, it was astounding to see the impact on students who did not have a good family structure and did not feel loved or cared for by both parents and the teachers. Not only did this contribute to issues of self harm, but also bullying and suicidal thoughts. Additionally this also contributed to youth having a low self control which leads to an array of delinquency. Rather than adding a continuation of strict impractical and often time’s irrational forms of “no tolerance” policies and rules that create a strained environment in schools, we can learn from each of these theories and address the issues found in the studies from school structure down to family structure. Clearly this would be a difficult task but it would be very helpful in addressing the many issues juveniles face in schools and at home.
The study of Juvenile delinquency and the theories pertaining to it are vital for several reasons. In order to more effectively engage with youths and foster positive behavior and schemas, the individuals must first be understood. The study of theory provides a means of understanding adolescents and the factors that lead to or detract from delinquent behavior. In the case of juvenile delinquent, Jordan Brown, theory helps to provide insight into why an eleven-year-old boy murdered his stepmother.
Two major sociological theories explain youth crime at the macro level. The first is Social Disorganization theory, created in 1969 by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. The theory resulted from a study of juvenile delinquency in Chicago using information from 1900 to 1940, which attempts to answer the question of how aspects of the structure of a community contribute to social control. The study found that a community that is unable to achieve common values has a high rate of delinquency. Shaw and McKay looked at the physical appearance of the neighborhoods, the average income of the population, the ethnicity of the neighborhood, the percent of renters versus owners, and how fast the population of the area changed. These factors all contribute to neighborhood delinquency.
Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. C. (2012). Juvenile delinquency. (11th ed., pp. 2-32). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
There are numerous critics of the juvenile justice system, and while most of their denunciations remain the same as those of the justice system at large, an ample portion of their criticisms revolve around the claim that incarcerating young people not only doesn’t work in deterring or rehabilitating them, but makes them worse and leads to adult misconduct. A report noted that youth sent to juvenile prison were 37 times more likely to be arrested as adults (Szalavitz, 2009). Another major problem some cite with the juvenile justice system is that most delinquent offends have some form of mental illness, and that while studies have shown that mental health treatment would be a better alternative, they are simply ignored or incarcerated (Ramirez, 2008), completely contradictory to the core values of the juvenile justice system which stresses rehabilitation and restitution above all else.
Thompson, W. E. and Bynum J. E. (2010). Juvenile Delinquency: A sociological Approach Eighth Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Juvenile delinquency may evolve around many different factors before it becomes a problem for society to solve. Gender and family structure can be a large and underlining cause of why children enter the criminal justice system. By examining the gender and family makeup, one could better understand how to treat a troubled individual.
Onwediwe, I. (2004). “Theoretical Perspectives on Juvenile Delinquency: Root Causes and Control.” ProQuest Criminal Justice, 66, 153-156.
Across the nation, social scientists and criminologists have researched and hypothesized the main contributing factors that promote juvenile delinquency. The Strain/ Anomie theory introduced by Robert Merton and later revised by several other theorists, attempts to explain why juvenile subculture tend to behave certain ways when confronted with pressures from everyday life. Revised by other theorists, the Strain theory attempts to provide the framework of juvenile delinquency and its sources in order to analyze the effectiveness of this assumption, as well as to implement certain crime prevention policies and programs to curb this problem. This paper is going to analyze how the Strain theory contributes it’s principles of delinquency factors in order to explain and understand juvenile delinquency.
Social Disorganization Theory is based upon looking for outside motivations that contribute to the acts of delinquency. Some of the connections, however, that the theory makes to the letter to the Chicago Times are the following: heterogeneity from the Social Ecological Model, Disorganized neighborhoods from the Collective Efficacy Model, and social control from the Sampson and Grove’s Model. The letter explains youth want more protection and better relationships with police and community. The Social Ecological Model says, “differences among people living in a given area, there is a lack of shared norms” (Bates and Swan 2014:122). Without heterogeneity (relationship between individuals/ social groups) in a mutual agreement of wanting a
Smångs states that juvenile delinquency is a group phenomenon, he says that “friends of juvenile delinquents are delinquent to a much greater extent than friends of non-delinquents” (Smångs, 2010, pg. 609). Juveniles are influenced, or transformed, by their relationships with their peers. Juveniles want to fit in and feel accepted, it is common for juveniles to act differently to try to impress their peers or fit in. The study actually compares two different rival theories; this is to help collect a more accurate series of results.
It suggests that socialization builds self-control and alleviates the inclination to become involved in delinquent behavior. “In this way, families inspire children to coform to parental norms and expectations, and to the norms and expectations of the larger society” (Burfeind and Bartusch, 2011: 171). Hirchi does not believe that motivation is a factor in understanding why youths become involved in juvenile delinquency. Instead, it stipulates that juveniles who offend have a lack of self-control due to a lack of social bonds that would of make the juvenile feel opposed to committing crime. It concludes that people engage in delinquent behavior when their social bond with society is
Therefore, if the individual role amongst his conventional group and his institutional group is failure, then he or she will participate in crime and commit to what is expected of him, through these groups, once strain causes bonds to weaken a youth is free to engage in delinquency.
Delinquency refers to the aspect of failing to abide by the law. Juvenile Delinquency is the aspect of people who are under age breaking the law and thus the need to take a legal action against them. The essay looks into delinquency theories that explain what leads to under age people breaking the law. Secondly, juvenile behavior in regards to the theory is explained as well as the possible strategies put in place to prevent and intervene before juvenile delinquency occurs (National Institute for Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (U.S., 1985).
Juvenile delinquency is one of the major social issues in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is when “a violation of the law committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Merriam-webster.com). Although we have one justice system in America, the juvenile system differs from the adult juvenile system. Most juvenile delinquents range from as low as the age of seven to the age of seventeen. Once the delinquent or anyone turns the age of eighteen, they are considered an adult. Therefore, they are tried as an adult, in the justice system. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. In addition, there are a variety of effects that juvenile justice systems can either bad effects or good effects. Finally there are many different solutions that can reduce juvenile delinquency. As a result, juvenile delinquency is a major issue and the likeliness of it can be reduced. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency there has to be an understanding of the causes and the effects.
Juvenile delinquency is a problem in today’s society. The problem has created a broad spectrum of both social and individual factors. The more that society learns about delinquency the more capacity it will have to combat against it. The youth are the future of this world, a corrupted juvenile body will ensure great hazard over time. Rehabilitating juvenile offenders into conventional members of society should be the goal of the criminal justice system.