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Factors that influence criminal behavior
3. Social disorganization theories
Factors that influence criminal behavior
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In Singleton’s movie social disorganization theory can be used to explain the condition of the neighborhood in which the protagonist live. Tre’s father, Furious, gives us insight into the condition of the neighborhood when he takes Tre and Ricky on a drive through the neighborhood to the billboard. On this ride we could see all of the social and physical vulgarities characteristic of social disorganization at work. During this scene we hear loud obscene music in the background companied by a woman shouting. Furious then delivers a speech in which he discusses the “selling of drugs” and “ shooting each other”. This scene showed that the neighborhood was not effective at controlling teenage peer groups, strong local friendship networks between the boys in the neighborhood was present, and that there was low participation in community organizations. Although there were strong local friendship ties, they were ineffective at controlling juvenile delinquency. The community met the Shaw and McKay definition of social disorganization because the residents were unable to realize their common ...
Living the Drama by David J. Harding is a text which draws on many sociological theories that are presently relevant to the lives of many individuals. Particularly this compilation of personal accounts and theoretical connections textbook focuses on the role of neighborhood and community’s effect on the lives of present day boys. The book provides real life examples are given to demonstrate two key topics being cultural heterogeneity and collective efficacy. In neighborhoods collective efficacy is relevant regardless of the racial or socioeconomic make up of the area, as it comprises the neighborhoods trust and cohesion with shared expectations of control, which in response determines the public order of that community. In these communities we then find cultural heterogeneity, which is defined as the existence of a myriad of competing and conflicting cultural models. Cultural Heterogeneity, according to Harding, is greater in disadvantaged neighborhoods especially in relation to the topic of academic ambitions and career aspirations of adolescents in these areas. Youth and juveniles are heavily effected by the collective efficacy of an area which determines how may different social models and norms there are in the area or neighborhood in question. In Living the Drama, examples are given which indicate that higher collective efficacy would likely result in less cultural heterogeneity. This relationship between the two theories Is important as it effects the collective leadership, direction and social norms of an area and plays a role in the success or failure of the youth from that specific neighborhood.
He is a decorated veteran, scholar and successful business leader upon graduating. In comparison to the other Wes Moore who never seemed to escape his childhood and ended up in prison. The theory that best explains the authors’ noninvolvement in a life of crime vs. the criminality of the other Wes Moore is the social disorganization theory. Shaw and McKay, the founders of this theory, believed that “juvenile delinquency could be understood only by considering the social context in which youths lived. A context that itself was a product of major societal transformations wrought by rapid urbanization, unbridled industrialization, and massive population shifts” (Lilly, Cullen & Ball, 2015). The theory is centered around transitional zones and competition determined how people were distributed spatially among these zones (Lilly et al., 2015). This model founded by Ernest Burgess showed that high priced residential areas were in the outer zones and the inner zones consisted of poverty (Lilly et al.,
Boyz N the Hood was a film created to convey an anti-gang message as well as to provide societal members an in-depth look at life in “the hood” so he or she can expand their culturally awareness of identifying societal issues (Stevenson, 1991). Upon the debut of “Boyz N the Hood” violence erupted at theaters across the nation, resulting in multiple shows pulling the film from scheduled showings to alleviate future violent behaviors (Stevenson, 1991). The film profoundly illustrates the realty of the events revealed within the storyline that frequently occur on a daily basis within every impoverish community; however, is overlooked by the individuals who are not directly involved and or affected (Leon-Guerrero, 2016) Children of lower socioeconomic status often are raised in ghetto neighborhoods where they often witness, crime, violence, gang activity, abuse, and drugs (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). Ghetto communities envelop tumultuous cycles of violence and substance abuse creating a pervasive occurrence within the residents of the community. This is prevalent in lower developed communities that unfortunately many children and the youth populace indirectly inherit and sadly conform to, as there are no other means to an end for them (Leon-Guerrero,
Alex Kotowits’ book, There Are No Children Here, follows two young boys over a course of two years. The environment that the children are raised in is a lower income area that is surrounded by violence, gangs, and crime. The best theory to explain this novel would be strain theory, followed by social disorganization theory. Being raised in poverty generates many issues, which then makes children rebel later in life. Many families experience different types of strain such as experience strain, vicarious strain, and anticipated strain. This not only affects the person who is experiencing strain, but also affects other people who are around them. The novel presents a good example of both general strain theory and early social disorganization theory
Throughout the article “The Code of the Streets,” Elijah Anderson explains the differences between “decent” and “street” people that can be applied to the approaches of social control, labeling, and social conflict theories when talking about the violence among inner cities due to cultural adaptations.
Theorists believe that Shaw and McKay were biased when they wrote their conclusion on the lower-class neighborhood. This in turn resulted in other critics questioning if the demographics such as socio-economic, the setting of the communities and the population that composed the communities were indicators of social disorganization or if social theorists constitute their reasoning based on their own beliefs. According to Kurbin (2010), Criminologist Edwin Sutherland preferred to call Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory the differential social organization because of his belief that “the organization of the delinquent group, which is often very complex, is social disorganization only from an ethical or some other particularistic point of view.” This may be interpreted as him stating that a social group, such as a delinquent one, is only perceived as “disorganized” based on personal biases. According to Sutherland, some urban neighborhoods are not disorganized but organized based on the daily needs of the unique community. For example, if an outsider born and raised in a community with different set of values looks into a community with another perspective on how to function in a social environment, the outsider may think that they are wrong and ridiculous for living in such a matter. The outsider
This Analysis Paper is an analysis of social problems an issues presented in the film. The film under analysis in this paper is "What 's Eating Gilbert Grape" (1993). The topics used as a lens for analysis are family, social roles, deviance, and social groups. This paper will present numerous examples of these social issue topics as they are displayed in the film.
John Singleton’s view of social problems in South Central Los Angeles happens in a tale of three friends growing up together. Doughboy and Ricky Baker are half-brothers and have opposite personalities. Ricky is a football player who hopes to win a scholarship and spends most of his time playing football. On the other hand, Doughboy is a young man who looks upon his environment for guidance. He is involved in violence, abusing drugs, and participates in violence. In between is their friend Tre, who actually has a father to teach him what is right from wrong. Furious Styles, who is Tre’s father in the film does everything in his strength to keep his son from becoming another startling statistic. As you can see, it is always important for parents to be a part of their child’s life because it can make a big difference not only in their life but also their child’s future.
Society is faced with various problems that hinder the development of its communities. These issues affect the society in a numerous of ways and has a major effect on the citizens of the community as well. Social adversities causes grief and is also the cause of crimes and other miscellaneous activities that occur in inequitable areas. In the film, Fruitvale Station, there are abundant amounts of these adversities and societal issues that are illustrated. Fruitvale Station is a great example of a film that shows accurate social issues that occur in today’s society. The movie demonstrates issues of inequality, racial prejudice, gang involvement and also unemployment. It also shows how the people who are forced to live with these issues, fight for survival to maintain to see another day.
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
Menace II Society, a film about a young Black man who has lived the “hustler” lifestyle and is struggling to leave it, is a perfect example of deviance as the main character, Caine Lawson, and the characters around him violate many of society’s norms. Throughout the film, the characters swear incessantly, carry around guns and drugs as most people would carry around cell phones, commit street crimes, especially burglary and mugging, on a regular basis, and beat and kill people unscrupulously. The following quote captures just how deviant Caine and the other characters in this film were, “[Caine] went into the store just to get a beer. Came out an accessory to murder and armed robbery. It's funny like that in the hood sometimes. You never knew what was gonna happen, or when” (Albert Hughes). Why would Caine consider these crimes “funny”, or rather, so insignificant? What caused Caine to become so deviant? The answers to such questions were woven into the plot of the film and will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
For my final paper I choose to sociologically analyze the book Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets by Sudhir Venkatesh. Newsweek describes Gang Leader for a Day as being “Compelling…dramatic…Venkatesh gives readers a window into a way of life that few Americans understand.” (Newsweek) Gang Leader for a Day tells the story of a young sociologist named Sudir Venkatesh and his search for answers to poverty problems in the urban projects. After being constantly warned of which areas not to visit, Venkatesh decided to ignore all the forewarnings and goes and walks into Lake Park Projects, to conduct surveys for his professor. On his trip into the projects Venkatesh ends up meeting a gang leader named J.T. After spending the night in the projects Venkatesh is allowed to leave after J.T. states “You shouldn’t go around asking them silly-a** questions —- With people like us, you should hang out, get to know what they do, how they do it. No one is going to answer questions like that .You need to understand how young people live on the streets.” (2008 : 21) From that day on Venkatesh would come to end up befriending J.T and spending almost all of his time in the projects. It isn’t until J.T gets relocated to the notorious Robert Taylor Housing that the real study begins. Over the next seven years Venkatesh would not only gather information from J.T but, also befriend everyone from the other neighborhood dealers, crackheads, squatters, prostitutes, pimps, activists, cops, organizers, and officials. Through his time spent with the residents and officials of the Robert Taylor Homes Venkatesh not only was able to gain insight on the day to day life of...
Social control can either be informal (parents etc.) or formal (police etc.) and without these controls, juveniles become more susceptible to delinquency (Shaw,McKay,1942). In the city of Erie, there are a lot of neighborhoods in which are breaking down, especially the one around the Boys and Girls club. On my last day at the Boys and Girls club, a young girl was jumped just a few blocks down from the center; she was just walking home. The city of Erie itself has pocket communities of poverty which are in close proximity to communities which are more prosperous. From others who I had talked to at the club, those who worked their often had to deal with parents who did not care, were not around, or were negative influences in the child’s life. A few of the older kids at the Boys and Girls club had been involved with gangs, drug abuse and selling, and have been effected in some way by the violence in the low income neighborhoods they lived in. Staff had notified me that sometimes the programs in which the schools or juvenile
The torn down neighborhood, graffiti on the walls, gun shops and abandoned houses are what people living on the wrong side of 8 miles in Detroit saw in their everyday lives. Social disorganization theory according to Freda, Mueller, and Laufer (2013) is “A theory of criminality in which the breakdown of effective social bonds, primary associations, and social controls in neighborhoods and communities is held to result in the development of high crime areas” (p. 124). In the movie 8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002) B-Rabbit lives in 8 mile where he is surrounded by delinquents that commit crimes, bums around the neighborhood and the alcoholic drunk of a mother he lives within a trailer park in the duration of the movie. He is a blue collar worker who does a lot of physical labor in a steel cutting factory where he tries to make a means to help support his mom and sister. But what he really hopes is to be a rapper, make a demo and sign to a label. So he goes where all other rappers go to get noticed, the “Shelter.” Rappers go and have battled to become a highly valued individual in the residential district. With such a large population that attend and participate in those battles there are less chances of any of them being sought out for a record deal. Others that lived outside of the 8 mile district thought less of the people that did live in that location. Even though they stayed together as people from the 313 there was always a better neighborhood or somebody who had it better. So who better to pick on than the white boy who survives with his alcoholic mother in a trailer, taking care of his sister, playing in a distasteful factory, and failing against the “Leaders of the Free World?” He was the perfect target just like many others th...
Crime exists everywhere. It is exists in our country, in the big cities, the small towns, schools, and even in homes. Crime is defined as “any action that is a violation of law”. These violations may be pending, but in order to at least lower the crime rate, an understanding of why the crimes are committed must first be sought. There are many theories that are able to explain crimes, but three very important ones are rational choice theory, social disorganization theory and strain theory.