Why Young People Join Gangs

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With many sources that attempt to explain why youth join gangs, studies based on empirical research are optimal to reveal the critical factors. This paper will focus on combining these sources that are based on empirical methodologies with Robert Merton's strain theory to explain why youth join gangs from an analytical perspective. The empirical studies reveal a trend that youth join gangs because of a troublesome economy and coming from a low-socioeconomic status, creating a strong connection with Merton's strain theory.

It is not uncommon that in today's world, there are societal expectations and standards of the ideal lifestyle. In the US, the 'American Dream' constitutes the ideal life that is based on achieving wealth, status, and fame in a successful manner. Merton's strain theory explains how the mainstream promotes the American Dream while disregarding the fact that not all communities have equal opportunities to achieve it in a legitimate fashion (Parnaby and Sacco 2004). Essentially, people can conform to this universal standard, but when they realize that they are severely limited the result is anomie because there is too much emphasis on becoming prosperous, while the socio-economic imbalance is ignored.

This leads to Merton's various forms of adaptations: innovation, where the person accepts the goals, but rejects the means; retreating, where the person rejects both the goals and the means; ritualism, where the person rejects the goals, but accepts the means and; rebellion, where the person creates alternative goals via alternative means. Merton basically suggests that when a person is limited to achieve the mainstream goal, they adapt via alternative structures that can consequently be illegitimate...

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... American dream.

Works Cited

Johnstone, John W.C. 1983. "Recruitment to a Youth Gang." Youth & Society 14:281-300.

Lilly, J. Robert, Francis T. Cullen and Richard A. Ball. 2011. "Crime in American Society" Pp 61-87 in Criminological Theory: Context and Consequences (5th Edition) Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications.

Maclure, Richard, and Melvin Sotelo. 2004. "Youth Gangs in Nicaragua: Gang Membership as Structured Individualization." Journal of Youth Studies 7:417-432.

Parnaby, Patrick F., and Vincent F. Sacco. 2004. "Fame and Strain: The Contributions of Mertonian Deviance Theory to an Understanding of the Relationship Between Celebrity and Deviant Behaviour." Deviant Behaviour 25:1-26.

Yoder, Kevin A., Les B. Whitbeck, and Dan R. Hoyt. 2003. "Gang Involvement and Membership Among Homeless and Runaway Youth." Youth & Society 34:441-467.

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