Crime And Delinquency Subculture example essay topic

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 little of its group life to the pursuit of their behavior. When gangs participate in crime episodes, some members of the gang don't become involved. According to a article I read by Short, he stated that because subculture typically consist of collections of normative orders- rules and practices related to a common value, delinquents that affiliate themselves in gangs are oriented around a single value (such as being "macho") are tended to act that way (p. 36).

He also states that individuals who are associated with a particular subculture tend also to be associated with other subcultures. Some members of delinquent gangs may be the sole carriers of a particular subculture in a particular location, and some are shared. For example conflict subcultures are shared by rival fighting gangs among whom individual and group status involves values related to defense of turf and reputation and norms loyal of these values. Some subcultures oriented to theft and other forms of property crime which they are connected with a particular group. Some property crime involves more organizing and planning in order to succeed. Other crimes such as mugging may involve only one person who shares the same subculture as the larger group.

In an article by Terry William's it states that delinquent subcultures contain elements of both youth and adult cultures. It also stated that to speak of youth culture is to symbolize a subculture of the larger adult-dominated and institutionally defined culture (1989). Many of criminal subculture shares a symbolic relationship with their customs, manly the people they involve themselves with. If a person or a group are lower- class then you will see them handing with that group.

If they are drug users or drug dealers then you will see the same. Delinquents will fit in were they can get in or shall I say where they feel most wanted. According to the Cohen's theory he argued that a "crucial condition for the emergence of new cultural forms is the existence in effective interaction with one another and of numbers with similar problems of adjustment" (1955, p 59). He also states that similar problems of adjustment can be interpreted to include problems faced by quite conventional people with special interests who find themselves "in the same boat" with others who have the same interests seems especially appropriate to subcultures that embrace vandalism and other delinquent behaviors (p 60).

It is obvious to know where criminal and delinquent subcultures come from. Studies show that it is historical in industrialized societies. It originated from social change that began in the sixteenth century. Traditional economic and social relationships were greatly altered with the start of capitalism and industrial revolution in the Western Europe. This awoke large numbers of unemployed people and disrupting communities, families and other groups. Many people roam the countryside, subsisting as best they could off the land or by victimizing travelers.

Many then settled in larger cities, again to survive by whatever means including crime. The Schwendinger emphasize that criminal subculture development as a result of structural norms and interests were originated between the period of capitalists and emerging nation- states (Herman 1985). James Coleman and his associates identified more recent social changes that were associated with the rise and spread of youth culture throughout the United States: Baby Boom following the World War II and the increased wealth of young people associated with post-World War II economic prosperity combined to create a huge youth market with great economic power (1974). In contract to accounts of the origins of Western European youth cultures, Ko-lin Chin traces the development of Chinese youth delinquents in the United States to ancient secret society traditions, and to the more recent Triad societies that formed in the late seventeenth century in China (1996). The violence and crime among the Chinese youth in the U. S did not increase dramatically until immigration laws permitted more. While the origins of delinquent subcultures may reside in ancient times, the formation can be explained in macro-level.

All macro-level theories make certain assumptions about the individual level of explanation. By documenting the ongoing relationship and actions of an individual or group, one can analyze the process of macro-levels of explanation. According to differential association theory, interactions with other and social structural context are important because they shape the learning of violent definitions, which in turn affects the like hood that youths engage in violent delinquency (Hawkins 1998). Delinquents behave violently because they want to win acceptance by older criminals. Once that acceptance is won, they may then be selected for further socialization and preparation for mature criminal acts. This gives the delinquent the power to control his life and others.

Shaw and McKay studied juvenile crime rates in Chicago and they divided the city up into a series of concentric rings. They then calculated the delinquency rates in each ring finding that areas with highest crime rates were those who lived in lower-class areas of the city. They therefore came to the conclusion that "delinquency -producing factors are inherent in the community" and are culturally transmitted (p 415). They said that what is transmitted is social disorganization.

This term is referred to an inconsistency of values, attitudes and standards of behavior. In areas of high economic status and middle-class there is consistency and uniformity of attitudes and morals, but for the lower-class there is absence. Some theories and vocabulary I feel are related to my topic are as followed: Collective behavior is defined as activities involving a larger number of people. Like riots and mobs, delinquents enjoy being in a riot. That sets them off and they fell well in control and violent. Now with the mob a delinquent may love to feel like he belongs to something powerful and untouchable.

That's more like being in a street gang with stable role models. Convergence Theory states that crowd behavior is not a product of the crowd itself, but by particular individuals. Just like delinquents and their violent behaviors, they don't always start off as a group; it just ends up that way. The labeling Theory can be added as well because it is a part of a deviant behavior that delinquents tent to stress on. They worry about what people (older delinquents or adults) might say about there performance as a violator of the law. Their worried about how they may react to their actions.

Poverty is another word that can be related to this topic. Many of these delinquents may only have one parent, live in the ghetto, or on wealth fare and fell that crime is the only way to survive. The Structural-Functional Theory began with Emile Durkheim ("Suicide: A Study in Sociology") in 1897. His ideas are that a person's place in the social structure determines his or hers behavior. A lack of legitimate opportunities produce criminal subcultures and that socialization within the family, peers, and schools controls the behavior. According to the National Juvenile Court Data Archive, In 1999 court with juvenile jurisdiction handled an estimated 1,673,000 delinquency case.

Between the year 1990 and 1999, the number of delinquency cases increased about 27%. The relative proportion of person offenses increased between 1990 and 1999, while the proportion of property offenses decline. So many delinquents were now committing crime among themselves dramatically. As the delinquents got older the crime rate went up. This pattern has not change scene. In 2002 the poverty rate had increased from 11.7 percent to 12.1 in 2001.

This is why many delinquent commit crime over and over again. They are unstable and poor and they look to make some kind of money to provide shelter. That opens the door to unsocial behavior and deviance in the group. Although subculture theories and statistics give a good explanation of juvenile delinquency and juvenile group crime, the fundamental weakness of these theories stems from precisely on an overemphasis on the importance of a gang response to crime.

It places far too much emphasis on a group response rather than the individual response. The main theories provide us with a thorough explanation of crimes largely ignored by anomie and biological theories namely juvenile crimes. If there were better ways to avoid the patterns that occur because of poverty I believe that the crime in delinquent juveniles will not exist. I say this simply because there is no change in society itself to better control the outbreak of crime. There needs to be more involvement in the subculture of crime and delinquency first to seize the out of control society we so live in to day. There needs to be more involvement in parents, the school the government and the children themselves.

This way the child at birth to age 5 will at least know or see that there is hope and much better things to do in life except crime. Work Cited Cloward, Richard and Lloyd E. Ohl in. Delinquency 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. Kaddish, ed., Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice.

New York: Free Press, 1983. Durkheim, 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.