American Me: Social Disorganization Theory

The film; American Me is an epic depiction of 30 years of Chicano gang life in Los Angeles, California. The movie focuses on the life of a 1950s teen named Montoya Santana, who forms a gang with his close friends. The gang is arrested for a break-in, and sentenced to time in juvenile hall. Santana finds trouble on his first night in juvenile hall and goes from juvenile hall to prison for 18 years. There he created and led a powerful gang that operated both inside and outside the prison. When released from Folsom Prison, he tries to make sense of the violence in his life, in a world that has changed greatly. Inspired by a true story, the film provides a fictionalized account of the founding and rise to

Situated oftentimes between violence and death, being recruited in this criminal lifestyle is a risk that these young adults take everyday. However, for these members, gangs offer a second family, a reliable family, many of them come from broken homes or are seeking the stability found in a family unit.. This is one of the main reasons why the youth are drawn to gangs. Take it from Juan Carlos Lopez known as “Spanky” from “G-Dog and the Homeboys” by, Celeste Fremon. His life is no different from the people who decide to join a gang. He was a runaway teen at the age of

While neutralization and differential association theory both explain the homicides committed by Ortiz, the elements of differential association provide a more in-depth explanation. Ortiz learned from a very young age what attitudes and values were viewed as acceptable by his gang affiliated parents and peers. Ortiz was jumped into the 500 Block gang when he was only eleven years old. He was the youngest member of the gang ever allowed in. Considering his role models included his father, mother, aunt and older brother, which were successful gang members, he did not observe or experience an adequate exposure to conventional norms. Becoming a gang member was part of the family business. Many generations before Ortiz served in the gang and it had became a family tradition that Ortiz was expected to carry on. His friends were also in the gang because they lived in the same housing project as he did. The housing project that the gang formed due to where Ortiz was raised. The gang thrived from the poverty and disparity that was present in the housing development.

By the age of 16, Santana’s worldview and identity is well established. He exhibits a strong internalization of his Chicano (a Latino subculture) heritage and has begun to experience and establish an awareness of what Peter Bohmer describes as “internalized colonialism:” the socially and economically structured practice of securing the labor of non-Whites for the least desirable, "dirty and servile" jobs that are unwanted by Whites (Bohmer, 1998). Forming his own gang seemed to be a “natural” alternative to becoming a “pawn” in the well-established system of internalized colonialism. His Latino gang became a sub-cultural “vent” for relieving much of young Santana’s social, economic, and personal hardships, as well as a means of developing self-respect through the illegal and coercive powers made possible by gang activity and gang unity.

Three correlates of criminality in the film were: poverty, mental health status, and family circumstances. The neighborhood, Beecher Terrace was the low-income area where most of the prisoners and juveniles delinquents came from. Neighborhoods like the one in film are the stereotypical type of areas where people in poverty live. The neighborhoods contain large populations of low income residents. A low income neighborhood typically means the schools zoned to the neighborhood are low quality and the crime rate is high. A individuals mental health status is also a predictor of

Gangs are an organized group of criminals that want to be respected, a sense of belonging, and protection. Gangbanging is a method gangsters use to get what they desire for instance, they commit violent acts, illegal activities, and terrorizing the community. La Vida Loca is a lifestyle gangsters live by to gangbang, to create havoc, to live life on the edge. Luis Rodriguez, author of “La Vida Loca: Two Generations of Gang Members”, is writing about his and his son’s gangbanging experiences. Rodriguez migrated from Mexico to Los Angeles at the age of 2, by the age of 12 he had built silence within his body and wanted nothing but bring fear to others as he felt fear all his life. By the age of 15 Rodriguez had dropped out of school, at age

The predominate theory of the social structure perspective that will be applied to Boyz N the Hood is Robert Merton’s Anomie/Strain theory and Robert Agnew’s General Strain theory which closely applies to Merton’s. The strain theory holds that crime is a function of the conflict between goals people have and the means that they can use to obtain them legally. Most people desire wealth, material possessions, power, prestige, and other life comforts. Although these social and economic goals are common to people in all economic standings, strain theorists insist these goals are class dependent. Members of the lower class are unable to achieve these goals of success through conventional or legal means. In return they feel anger, frustration, and resentment, which is referred to as the “strain.” Lower class citizens can either accept their conditions and live out their days being socially responsible or they can choose alternate means of achieving success illegally. These means can include but are not limited to theft, violence, or drug trafficking.

Victor Rios is not only an author of a book called Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys, but he is also an ex-felon. Rios holds a PH.D. in sociology and is now an assistant professor at the University of Santa Barbara. Victor Rios has published on juvenile justice, masculinity, and race and crime in scholarly in journals such as the Critical Criminology. He has not only lived the life he preaches about, he has shown to be extremely knowledgable in this life he has once lived and is also considered an expert in his field of sociology among his peers . Rios grew up in the streets of Oakland, California and found himself in the midst of trouble when he joined a gang at the age of 13. Victor Rios lived the life of the typical stereotypical hispanic young male, living in high crime poverty neighborhoods. As a young boy, he began dealing drugs, participating in the killings of people, and violence. Throughout his life, he has witnessed a great deal of horrific tragedies that not many thirteen year olds experience ever in their whole life. Throughout his experiences, he was able to live and tell his stories through his book, Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. Victor Rios has used his past experiences for the good, he has mentored many kids who are going through what he went though as an adolescent. Throughout the many obstacles he has faced, it has opened up the opportunity for him to write this book about his life and the gang

Using criminological terms and concepts, focus on a jurisdiction, neighborhood, or geographic locale with which you are familiar. Regarding a human behavior which you select to focus on in that geographical space, write two concise yet comprehensive paragraphs on how social disorganization theory can inform your understanding of behavior and place, and one weakness which would find your understanding somehow lacking, and why. Then write two equally compelling paragraphs on how routine activities theory would foster your understanding, and one weakness which might leave your understanding lacking, and why.

Immigrants coming to this country often end up with gang affiliations. In Youth Gangs in American Society, Shelden, Tracy and Brown (2013) note that “the emergence of

According to Wikipedia, "No evidence has been found that indicates Egypt ever suffered such a demographic and economic catastrophe [as the Exodus] or that the Sinai desert ever hosted (or could have hosted) these millions of people and their herds." and that "The consensus among biblical scholars today is that there was never any exodus of the proportions described in the Bible." but is this true?

However, this generation of social disorganization theory did not define what “social disorganization” was, which was nearly unacceptable. Moreover, they only used official data of delinquency in their research, which had obvious middleclass bias, and overlooked social stratification. Besides these, this generation of social disorganization theory could not explain why many people in the Zone II did not commit crime and only a small fraction of whom committed most of the crimes, aka “good boy in the bad neighborhood” problem.

This boundary was also a factor that lead Raoul to joining a gang in his youth. He affectionately referred to them as the “homeboys” and didn’t go into too much detail about their activities (and I was afraid to pry) but his membership in this gang was one of the things that got him into trouble and negatively influenced his educational attainments. Raoul grew up in Sanger, surrounded by other Mexican immigrants who were in the same low-economic cycle and poor neighborhoods as he was and his parents were concerned about making sure the bills were paid, and worked long hours to make ends meet. Strains on the family structure, coupled with linguistic boundaries, leads to a breakdown in the family structure, forcing youth to look outwardly for support and care, which is provided by gang membership (Lee and Zhou 2004). Gang affiliation provides a surrogate family that gives support, no matter what factors might be working against its members and provides a place for marginalized to belong, especially in migrant communities.

In this paper, I will analysis the film Boyz N the Hood based on and around the criminology concept of the General Strain Theory. The film Boyz N the Hood depicts a story about an African-American boy growing up in “the hood” of South Central LA. South Central is a place where on average 1 out of 21 African American men will be die as a result of “the streets”. African Americans within the African-American community are more susceptible to becoming a casualty to gang affiliation and violence. If a person makes the wrong choices in life or even if they are faced with the right circumstances that force this person to join a gang their likelihood of dying as a result dramatically increases.

The documentary Crips and the Bloods: Made in America tells the dramatic story of the perpetual gang violence that runs the streets of Los Angeles, California. Gaining an inside look at how and why this violence is continued, the video focuses on the individuals that are affected by the gangs. Families are torn apart due to endless murders, children are taught to hate and act violently towards their neighbors, and people lose their soul to the gangs that they call their families. Of course every person must make a choice to engage in this sort of life, but sometimes these people are put into situations where there are no other options. In order to further think about what has caused and maintained the violence in the LA area, we can look towards Agnew’s General Strain Theory and the Labeling Theory.