Assessing Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago Using Subcultural Theories

In the years prior to the creation for the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, America’s inner cities was experiencing a substantial increase of gang membership along the youth living in impoverished communities. During the early 1990s, many viewed gang activity as a particular community’s problem, but as youth and gang violence was increasing drastically across the United States’ inner cities, the public’s perception about this social issue changed. Due to the rapid rise of gang violence and youth membership, delinquent behavior by youths began to receive a substantial amount of academic and media attention.

Gangs have been a growing issue across the United States for many decades now. Youth gang violence may have started around the ‘50s, but did not become a serious issue until the ‘80s and from there went through a downward spiral in some cities like downtown Los Angeles, which was where the notorious Bloods and Crips gangs both started. First, let’s simply define a gang as a group of people, mostly men ranging for ages 14-30, who claim territory and use it to make money for themselves and their neighborhood through illegal activities such as trafficking drugs and weapons. There are many reasons and components that are factored in when conducting research to hypothesize “why do people join gangs?” That is why it is necessary to compare and contrast all the social, biological, psychological, developmental, and substance abuse aspects and relate it to joining a gang. It is also important to touch base on the differences between males and females that join gangs, such as power differentials, social learning differences and social stratification differences.

Gangs originated naturally during the adolescent years of a child. They started from small play groups that eventually found themselves in conflict with other small groups of youth. Due to the conflict between the two small groups of youth it became a part of a child’s mind set to come together as a gang and protect their rights and satisfy the needs that their environment and families couldn’t provide. There are about 24,500 gangs in the U.S and out of those gangs 40% of them are juveniles (Hess, Orthmann, Wright, 2013). There are numerous reason why a child would join a gang, and the

Qualitative descriptions suggest that, for many, gang membership represents 104 Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice / May 2005an opportunity to enhance social capital as a means to cope with a multitude of problems. Although on balance gang life appears to be neither very rewarding nor satisfying (Hagedorn, 1988), identification with the gang is solidified in response to conflict—often with other gangs—as members pursue their individual and collective interests.

Using the stereotypes of the American Culture, this study by Alleyne and Wood is based on Gang Involvement in a British setting. The study examines individual, social and environmental factors that can have an impact on gang-involved youths or non-gang involved youths. In order to find which factors play a role on involved/non-involved gang youth, the authors test for measure of individual delinquency, neighborhood gangs, parental management, commitment to school, and deviant peers. To help differentiate amongst the factors, the authors use a structural equation modeling, which provided the results in a statistical measure. Based off of the results, gang-involved youths were older than non-gang involved youths and that individual delinquency and neighborhood gangs predicted higher chances of gang involvement. The other factors of parental management, commitment to school and deviant peer pressure provided an indirect relationship to gang involvement.

Even as delinquent subcultures classically are related to a wide variety of criminal activities, among delinquent groups and subcultures there is enormous disparity in the quality and force of group standards, morals, and interests. Furthermore, the degree to which delinquent activities is associated to these aspects is challenging. A large amount criminal

Juvenile Delinquents are being incarcerated at earlier ages as time progresses. The term delinquent speaks of two or more youths, typically amongst the ages of ten and seventeen years old, who are involved in doings well-defined as illegal. The study of juvenile delinquents in inner city Chicago have been studied for many years and the rates continue to sky rocket as juveniles are being locked down by the justice system. Cases of violence amongst juveniles has been increasing rapidly in the past 20 years, juveniles are now linked to severer crimes, and it can be speculated that regardless of efforts of rehabilitation that the recidivism of juveniles relapsing is very great. Thus leading to physiological and mental problems that can be damaging to the youth as

In James Howell’s “Gangs in America’s Communities” book he mentions that a gang should be looked at more of as a social network rather than an “organization” (Howell, 2012, p.60). This can be especially true for the youth who get involved in gangs. For the youth it is normal for them to want to belong somewhere so their peers have major influences in what they do and even how they think. The emergence or involvement of a gang among youth is identifying with each other and eventually giving themselves a name. Howell then describes the next step as grasping the gang culture by wearing distinctive clothing, colors, having rituals, gatherings, and the exclusion of other youth. Most youth join gangs between the ages of 11 and 15, the peak of gang involvement usually occurs between the age of 14 to 16. Some of the risk factors that get them involved in a

The purpose of this research is to identify the sociological aspects and means in which individuals may use in order to affiliate themselves within a gang and their practices. The following research uses statistics and information given by police departments and the Department of Justice. I have searched for reasoning behind an individual’s decision to join a gang from a sociological perspective. It begins by defining a gang and what leads young individuals to a lifestyle and choice of joining these gangs. Sociological approaches are made in order to

In order to define the nature and scope of juvenile antisocial behavior we must determine that “gangs are variable, diverse and difficult to define in precise terms” (White, 2007) and that “adolescent antisocial behavior is an issue of major concern to parents, teachers, police and governments and is a significant cost to the

According to Siegel (2013) Albert Cohen developed the theory of delinquent subcultures in his classic 1995 book, Delinquent Boys. Cohen believes that the delinquent behavior of lower class youth actually goes against the norms and values of middle-class U. S. culture. These youths experience what he calls status frustration due to social conditions that enable them to achieve success legitimately. As a result of this social conflict the youths join gangs and become involved in behavior that is “nonutilitarian, malicious, and negativistic. This gang subculture possesses a value system directly opposed to that of the larger society. Their norms of society are completely opposite. Their conduct is right by the standards of their subculture

Juvenile offending is a concern in society today. Juveniles account for approximately 19% of the population but are responsible for 29% of criminal arrests (Cottle, Lee, & Heilbrun, 2001). Crime overall has been found to be decreasing throughout the last two decades. The issue is that the rate in which adult crime is decreasing is significantly greater than the rate in which juvenile crime is decreasing. Since the rate of juvenile crime is so high, juvenile delinquents are seen as predators and many believe they lack morals. The way in which media of today’s society constructs juvenile delinquency impacts the views of a community towards their youth and youth offenders. Media presents an inaccurate image of youth offenders as violent predators (Rhineberger-Dunn, 2013). This inaccurate image significantly promotes the myths that juvenile crime is rising, juveniles commit crimes that are primarily violent, and that juveniles are highly effected by recidivism and continue committing crimes into adulthood (Bohm, & Walker, 2013). It has already been stated though that crime rates have been decreasing over the last two decades so the first myth is refuted. The myth that juveniles primarily commit violent crimes is also very off. In most cases, juveniles are involved in property crimes and although there are some violent crime cases, they are very rare. When these rare violent crimes do occur, youth can be tried in adult court. The

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

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

Gang Culture has increasingly become a subculture for many teenage youths. Mainly minority teens, these social outcast are often have no real economic stability and no parental supervision or guidance. As a result, teenagers often rebel and seek comfort in gangs. These gangs provide what is lacking in their lives, a sense of belonging. Minorities are often stereotyped and criticized, especially minorities born into poverty. They are condemned simply because they are not of the same race or of the same class as the majority (often middle class whites). Before these minorities can even prove themselves equal, society already pushes them towards the subculture that has risen out of oppression and rebellion. Gang culture reinforces, and in