Criminal and Delinquent Subcultures Essay

A subculture is an offshoot of referential cultural but in essence very different from culture. The term subculture is commonly employed to signify shared systems of common values, norms and interests that distinguish certain people and societies from others. Thus, criminal or delinquent subcultures indicate systems of standards, morals and interests that endorse criminal or delinquent behavior. The numerous activities categorized in law as criminal are related to numerous delinquent subcultures. The standards, morals, or interests of these subcultures might back specific criminal acts, a restricted set of such actions (Anderson 1999). Trained criminals for instance are proud of their craft; manage their profession in order to keep them safe and their business proficient and usually stay away from other criminal involvement that might bring them to legal light. However, not all criminal subcultures that well organized. A number of are merely opportunistic, accepting several kinds of criminal behavior as opportunities come up. Hence specialization is rare in delinquent subcultures.

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

#2 Discuss three different social patterns regarding subculture and crime, i.e., who are more likely to be perpetrators? Victims? Who is most likely to be incarcerated? What crimes are females more likely to commit than males? What is the “gender contract”?

There is something about the ideology of a subculture that sparks an interest in me. Maybe it is intriguing due to its members’ originality, courage to stand up for beliefs, or freely expressing their own self- identity. A subculture forms by individuals taking a risk, separating themselves from the mainstream, and forming their own distinctive norms, not caring what the “normal” members of the mainstream society think of them. Or do they care? Maybe that is the exact statement a subculture is making. Maybe these individuals are forming these groups so that people will care. Maybe their rebellious attitude is a final, somewhat desperate approach to getting that response. The images being portrayed in most subcultures are

A culture is the way of life of a particular group of people that is learned and shared. On the other hand subculture is described as the non-dominant group within a society, usually smaller groups as it is not the primary culture. A subculture is created based on an idea such as music, age, location, religion or even lifestyle. The subculture theory of delinquency explains the subculture that exists in society, which contains different value systems than the rest of society. The key element in the subculture theory of delinquency is to achieve an understanding of those who are seen as an outcast or delinquent.

Street gangs in this country can probably be traced back to the first wave of Europeans who migrated to the colonies for a better life for themselves and their families. Many of the first gangs were formed as a means of self protection, with the thinking that there is simply strength in numbers. The missions of gangs in today’s society have grown and emerged to include many violent criminal avenues, including drug trafficking, prostitution, money laundering, and extortion but the original thinking that there is strength in numbers remains true. Criminology experts believe that the number of teens involved in gangs or gang activity may be as high as 1 in every 5 people in most urban areas. Those number jump to 1 in every 3 people in

Around the age of 13 or 14 most young males start hanging with the wrong crowd and get involved in suspicious activity. Like skipping school, doing drugs, having sex at a young age, getting suspended, being kicked out of school, coming home past your curfew. It’s not just young males it can involve females around that age as well. Females tend to fight like myself, they tend to swear at the teacher, disrespect their parents and set a really bad example for their younger siblings. Females join cliques, but they’re exactly like gangs just with different names. Males join gangs and sell dope, cocaine, meth, weapons, contraceptives, etc. Females join clique’s and they have drama with a whole bunch of other clique’s and they start this whole fist fight to point where it’s a rumble like in the book The Outsiders where they have this big fight between all the boys and they just start fighting. That’s exactly what it’s like with females when another female jumps into the fight the whole clique jumps in. But gangs are bad because they can affect you in many ways. They can affect your future and they can really ruin your record because if you’ve been arrested it’s on your record, if you get kicked out of school it’s on your record like myself it’s on my record, if you get sent to a bootcamp or juvenile hall it’s on your record. Just making a bad decision for your first time will have consequences every bad decision you make comes with consequences. Gangs or cliques have an easy and bad influence on some teens. They often graffiti on abandoned buildings. They claim some areas their territories and to represent that they’re in a gang they wear colors like red, or blue. Mexicans wear red because that means there Norteno’s and Blue is what Black people wear means crip’s or Bloods and they have gang signs with it as well. They’ll graffiti the area they claim as their territory.

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

The look and study of street gangs have been shifting over the past 4-5 decades due to changes in the tactics taken by sociologists. There were many books written about these gangs including “The Gang” , by Thrasher, which was recognized as one of the first or if not the first gang related to sociological views. People ask questions such as, “Why do people join these gangs and why do most of them end up causing havoc and violence within a city.” This is a question a normal person that isn’t looking at these people as subjects due for change but rather people who aren’t “normal”. Sociologists look at these people and ask questions like, “Where do they live? Who are they friends with? How and why did their social practices and cultural values change?” These are questions a sociologist would ask simply because there are many factors which come out when determining the choices of deviance within a person.

This paper takes a closer look at the social learning’s of society’s subculture that displays delinquent behavior. Using differential association I explain the learned behavior through the social environment such as role models, peer influence, and poverty stricken families. Delinquency is not biologically nor psychologically but is learned just as a person learns to obey the law. The study design is to help further the notion that criminal behavior is learned and not inherited due to genetic structure.

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

The term youth subcultures was first made and studied at the University Of Chicago in America (Blackman, 2003) . The school was of the sociological discipline and looked at subcultures as 'deviant ' groups, much of the research was conducted on gangs. The theorists were in disagreement with the picture the mass media had been painting about youth. This picture was of a homogeneous group in which class was not a factor and all youth adhered to one unified culture (Dvarionaite, 2015). Early American theorist of the Chicago school believed class was a leading factor as to why there was social disorganisation. Albert K. Cohen went on further to explain how class created divisions in society. Cohen described subcultures as emerging when, ' a number of actors with similar problems of social adjustment interact with one another and innovate new frames of reference. ' (Gelder and Thornton, pp 13, 1997). Cohen proved this through he 's work with young male delinquent

This theory posits that criminal behavior is a result of disorganization and strain. This theory also seeks to explain, “how people living in deteriorated neighborhoods react to social isolation and economic deprivation. ” This theory advocates the view, that, as a result of these conditions, the lower socioeconomic class individuals form a separate and distinct sub culture whose values, norms and rules are the polar opposite of the society’s. Cohen’s Delinquent Subcultural Theory and Cloward and Ohlin’s Theory of Differential Opportunity will be used under the umbrella Cultural Deviance Theory of Crime to explain juvenile involvement in gangs with relation to Trinidad and

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

law is law that has been built up over the years by decisions of the