Social Disorganization Of Crime Essay

Crime is often described as socially constructed, which influences our understanding of who commits a crime. Firstly, labelling theorists argue that crime is a social construction based on the powerful’s reaction to certain behaviour, those who are deviant are people that have been labelled as such. Marxists claim the bourgeoise construct crime in order to criminalise the proletariat, get away with their own deviance and maintain their own dominance. Neo-marxists look at how moral panics create a social construction of crime and can criminalise certain groups. Finally, feminists, argue crime is constructed in a patriarchal way and that the criminal justice system is harsher to female offenders. Whereas others criticise these theories for

Studies suggest that young people are often at risk of re-offending (e.g. Sharkey, et al, 2003; Vincent & Seagrave, 2005). Sharkey and his colleagues explained that youth often reoffend since, as they prepare themselves in returning to their respective communities, they are usually confronted by similar situations that had influenced their behaviors prior to committing offenses. Another group of researchers however show that youth engaged in education, employment and other productive endeavors in their communities within 6 to 8 months after their release are less vulnerable to commit another offense (e.g. Keating, et al., 2002, Bullis, et al, 2002, Grossman & Tierney, 2008).

There’s an old saying, “don’t do the crime, if you can’t do the time”. Our youth is doing the crimes, not realizing the true consequences of their actions; hence their immaturity. “Per a 2011 report on the National Institute of Corrections, 250,000 minors wind up in the adult criminal justice system each year.” (Hannum, 2016). But that does not mean, they should be tried as an adult for their crimes. Nor should they get off easy because they are under the age of eighteen. You can pick any day of the week, about 10,000 of our children are being put in adult prisons and jails. (Hannum, 2016). Nearly every year, the FBI arrest more than 33,000 young adults under the age of eighteen for offenses.” (Khan, 2010.). It’s time for society and our

Juveniles committing crimes, being arrested and going to jails and prisons, is a sad fact that has hit every city, in every state in the United States of America. It is not a hard thing to comprehend, turn on the TV and watch the news. Every night there is surely to be a report about a crime committed by one of America’s youth. Many people question the reason for such high numbers of juveniles committing crimes; others turn a blind eye and refuse to acknowledge the fact that every day more children of this country are slipping into the life of crime. Some concerned members of society ask what can be done to stop it; how can they help? The answer is action! Law enforcement, as well as Local, State, and

The adult court system does not have the resources to work with and rehabilitate youth (Seep, 2015). According to recent studies, teens sent through the adult court system are 5 times more likely to commit another crime after leaving jail compared to a teen sent through the juvenile court system (Brown, 2015). This is because the juvenile court system has resources to help teens learn from their mistakes and not make them again. As a society, we should want our teens to become educated and help make our society better. While the goal of the adult court system is to deter the convicted prisoner from committing another crime, the juvenile court system’s goal is to rehabilitate the youth and help them successfully integrate back into society (Seep,

Discussed earlier was the idea of rehabilitating youths in reformatories at the House of Refuge, but only youths deemed reformable (Fox, 1996). What about the youth who were not reformable? What about the youth that commit a serious violent offense such as murder, rape, torture, or armed robbery? In the 1980’s during the “get tough” on juvenile crime movement, states passed waiver legislation that allowed for the transfers of youths to adult court (Kupchik, 2003). Not only has there been no significant findings that trying juveniles as adult does not lower the potential for recidivism, but it has not been found to be an effective means of crime control (Fagan, 2008). Although being tried as an adult opened up even more constitutional safeguards than had been provided post-Gault, the transfer of juveniles to adult court went against the moral notion of keeping youths out of court and out of the system (McGowan, A., Hahn, R., Liberman, A., Crosby, A., Fullilove, M., Johnson, R., … Stone, G., 2007). How does the juvenile justice system, after years of reform and change get back to being a therapeutic and focused on individualized justice? Is it possible?

Not only this but, “offenders who commit new offenses after court contact are at risk for a variety of poor developmental and life course outcomes, including school failure, out of home placements, occupational marginality, and long-term involvement in criminal activity” (Schwalbe 2004). As seen here, this is a downward spiral. Active reform has never before been at such a demand. As recidivism and juvenile delinquency continues to increase, not only will national crime rates and juvenile prison populations inflate, but the diminishing of an educated, safe, and economically stable society will also be affected regrettably. If juveniles whom continue to commit repeat criminal offenses lack school initiative, family support, and job exposure, than relatively as recidivism and juvenile criminal activity increases, our nation’s standard of living will consequently lower.

Rather than providing programs and services which enable young people to rehabilitate and reintegrate back into society, the Young Offenders Act placed them in custodial care with limited opportunities. This type of justice system further promotes and emphasizes the negative stereotypes that surround the topic of youth crime within our

The United States leads the world in the incarceration of young people, there are over 100,000 youth placed in jail each year. Locking up youth has shown very little positive impact on reducing crime. Incarcerating youth have posed greater problems such as expenses, limited education, lack of employment, and effect on juveniles’ mental and physical well-being.

In the 1990’s juvenile crime spiked nationally to its peak and caused all around debate. The main argument was whether the juvenile system should be lock the kids up and be done with them or give them a second chance and go through rehabilitation. The problem with the juvenile system is who ends up there. Studies show that majority of

Crime is a social construction, and behaviour defined as criminal varies across time and place. Crime is an act that violate moral behaviour, but why is that not all behaviours that violate moral behaviour are labelled as crime? This is because crime is defined differently across different societies and different times. Neutralisation and drift theory helps us to explain why people abuse children by showing us how perpetrators rationalise their guilt for these actions before they physically, sexually, emotionally abuse or neglect children. They do this by blaming their actions on other people, higher forces or believing their acts are harmless. In this essay I will begin by talking about crime as a social construction then touch on child abuse in New Zealand followed by a discussion of how my social contract theory helps us to explain this crime.

Crimes committed by youthful offenders in our nation have gone from a troubling statistic that would have been barely noticed even 25 years ago to a problem of pandemic proportions. The responsibility for this falls on every citizen and we must all bite the bullet and agree to properly fund programs that can help to prevent crime, properly rehabilitate prisoners, and save the youth of our nation at the same time.

Juvenile delinquency has been a problem in the United States ever since it has been able to be documented. From 100 years ago to now, the process of juvenile delinquency has changed dramatically; from the way juveniles are tried, to the way that they are released back into society, so that they do not return back to the justice system (Scott and Steinberg, 2008). Saying this, juveniles tend to

As crime continues to occur, criminologists begin to define new theories to explain our seemingly naturalistic tendencies on what mental processes take place for an individual to actually partake in criminal activity. The symbolic interactionist perspective defines itself by its strong beliefs in the fact that criminals are defined by their social processes. The social process theory states that criminality is a function of people’s interactions with various groups, organizations and processes in society. For example, an individual’s connection with family, school, friends, religion and media would all be main factors in determining how their criminal structure within their personality came

It is a common believe that adolescents require a special system thru which be processed because they are “youth who are in a transitional stage of development…young offenders that are neither innocent children nor mature adults…” (Nelson, 2012). Because juveniles are in a process of constant development sociologically, psychologically and physiologically, the juvenile court system focuses on alternative sentences and the creation of programs that will offer them rehabilitation instead of incarceration. However, in cases of extraordinary circumstances, the juvenile system shifts from looking at rehabilitation as a first choice to accountability and punishment (Read, n.d). All levels of society are collectively involved in delinquency