Juvenile Delinquency Chapter 5

CH5 - Macro-Level Theories

Theories of delinquency that focus on the social structure or the big picture of society.

Sociolological Positivist Theories

Social theories that have been created by scholars using scientific methods (i.e., observation, measurement, and empirical verification)

Determinism

The concept that factors outside of the conscious control of individuals, chiefly the social organization of society and/ or the environment, influence or determine behavior.

Structural Strain/Social Structural Theories

Origins of Anomie Theories

How the society is structured, and how that structure impacts our ability to follow social norms. These theories work from the premise that society is based on a set of norms and that most community members share these norms.

Durkheim (end of 19th & beginning of 20th centuries)

First person to get a PhD in Sociology, first to teach a sociology class, credited with anomie theories

Consensus

We all share a basic sense of right or wrong and that laws and other rules reflect the values that we share.

Collective Conscious

Society's shared moral sense or sense of right and wrong according to Durkheim. Was stronger in pre industrial society but still exists in industrial society while weaker.

Social Facts

Dimensions of social life that are external to the individual and that restrain individuals.

Anomie/Structural Strain

In an anomic society, there is no effective regulation of its members because a state of normlessness has taken hold. People do not know what to do; there is confusion about how to proceed in life. The dreams and wants of society members are not being met, nor are they being constrained. People's desires are unchecked. The rules are no longer clear, and according to Durkheim's anomie theory this can lead to large violations of social norms, such as taking one's own life.

Mechanical society

Preindustrial societies that shared a strong collective conscience and had high levels of informal social control because they share similar experiences and values with one another.

Organic society

Industrial societies that are fragmented due to the division of labor, yet maintain a sense of collective conscience (although weaker than in mechanical society). People rely on each other but all have different values.

Merton's Strain Theory

When social norms of conventional success (i.e., the American Dream) are not accompanied by equally strong or available legitimate means of achieving that success. He considers how social norms can be so strong that some people are inspired to break some rules (and some laws) in order to accomplish them.

Cause of Strain for Merton

The gap between the cultural goal of monetary success and the limited opportunities to achieve that goal causes strain.

Culturally Defined goals

The notion of the American dream, having a family with a big house, 2 kids, fancy cars, and having material and financial wealth in a primary cultural goal in the U.S. society. Which causes some people to deviate and engage in non-conformist behavior rather than follow the rules in order to achieve.

institutional means

Legitimate means like getting an education, deferring gratification while working hard, and ultimately getting a reliable job with potential for growth and promotion, ARE NOT EQUALLY AVAILABLE to all, and vary depending on one's socioeconomic class. Leads to ways to adapt.

Blocked Opportunities

There exist class differentials in the accessibility of these common success-symbols. Frustration and thwarted aspiration lead to the search for avenues of escape from a culturally induced intolerable situation; or unrelieved ambition may eventuate in ILLICIT ATTEMPTS to achieve the dominant values.

Adaptation to Strain

The five ways that Merton theorized that people adjust to the strain created by the societal goals and the legitimate means by which to achieve those goals: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

5 modes of adaptation to strain

1. Conformity

2. Innovation

3. Ritualism

4. Retreatism

5. Rebellion

Conformity

Getting an education, deferring gratification while working hard, and ultimately getting a reliable job with potential for growth and promotion.

Differential Opportunity Theory

Focused upon the question of how a person's access to illegitimate means affects the shape of his or her adaptations to anomie and strain.

Ritualism

"Going through the motions". Deviant adaptation to strain because to abandon the societally approved striving toward advancement and monetary success is to go against the norms of society. People who go to work and follow every single rule, just to get through the day and survive, are examples of ritualists.

Retreatism

Those who have rejected the cultural goal of material success and have also rejected the legitimate means of going about such a goal. "Dropped out" of society in some way after trying to be materially and financially successful by either legitimate or illegitimate means and, ultimately, failing.

EX: chronic drug users and addicts, homeless people, and some mentally ill people would fall into this category. He claimed this was the least common adaptation.

Innovation

People do not accept the legitimate route to obtaining the cultural goal of material and financial wealth, because they either are blocked from accessing legitimate means, or do not believe that they should be limited to those ways of obtaining their goal.

Including: drug dealing, shoplifting, and burglarizing.

Rebellion

Reject the cultural goals of monetary success promoted as part of the American Dream, but also reject the legitimate means for going about them. They reject the entire system of cultural goals and acceptable means and want to replace them with new goals and means. Not many people fall into this category besides political terrorists and the members of some cults.

5 adaptations Simply put

Conform = follow rules

Innovate = illegal means to wealth

Rebel = reject entire system and want to replace them with new goals and means

Ritualism = go through the motions abandon trying to move up

Retreatism = give up on everything ex: homeless drug addicts

Cloward & Ohlin (1960)

Added to Merton's work by acknowledging, that just like legitimate opportunities, illegitimate opportunities are NOT evenly distributed either.

Deviant Subcultures

Criminal Delinquent Subcultures - Limited illegitimate opportunities. Establish ties between young gangs and older criminals and learn the ropes of the criminal enterprise.

Conflict Delinquent Subcultures - Lack of legit and illegit opportunities turn to fighting others for respect.

Retreatist Delinquent Subcultures - Youth that don't fit into fighting or criminal behavior turn to others who are unwanted and have access to illegal drugs.

Cohen's Status Frustration Theory (1955)

Standards such as individual responsibility, ambition, long-term goal planning, deferred gratification, nonviolent recreation, and respect for others' property, are those taught more commonly in middle-class homes and neighborhoods, and working-class young men are not always exposed to them. Thus, when they go to schools that promote these values, they are not well equipped to succeed in those environments and are typically seen as unsuccessful students—they do not follow rules well, are not punctual, and have problems acting calmly in the classroom.

Reaction Formation (p. 118)

Because of their frustration with their status they take part in what Cohen calls "reaction-formation"—

**they decide to turn the middle-class values on their head by engaging in and promoting violent behavior, instant gratification, and all-in-all a negative attitude toward authority and society in general.**

Anomie Theories and Race, Gender, & Class

Employ notions of socioeconomic privilege and disadvantage in their conceptualizations of strain.

RACE -Because African Americans have been subjected to a long history of racial and economic discrimination, economic failure, while never welcomed, is not entirely unexpected.

GENDER-Usually not many differences are found in terms of rates of delinquency of boys and girls related to measures of strain. When differences are found in studies, they do not take a particular pattern— in some studies girls are more affected by some types of strain than boys, and at other times boys are found to be more affected by the limited or blocked opportunities related to strain than girls.

CLASS-The authors of the study explained that the relative recent onslaught of Western messages about consumption have come to affect Turkish girls more than boys. This is because their lesser position in Turkish society creates more obstacles for them to obtain the education and job-related opportunities required to accomplish financial goals; Turkish boys are more privileged than girls and do not experience this as strongly. Thus, the girls act out in delinquency as a reaction to their perceptions of strain.

Social Disorganization

Looks at crime and delinquency rates between neighborhoods or geographical regions.

Social Ecological Model

The study of relationships between individuals, social groups, and the environment, to explore the changing world around them.

Symbiosis

A state of interdependence that social disorganization theorists state characterizes the social world. We are interdependent and give and take from one another in order to survive.

Heterogeneity

Differences among people living in a given area.

Informal Social Control (Fig. 5.1 p. 122)

The means by which ordinary people exert control over others' behavior through enforcing traditions or norms and by informally punishing those who break such norms through the use of gossip, stigmatization, and disapproval.

Social Disorganization and Reorganization

Continuous circle of: --> Assimilation --> Invasion --> Conflict --> Accomodation

Concentric Zone Model (Fig. 5.2 p. 122)

Not as much about people as it is about place. Where are people living? 5 different zones around the city center.

1. Central Business District

2. Transitional Zone

**Recent Immigrant groups

- Deteriorated houses

- Factories

- Abandoned Buildings

3. Working Class Zone

- Single Family Tenements

4. Residential Zone

- Single family homes

- Yard/Garages

5. Commuter Zone

- Suburbs

Delinquency rates were the highest in the CBD and the zone of transition consistently.

Zone of Transition

The area right outside of the central business district of a city that experiences the most negative effects of the forces of social change and the highest rate of street delinquency.

Sampson & Groves (1989)

Definition of Social Disorganization (p. 125)

"the inability for the community structure to realize the values of its residents and maintain effective social control"

Intervening Variables

the intermediate steps between social disorganization and its expression in the form of delinquency.

Three intervening factors that social disorganization leads to:

(1) sparse local friendship networks,

(2) unsupervised teenage peer groups, and

(3) low organizational participation (i.e., low community member involvement in formal and voluntary organizations), which facilitate crime and delinquency

Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls (1990)

- Collective Efficacy

"as social cohesion among neighbors combined with their willingness to intervene on the behalf of the common good"

Collective efficacy is seen in the everyday ways that people in the community take actions in the name of the community to make it more organized. These researchers looked at the informal ways in which residents work together to create public order, such as by watching children's playgroups, by acting to stop youth in the neighborhood who are trying to "ditch" or skip school or to deal drugs, and by standing up against people who are causing trouble in public spaces in the neighborhood.

Social Disorganization & race, social class, & gender

RACE-did not matter, delinquency rates were highest in CBD and in the transitional zone.

SOCIAL CLASS-In their simplest formulation, social disorganization theories of delinquency see low socioeconomic class as one of several signs of social disorganization , which collectively tend to lead to higher rates of delinquency and crime.

GENDER-all youth are similarly affected by social disorganization

Social Structural Theories & Social Policy (p. 129-132)

Campaigns to shift societal messages about what constitutes success could also be implemented, but because they would challenge the mainstream ideas about meritocracy (i.e., a system that rewards hard work), they would be unpopular.

Anomie

Lack of the usual social or ethical standards of an individual or group.