Exploring Youth Justice: The Social Construction of Deviant Youth

Agenda

  • Attendance and check-in.

  • Review from last week.

  • Lecture.

  • Lecture quiz.

  • Assignment 1 Q&A.

Attendance & Check-in

  • Log into Socrative Student to complete attendance and check-in.

  • Room Name: FRANK8108

Check-in

  • Options to indicate how you're doing:

    • I’m doing great! Focused and ready to learn!

    • I’m doing well and I’m ready to learn!

    • I’m doing ok, but I’m ready to learn.

    • I’m tired and/or distracted, but I’m trying!

    • I’m struggling, but I’m here!

Review of Key Learnings from Last Week

  • Three broad models of working with youth.

  • The social construction of childhood/youth.

  • Indigenous conceptions of youth.

  • Intersectionality.

Three Models of Working with Youth

  • Engage young people to participate in decisions and activities that impact their society (e.g., MiCYC Community Development).

  • Focus on activism and solidarity, aiming for structural redistribution of power and resources (e.g., Books Not Bars Social Justice).

  • Empower individuals on a case-by-case basis (Client Centered Social Work).

Conceptions of Youth

  • Indigenous: Believes that even youth have value and special gifts, young people are encouraged to “challenge” and “wander” doing the “work of the people”.

  • Western: This worldview tends to view children as objects/property, consumers and incomplete adults.

True or False

  • There is a universal understanding of when a child becomes an adult: False

  • Childhood, adolescence, and teenagers were terms used before the 20th century: False

  • __ are more likely to develop problems that would prevent them from transitioning to healthy adult “at-risk” youth or youth “at-risk”.

  • Youth today are more likely to drop out of school and find a job: False

  • The approach that encourages us not to view young people as a single identity, to avoid using a one- size-fits-all approach to working with them Intersectionality.

  • “Youth” is a term that can be oppressive when used, and yet, some oppressed groups aren’t afforded the term (i.e. When it comes to sentencing): True

Module #1: Lesson #3

  • Exploring Youth Justice: The Social Construction of Deviant Youth.

Objectives

  • Explain how deviance is socially constructed utilizing an anti-oppressive intersectional analysis.

  • Explore the Social impact of criminalizing youth.

Today’s Agenda

  • Exploring media portrayals of youth crime and youth deviance.

  • Moral panic and Deviancy amplification.

  • Incidence of deviance and crime.

  • Myths and facts about youth crime, deviance, and engagement.

Social Constructionists

  • We make meaning of the things around us. When we (the majority of people) agree on something, we create a truth or a norm. Anything that strays from the norm, is deviant and to be challenged.

  • Less interested in the behaviour itself and more interested in how social problems get to be understood as such (Tanner, p.4).

What is Deviance?

  • All societies create rules, known as social norms, to guide the behaviour of their members.

  • Deviance refers to any behaviour that breaks the rules or deviates (goes against) the social norms, expectations, or legal standards.

Youth Deviance

  • Youth deviance therefore refers to behaviours among young people that deviates from societal norms, expectations or legal standards. Which can include:

    • Delinquency (unlawful or antisocial behaviours)

    • Vandalism/graffiti

    • Shoplifting/Theft

    • Bullying/Assault

    • Substance use/abuse or distribution

    • Truancy

    • Breaking and entering

    • Gang involvement

What is Media Portrayal?

  • Refers to the ways in which various forms of media (TV, movies, news articles, social media) depict individuals, groups, events or issues.

  • It includes images, messages, and narratives presented in media content.

  • Media portrayals influence public perceptions and understanding of the subject matter.

  • The media capitalize on sensationalized stories (deviant youth).

Media Portrayals of Youth Deviance

  • In general, media reports on youth are more negative.

  • The media often exaggerate youth crime in the western world.

  • The focus tends to be on atypical crimes of violence.

Atypical Portrayals of Crime

  • Focus on 'atypical' crimes of violence.

Media Portrayals of Gang Activity

  • There is usually little mention of the causes of gangs, but immigration is often hinted at.

  • They are often referring to race of people “Asian gangs”, “Latina/Latino gangs” “Black gangs”.

Everyday Deviance

  • Examples of crime or deviance that occur every day but are not taken very seriously:

    • Jaywalking

    • Speeding

    • Littering

    • Unauthorized downloading

    • Substance use involving minors

    • Unauthorized use of social media

    • Skipping work or school

    • Racist, sexist, homophobic jokes

    • Noise violations

    • Public intoxication

    • Fare evasion

    • Unauthorized parking

    • Academic dishonesty

    • Cheating in relationships

    • Smoking in restricted areas

    • Unauthorized use or recreational areas

    • Unauthorized software use

Deviancy Amplification (Leslie Wilkins, 1964)

  • When events, (particularly of youth crime/deviancy) get increased amount of attention, labelling and magnifies the intensity of the situation.

  • Minor and rare problems can look serious motivating people to keep informed on events.

  • The resulting publicity has potential to increases deviance by glamourizing it (snowball effect).

Examples of Media Headlines

  • Youth violent crime is escalating. Those working in the field say social media plays a role

  • Youth crime up in Windsor more than 40 per cent

  • What's behind a spike in teens charged with murder?

  • Toronto sees 'troubling' rise in youth gun violence, fatal shootings.

Deviance Amplification Cont’d

  • The exposure has glorified and glamorized these incidents making them appear normal or acceptable ‘youth behaviour’, thus having the potential to encourage it.

  • Incidents that were otherwise not noteworthy are now being reported more often.

  • Issues that were previously dismissed or easily taken care of (vandalism, bullying, trespassing) are now being taken seriously as a cause for concern.

  • Contributing to moral panic.

Moral Panic (Stan Cohen, 1970)

  • When media attention, (particularly regarding youth crime/deviancy) is so distorted that it generates an exaggerated (and often irrational) outburst of public concern or fear for the well being of a community or society.

Examples of Moral Panic in Media

  • 'A bunch of wolves on top of a piece of meat': Guilty plea in swarming death of Kenneth Lee reveals new details

  • Jane Creba's tragic death outside the Eaton Centre on Boxing Day 2005 marked a turning point in Toronto's crime history, a shocking display of indiscriminate violence in broad daylight.

Youth as a Group

  • Most young people are peacefully existing.

  • The extent of youth criminal behaviour include crimes such as vandalism, trespassing and petty theft.

  • The media capitalizes on sensationalized depictions.

  • The media publishes exaggerated reports of the extent of violence and crime.

  • Which generates public concern, and demands for police response.

The Hoodie

  • The hoodie: a symbol of all that is wrong with youth today?

  • Theres an association of the hoodie with deviant behaviour.

  • Hoodies suggest issues of unemployment, laying about looking for trouble and ‘Not being in Education, Employment or Training’ (NEET).

  • Youths that are NEET wearing hoodies become targets.

Deviancy Amplification or Moral Panic?

  • Skittles and Hoodie March, referencing Trayvon Martin.

Deviancy Amplification Process

  • Media presents a sensationalised distorted view of the level of crime.

  • Distorted view creates public concern.

  • Related pieces of crime and deviance are over reported & given more prominence than otherwise would have.

  • This keeps the issue high on the public agenda.

  • Police records reinforce the idea there's more crime & deviance.

  • The police are more aware or sensitive to the problem so they discover more crime.

  • The police want something done about the problem.

History of Deviancy Amplification and Moral Panic

  • Roughly beginning in the 19th century:

    • 1890s - The Hooligans

    • 1930s - Razor gangs

    • 1940s - ZootSuiters

    • 1950s - The teddy boys

    • 1960s - The Mods and Rockers

Zoot Suit Riots 1942

  • A Mexican-American youth subculture.

  • Following WWII.

  • Fueled by anti-Mexican racism in the States.

  • Young Mexicans were recruited to be temporary workers.

  • US service men VS Zootsuiters = riots.

  • Deviancy amplification took place thus creating moral panic.

  • Dangerous to be a young Mexican zootsuiter.

Current Moral Panics?

  • Young Black men (and adults) as dangerous.

  • Islamic Youth (and adults) as terrorists.

  • Examples?

  • How does each group get vilified?

Media Portrayals vs. Scientific Evidence

  • Media portrayals of youth crime are at odds with scientific evidence.

  • Media discourse exaggerates, sensationalizes, and decontextualizes by presenting atypical cases as representative and constructing a problematic image of youth that does not always correspond to actual behaviour.

True or False: Youth Crime Edition

  • The good old days existed, a time when youth crime wasn’t a problem: False

  • Youth crime rates, particularly violent crime are rising: False

  • Youth are not responsible for most of the violence in society: True

  • Youth incarceration is the answer: False

  • Young offenders are bad kids: False

Police Reported Crime and Youth Crime Rates

  • Police-reported crime and youth crime rates, by offence type, 2000 to 2014.

  • Chart showing trends in total youth crime, youth violent crime, youth property crime, youth drug offenses, youth other Criminal Code offenses, and total crime rate.

  • Note: Youth crime is the rate of youth (aged 12 to 17) accused in Criminal Code offences (excluding traffic). Total crime rate is the rate of incidents of Criminal Code offences (excluding traffic) reported by police. Rates are calculated on the basis of 100,000 population.

Missing Context

  • What’s missing from the chart?

    • Context.

    • Intersectionality.

Conclusion

  • The media exaggerates and sensationalizes youth crime, violence and deviance.

  • This negatively influences the societal view of young people.

  • Moral panic leads to Deviancy amplification, which leads to the punishment and mistreatment of youth.

  • The stats indicate that in general, youth are not to be feared.

  • The stats must also be critically analyzed with an intersectionality lens to give additional context.

  • Resources would be better spent empowering youth, than punishing and incarcerating them.

References

  • Bassett, S. (2014, March 23). SY1/SY2 The Media, Moral Panics & Youth Culture [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlCnKh1woWs

  • Luxury, M. (2009, Oct 5). Mods, Rockers and Moral Panics [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r61ks18Bd7I

  • Tanner, J. (2009). “Deviant Youth” in (ED. Tanner, J.) Teenage Trouble: Youth and Deviance in Canada, (pp.1-42).

  • Deviancy Amplification Definition & Explanation | Sociology Plus

  • Moral Panic and Folk Devils