Age and Crime

• Evidence from police recorded crime figures suggests that young people are more likely to offend than adults.

• Gender differences can be seen in youth offending, males aged 10-17 found to be responsible for 20% of all police recorded crime in young women responsible only 4% .

• Juvenile offenders are more likely than adult offenders to receive a caution rather than a conviction

Functionalism-

Eisenstadt

• Western societies lack initiation ceremonies that mark a change to adulthood- thus they lack a clear sense of role and status.

• Youth is a confusing period of transition- lots of changes , choices and hormone imbalance

• Leisure time is spent with peers who suffer the same crisis and hence adopt delinquent subcultures.

Subcultural Functionalism

Cohen

• Youth suffer from Status Frustration and hence find Alternative Status Hierarchies- support with Sewell

Cloward& Ohlin

• Illegitimate Opportunity Structure ( criminal, conflict and retreatism) - support with Nightingale and/or Bourgois

Miller

• Young w/c males have main concerns which are at odds with value consensus; they value: toughness; smartness; trouble; excitement; automy; fatalism- support with Sugarman.

Neo Marxism

Taylor

• Criminals are not passive puppets they are deliberately striving to change capitalism

• Young people have a low status in capitalism.

• Youth subcultures are a way to resist in inequalities of capitalism.

CCCS

• De-industrialisation and consumerism led young people to adopt styles of dress which made statements about their situations e.g skinheads and the crisis of masculinity.

Hebdige

• Punk clothing was a form of political protest.

New Right

Wilson& Herrstein

• Practical reasons why many teenagers commit more crime than adults:

  -They have more energy and drive but fewer economic and social opportunities to achieve their desire for money and sex than adults

  -They are increasingly independent of adults who might have imposed or reinforced conventional standards

  -They spend time with peers who value independent or defiant behaviour

  -They are less likely to defer gratification.

  -They spend time with peers who value independent or defiant behaviour.

Interactionism

Becker

• Deviant labels are applied by those in power (moral entrepreneurs) to those with lower status.

• Youth can be seen to have a low status in society and hence labelled negatively by teachers , police and the media.

• These negative labels can be internalised and become a master status.

Top 5 Sociological reasons young people commit crime

• 1 Labelling theory = Young people more likely to be labelled negatively by the teachers