Juvenile Delinquency Theory

Juvenile Delinquency Theory

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Juvenile Delinquency Theory

Social Disorganization Theory

The theory called "Social Disorganization Theory" closely relates Juvenile Delinquency to the social disorganization of a society's different ecological aspects that are surrounding a society. They define social disorganization as the inability of a society to organize itself in a fine and more socially acceptable manner which perpetuates harmony and general social wellbeing of the society due to several ecological changes within it. For example, a city or region may face a huge relocation of its inhabitants which go ahead to develop many other settlements within the neighborhood. Thus finishing up with informal settings and settlements such as slums.

It is a fact that individuals can no longer live together with each other as a cluster because of many factors such as new social classifications due to income level and lifestyle. But the main concern of the theory is on the low-income populations which usually exhibit a higher population which further leads to more crowd and number of individuals which causes degradation of the economic level. Beyond that, it also leads to weaker economic empowerment implies that they would be financially weak and poor to manage their lives. As a result, several things are there to be seen from those societies then. For example, the youth from those weak and poor societies and neighborhoods mostly adopt immoral and informal behavior because they think and they are actually passed by their weak economic level and financial competencies (Bellair, 2017). Beyond that, the surrounding people around those societies and their young people learned different types of behaviors from those groups. While in most of the cases, they end up adopting even fully the same behavior with the time.

Despite above, the ecological trends of a negative neighborhood have a strong connection with the higher crime rate among juveniles as social disorganization outcomes or results in such clusters of the societies and communities which have established new social status especially with the populations of low income.

On the other side, high population heterogeneity makes it much harder for such societies to come around and develop informal social structures. It means that a lack of formality exists with the community and society while better moral values remain poor in the society. The youngsters or young adults of such societies or from such status usually engage in the criminal activities as easily as the socio-economic does not put huge efforts to prevent young adults form the criminal activities or crimes (Bellair, 2017). Furthermore, peer influence is the main and major vector which spread such undesirable habits among youngsters of a society or youngsters that live in such neighborhood because individuals more easily and quickly learn from the people with whom they interact while they are easily made believed more conveniently by their friends again raise juvenile delinquency.

Actual Example

The actual example of the juvenile delinquency theory (Social Disorganization Theory) can be seen in the movie called "Boyz N the Hood" as the characters that live in a low-income society and region where not much community involvement exists. In the example, the disorganized community leads people to deviant behavior the same as we see in the case of Doughboy. The neighborhood in which Doughboy lives in very disorganized socially, as it does not have any community involvement nor it has any formal activities in the community. So, it can be stated that there is the issue of funds that are needed to run programs that assist in organizing the community (Rutter & Giller, 1983). There is huge juvenile delinquency while there is very few social organization. The high school football team in which Doughboy, Trey Live, and Ricky were engaged, is the only one and single social organization witnessed in the movie that presents in the community. So the social disorganization is one of the most crucial and a key theory which assist to understand show the society and environment grows up and what are its impacts before and after its growth (growth of environment) on the crime rates as well as one can witness that how it is true in the movie called "Boyz N the Hood".

Juvenile

In the law eyes, Juvenile is any individual under the legal adult age. This age differs from one state to another but in most of the states, the legal age of majority is 18. In many states like New York, North Carolina, and Connecticut, a juvenile is young adult aged of 16 years while in other states e.g. Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Texas, a juvenile is 17 years old or younger than 17 years (Rutter & Giller, 1983).

Delinquency and Prevention

The main delinquency which usually came to see is "Fighting in the Public". This delinquency is categorized as "Immoral Conduct". This happens when the youth of an economically poor society or community has been undervalued in the public place(s). So as a result, they (youngsters) get in a fight in the public place. In terms of prevention, there are several actions and activities which can be used for the prevention of delinquency "Fighting in the Public" an Immoral Conduct but the most effective prevention is; the development of mindset of young by the parents live in economically poor societies or live as neighbors of such societies when they are children (Agnew & Brezina, 2001). This is a fine way to prevent and control such delinquency because it develops a coercive system in which a child gains control over his/her thoughts regarding misbehave.

References

Agnew, R., & Brezina, T. (2001). Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Control. Los Angeles, CA, USA: Roxbury Publishing Company.

Bellair, P. (2017). Social Disorganization Theory. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice.

Rutter, M., & Giller, H. (1983). Juvenile Delinquency: Trends and Perspectives.