From 1990 to to the present there has been a sharp increase in juvenile crime across the United States. From 1996 to the present there has been a slight decline from the statistics in 1995(OJJDP). What was the cause for this uprise in juvenile delinquincy? I will discuss 2 different theories to why there was such an increase in juvenile crime rates. I will analyze the rise of the "Gangsta-Rap" culture in the early 1990's and how it may have affected teenagers that are in lower-income families. Many people believe that the increase in real life violence on television is a cause for violence in juveniles. I will discuss the evidence for this theory. It seems to me that the best theory to explain the rise in juvenile crime is the social constructionist theory. Different sub-cultures of teens have higher crime rates than others because of their interests, whether it be the music that they listen to or the types of television programs that they watched as child.
In the early 1990's a new form of Hip-Hop music appeared in America known as
Gangsta-Rap. This style of Hip-Hop had lyrics pertaining to killing police, gang warfare, guns, and
robberies. This style of music perked interest in teenagers across the country. Song titles such as
"F*ck the Police" gave laughter to teenagers in middle and upper class America, but for these rap
artists, the lyrics they wrote were their way of life. The Gangsta-Rap culture came straight from the
worst neighborhoods on the Pacific Coast of the United States, where this kind of lifestyle was led
by 1000's of people stuck in the slums of America. Could the lyrics from these kind of songs
promote violence in low income areas where teens look up to these Rap artists? Teenagers that
grow up in neighborhoods that are considered low-income (more so in larger cities than suburban
areas) have a very low amount of opportunities to leave these areas and become successful in life.
Teens in these areas are looking for the easy way out. There isn't many legal ways of getting out of
a slum and becoming successful. Teens in these areas are more likely to sell drugs and perform
robberies to make money than hold a steady job. In essence, crime is already higher in low-income
areas than it is in higher-income areas. When gangsta rap was introduced in the early 1990's, It
became very popular with people facing the...
... middle of paper ...
...ing at different clicks[hippies, punkers, and
"gangsters" (There is no dominant term used for this group. It is the group deeply involved in rap
music. They wear lots of gold jewelry, medallions, etc, and have their pants sagged low)]. I will
perform a study of crimes, drug use, aggressiveness, and academic standings of the teens involved.
Many vital statistics will come out of these studies. These statistics can be used to study
many different correlations between juveniles and crime. This knowledge can be used for future
reference in the fight to lower juvenile crime rates and understand problems before they start.
Bibliography
Lefkowitz, Monroe M. 1977. Growing Up to be Violent: A Longitudinal Study of the Development of Aggression. New York: Pergamon.
Wolfgang, Marvin E., Terence P Thornberry, Robert M. Figlio. 1987. From Boy to Man, from
Delinquincy to Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kolbert, Elizabeth. Dec 14,1994. Television Gets Closer Look as a Factor in Real Violence. New York Times, pp A1, D20.
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquincy Prevention. [On-line]. Available:
http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org./ojstatbb/qa253.html
Hip-hop culture has been a global phenomenon for more than twenty years. When introduced into the American culture, the black culture felt that hip-hop had originated from the African American community. The black community was being denied their cultural rights by the supremacy of the white people, but hip-hop gave the community the encouragement to show their black pride and televise the struggles they were facing in the world. The failure and declining of the movements, the influential, rebellious, and powerful music is what reshaped Black Nationalism, unity and to signify the struggle. The African Americans who suffered from social and political problems found that they similar relations to the political movements, which allowed the blacks to be able to voice their opinions and to acknowledge their culture openly.
Hip hop is both a culture and a lifestyle. As a musical genre it is characterized by its hard hitting beats and rhythms and expressive spoken word lyrics that address topics ranging from economic disparity and inequality, to gun violence and gang affiliated activity. Though the genre emerged with greater popularity in the 1970’s, the musical elements involved and utilized have been around for many years. In this paper, we will cover the history and
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for expressing the struggles of life amidst the prevailing crime and violence as well as an enjoyable and cheap form of recreation.
Hip Hop/Rap music is a new kind of music that appeared during the 1980s . It portrays life on the streets.There are some connections between rap music and jazz music, they come from the Last Poets, which is a group of ex-convicts, one of them released an album backed by the funk Kool and the Gang, this made it become very influential in the early New York rappers.Rap also combines the elements of African American musical traditions such as blues, jazz and soul with dance-hall reggae, dub and Caribbean calypso. It made rap into the most influential and complex form of
The first article, “About a Salary or Reality? – Rap’s Recurrent Conflict” by Alan Light, explains the evolution of hip hop from the various camps to become what it is today – a mix of the gangster rap it was from the beginning and the rap pop that grew out of it. Rappers felt that no matter how graphic they were they would sell albums, and at the same time prove commitment to their street heritage. Many said this was the whole point of rapping. San Francisco rapper Paris said that “[e]verybody gets into rap just to get the dollars or get the fame” (Light 143). Others believe that money and fame should not and have not been the sole reason. Light explains this when he says:
“For thugs from the ghetto, violence is a way of life - it's what helps you survive.” That quote was said by Suge Knight a hip-hop mogul who grew up in the streets of Compton, California. Compton is another known area for its high violence and high number of gangs on its streets. Social inequality has worsen over the years, the gap between the rich and poor only has increased. Living conditions have deteriorated over the years. The window of success has shrunk in areas of inner city communities. If you can walk into an inner city hospital and go up to the window in the maternity ward and predict the future of the babies lying there, you know we have a major issue.
Rap Music, a genre of R&B that includes rhythmic poetry put over a musical background. The background consists of beats combined with digitally isolated sound bites from other recordings. The first recording of rap was made in 1979 and the genre began to take notice in the U.S. in the mid-1980s. Though the name rap is often used back and forth with hip hop. The name hip-hop comes from one of the earliest phrases used in rap on the song “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugarhill Gang. “I said a hip hop, hippie to the hippie, the hip, hip a hop, and you don't stop, a rock it to the bang bang boogie, say, up jump the boogie, to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat.”. In addition to rap music, the hip-hop subculture also formed other methods of expression like break dancing, graffiti art, a unique slang vocabulary, and fashion sense.
Rhodes, Henry A. “The Evolution of Rap Music in the United States.” Yale. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. 2014. Web. 10 Mar. 2014.
Many theories, at both the macro and micro level, have been proposed to explain juvenile crime. Some prominent theories include Social Disorganization theory, Differential Social Organization theory, Social Control theory, and Differential Association theory. When determining which theories are more valid, the question must be explored whether people deviate because of what they learn or from how they are controlled? Mercer L. Sullivan’s book, “Getting Paid” Youth Crime and Work in the Inner City clearly suggests that the learning theories both at the macro level, Differential social organization, and micro level, Differential association theory, are the more accurate of the two types of theory.
These are the kinds of music that often use violent lyrics and violent beats, depicting urban street gangs. Typical themes and ideas deal with street life including pimping, and hustling as well as killing and shooting (Malek 108). “I’m bout to bust some some shots off. I’m ‘bout to dust some cops off” (Ice-T). The lyrics of Ice-T’s Cop Killer evoked a loud outcry about whether ideas about killing police officers should be expressed publicly. It is not only the violent ideas expressed within the lyrics, but the context of which they are expressed. Rap is criticized because rappers are known to “sing of guns with almost lascivious glee”. They talk about their “pieces” or “glocks”, “ninas” or pistols as the “object of their affections”
At its growth, MTV took note and aired its first rap show called Yo! MTV Raps in 1989. By this time, in the late 1980's, gangsta rap had emerged as the new rap force, with artists such as NWA, Dr. Dre, Tupac, and Notorious B.I.G, popularizing a new style of the life of a gangster. These artists focused on songs about crime and violence and the struggles of living in the hood, a poor, urban environment, yet also glorified the exploitation of women and glorification of violence. The late 1990's and 2000's brought new styles of sub-genres as rap increasingly grew mainstream as artists tried to set themselves apart from others to display new ideas and flows.
By corporating the airwaves with message, serve as a blueprint for our youth to self-destruct by creating a large army of pants-sagging, Blunt-smoking, tattooed-up, uneducated, STD-infected, impoverished thugs. Hip Hop is defined as: “subculture especially of inner-city youths who are typically devotees of Rap music, graffiti, break dancing, and DJing”. If one asks a fan of Hip Hop what the definition is to them, then one might get something deeper. Some fans define Hip Hop as a culture that consists of many of its own subcultures and its knowledge of the history and principles of Hip Hop. Hip Hop can also be defined as an expression of the relationship between urban youth and their environment....
Many experts do not accept that biology alone creates children who kill. They believe that violence is a learned behavior. Being abused or witnessing domestic violence is an environmental factor in ju...
Loeber R., and D.P. Farrington. “Serious and violent juvenile offenders: Risk factors and successful interventions.” Thousand Oaks. 1998. First Search. Feb 2007
The hip-hop culture was always seen as rebellious, but in the 1990’s it developed an even str...