What Is Hirschi's Social Bond Theory Important In Explaining Why Juveniles Commit Crime

It is important to consider the social elements of family to understand why some juveniles are motivated to commit crime. Many theories have a slue of ideological frameworks suggesting that families are important in explaining juvenile delinquency; however, they are uniquely distinguished by their internal and external factors. Hirschi's social control theory plays a big role in the sociology of why juveniles commit crime. Furthermore, Robert Agnew’s General Strain illuminates why relationships with family influence youth’s involvement in crime. Cohen paints a substantially different picture about how families are important in understanding juvenile delinquency by including links of social class with the type of parents the children are

It suggests that socialization builds self-control and alleviates the inclination to become involved in delinquent behavior. “In this way, families inspire children to coform to parental norms and expectations, and to the norms and expectations of the larger society” (Burfeind and Bartusch, 2011: 171). Hirchi does not believe that motivation is a factor in understanding why youths become involved in juvenile delinquency. Instead, it stipulates that juveniles who offend have a lack of self-control due to a lack of social bonds that would of make the juvenile feel opposed to committing crime. It concludes that people engage in delinquent behavior when their social bond with society is

Cohen elaborated on the general strain theory by including ideas of socialization and social class. He reasons that lower class boys and girls have lower-class parents that socialize them improperly to deal with social norms society. “According to Cohen, lower-class parents are “easy-going” and “permissive,” where middle-class parents are “rational, deliberate, and demanding” (Burfeind and Bartusch, 2011: 5). Cohen compares and contrasts middle and lower-class, creating a dichotomy between them—middle-class being authoritarian and lower-class families as permissive. In turn, these children are most likely to commit crime. Although this theory discusses families and their relation to crime, Cohen’s theory is more external. A family’s rank in society determines what kind of parents the youths are getting. This is inherently external. Cohen paints a substantially different picture about how families are important in understanding juvenile delinquency by including links of social class with the type of parents the children are going to have. Children that have lower-class parents will have higher chance of committing crime because their parents are more