When it comes to delinquency, many people have different views on where delinquency stems from. Some think biological theories hold the answer, some believe it is merely a routine theory. There are some however who believe in a psychological approach. The psychological theories of delinquency is exactly what it sounds like. Most delinquents have some sort of psychological defect or problem that causes them to act out in a devious way. It is thought that youth in lower classes or who come from unstructured and abusive families have odd personality traits that they will carry into adulthood. This theory is not biased. Blacks, whites, Hispanics, gays, etc. can all contribute to the delinquency rates. Psychological issues or ideas such as feelings, emotions, thoughts, and morals are all complex and sometimes confusing concepts to grasp. Along with breaking up the theory into categories for understanding purposes, it also allows for people to agree and disagree with a part of the theory, …show more content…
This theory is all based on mental processes. The pioneers of this certain theory are William Wunat (1832-1920), Edward Titchener (1867-1927), and William James (1848-1920). The found of this theory is Jean Piagment, while Lawrence Kohlberg was the first to take this theory and associate it with delinquency. The cognitive theory says that the learning process starts at birth and continues until a person is twelve years old. Kohlberg believed that those that were delinquents had a different set of moral values than those that had never committed any crimes. This theory suggest that offenders often seek gratifying experiences to give them a sense of power. They tend to lack the respect for authority and laws. They are typically confused as to what they need to do in this world. They also think that the world is against them and that they are alone. All of these feelings are reasons why delinquents begin to act out
Two major sociological theories explain youth crime at the macro level. The first is Social Disorganization theory, created in 1969 by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. The theory resulted from a study of juvenile delinquency in Chicago using information from 1900 to 1940, which attempts to answer the question of how aspects of the structure of a community contribute to social control. The study found that a community that is unable to achieve common values has a high rate of delinquency. Shaw and McKay looked at the physical appearance of the neighborhoods, the average income of the population, the ethnicity of the neighborhood, the percent of renters versus owners, and how fast the population of the area changed. These factors all contribute to neighborhood delinquency.
The study of Juvenile delinquency and the theories pertaining to it are vital for several reasons. In order to more effectively engage with youths and foster positive behavior and schemas, the individuals must first be understood. The study of theory provides a means of understanding adolescents and the factors that lead to or detract from delinquent behavior. In the case of juvenile delinquent, Jordan Brown, theory helps to provide insight into why an eleven-year-old boy murdered his stepmother.
Theories have often been developed to explain how delinquents violate social norms and still manage to maintain positive self images of themselves. Neutralization theory, developed by Gresham Sykes and David Matza in 1957 set out to do just this. Critics, however, have claims that the theory, on it’s own, is not a sufficient explanation for adolescent’s participation in crime in delinquency. It has also been claimed by critics that neutralization theory is best viewed as a components of larger theory of crime and can be incorporated into other theories such as social bond theory.
This theory is that criminal behavior is learned during social interactions. For example, who you associate with. If you hang out with people that do crimes or delinquent behavior, you’ll eventually start doing them. I had some friends that I used to hang out with like that every weekend. They liked to throw rocks at cars, I eventually gave in one night, and did it as well. Later that night, after I dropped them off I got pulled over because the car I drove fit the description. The police found rocks, I didn’t know they were still in there, they were in the back seat where my friends sat. I got arrested, and taken to juvenile hall. The reason I even did this because, I saw how easy they got away with it. The stories they shared with me, telling me how they did it and how they never got caught. That is why I find this theory relatable. I associated with them, I started to notice how easy it was to do the things they do. I thought I could’ve gotten away with it. I shouldn’t have done those things, but I didn’t use my superego that night. I honestly ignored it, even though my head kept telling me, “you 're going to get caught!” Differential association can make you a criminal if you are around the activity you 'll eventually think how easy it is to do it. This one incident, that is costing me thousands changed my ways. Consequently, it cost me my dream to play college football. Yet this theory can make law abiding
They can be easily learned from parents, relatives, friends, or other peers. In other words, delinquency can be learned through interactions and associations with other people. This is because “people learn behaviors and definitions of behaviors [through] interactions with [others]” (Brauer & Coster, 2012, p. 378). In the interview, the man mentions how he didn’t know why exactly he behaved the way he did, but he does come to the conclusion that paying close attention to those who you decide to surround yourself with is quite significant. The social learning theory is founded on research that has indicated that the strongest factors that correlate with delinquency are the affiliation with delinquent peers. From the very beginning he knew that his social sphere was toxic as they participated in delinquent behavior together. Peers are powerful influences and incredible learning tools, thus when an adolescent is exposed to negative influences, the learning process and imitation of criminal behavior facilitates. Although, in some instances, learning delinquent behaviors is more of a genetic makeup problem rather than a social issue. According to research “some people may be more receptive to the [type of] learning they receive from their delinquent peers” causing a “more readily [reinforcement of] their own delinquent behavior by
Juvenile delinquency has a history that dates back hundreds of years. Before the 19th century children were tried in courts the exact same as adults were, but it was only the most severe juvenile cases that actually went to trial. Children were put into prisons, transported and even hanged. In 1880, there were 6,500 children under 16 in adult prisons, 900 of which were under the age of 12 (King & Noel, 1993). Before 1900, many social ideologies shifted resulting from industrialization. The United States’ first juvenile court was opened in 1899 in Illinois. It was spearheaded by Jane Addams and many other influential women in children advocacy. Addams and the others wanted to have a separate court for
An integrated theory is a combination of 2 or 3 theories that offers many explanations on why crime is occurring, compared to a traditional criminal theory that just focus on one type of aspect (Lilly et al.2010). The purpose of integrated theories is to help explain many aspects into what causes criminal behavior and why one becomes delinquent. From this an argument arises can integrated theories be used to explain all criminal behavior. Integrated theories are successful in explaining certain aspects of crime on what causes one to become deviant; however one theory alone cannot explain why an individual engages in crime. This paper will examine three integrated theories and look in-depth how these theories can explain different aspects on why criminal behavior occurs and the weakness of each theory. The three integrated theories that will be discussed in this paper are Cloward and Ohlin Differential Opportunity theory, Robert Agnew General Strain theory, and lastly Travis Hirschi’s Social Bond theory.
The presentation of negative stimuli has been found to be one of the forerunning causes of delinquency amongst juveniles. Some examples of undesirable stimuli that an adolescent could be facing are child abuse, neglect, and exploitation, hostile relationships with parents teachers and peers, negative academic experiences, neighborhood difficulties, and poverty. If a juvenile is surrounded by individuals who sell drugs in order to finance a way of life that is easier and more financial than their current way of life, the adolescent id more likely to imitate that behavior by association.
In order to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the criminal behavior theories, the word theory needs to be defined. “A theory is an explanation. It tells why or how things are related to each other. A theory of crime explains why or how a certain thing or certain things are related to criminal behavior.” (Bohn and Vogel)
According to the text “Juvenile Delinquency: The Core” the social structure theory associates juvenile delinquency rates to socioeconomic structure conditions, for example poor communities, families that are usually unemployed, families that have a continuous cycle of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), single parent households, families with incarcerated fathers, sons and even moms and daughters. Some of these children are raised by grandparents or placed in the foster care system. Many young people in these communities are parents themselves – babies raising babies. This I know because this describes many of the youth in my community.
In most states juvenile delinquency are criminal acts committed by minors’ ages 10 to 18 years old, the crimes are categorized as status offenders or delinquent offenders. Offenses committed by status offenders can only be committed because the offender is a minor, such as running away from home, truancy and underage drinking. (Mooney, pg 115) then there are delinquent offenders whose offenses would be a crime if they were committed by an adult. Depending on the nature of the crime, minors are tried in a juvenile justice system or can be transferred to the adult justice system. According to the Campaign for Youth Justice, it is estimated 1.7 million youths are in the juvenile justice system with 100,000 cases being heard in juvenile court annually. Currently, it is estimated that 70% of the youths arrested are boys and 30% are girls, although African-Americans make up only 17% of the total youth population, they are 30% more likely than white youth to face harsher sentences and be transferred into the adult
The learning theory was described by Tarde as “something learned by normal people as they adapted to other people and the conditions of their environment” (Bohm & Haley, 73) this was set to be called imitation. But, further studies of this theory by Sutherland developed that “persons become criminal do so because of contacts with criminal definitions and isolation from anti-criminal definitions” (Bohm & Haley, 73). In other words, crimes varied in how the community was structured. Advancements to the theory followed and divided the learning theory into four sections positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction and punishment. The idea of positive reinforcement meant that people did something for the reward such as stealing. The negative reinforcement is something that takes away and increases response, such as drug addicts to relieve pain. Further research of the theory led to criminals can experience extinction which is “behavior that previously was positively reinforced is no longer reinforced” and punishment which is “aversive stimulus to reduce a response”. These ideas emerged and advanced the learning theory. The learning theory was then seen as a theory to punish criminals for their actions, in order to cause extinction. Since Tarde’s explanation to now the learning theory has drastically advanced and provided many answers as to find ways to why one commits crimes and why
However there are many more which, in particular, offer some theories on the explanation of youth crime. A hugely famous youth crime theory is the Labelling theory. This theory argues that the behaviour or self-identity of a juvenile can be highly influenced by the labels or terms that are used to classify them (Banks, 2013). The theory promotes rehabilitating young people rather than to simply punish and then release the offenders as this attaches a label in which society views the juveniles (Burke, 2001). Due to this label, it could be seen that juveniles have no choice other than to live up to the labels presented to them and that labelling a youth as a criminal has adverse affects as to what was desired. It’s argues that by labelling someone as a criminal it traps them into that career and fulfils a self fulfilling prophesy (Carr and Wahidin, 2013). Another thing that crime has often been linked to is the level of intelligence an individual has. The common theory is that if someone has a lower level of intelligence then they will be more likely to struggle during education and could be more likely to rebel in the form of criminal acts. However saying this, intelligence is often a feature in unsuccessful criminals (That’s to say, those who are caught) (Burke,
Theory is an important part of discovering and understanding why people commit crime. It is difficult to understand how a prejudice or bias towards someone can be linked to criminal behavior. The general theory of crime coined by Travis Hirschi and Michael Gottfredson can be applied to hate crime. The general theory of crime explains that people are born pre-disposed to crime and that they have natural tendencies to commit crime (Tibbetts, 2015, p 161). The only difference between those who are criminals and non-criminals would be their self-control (Tibbetts, 2015, p 161). Self-control is a key component to the general theory of crime. Not everyone acts on his or her thoughts of someone criminally, or even at all. The difference between people who do not choose to commit crime, would be their difference in self-control. People who commit crime have low self-control, and people who are law-abiding citizens have high self-control.
Walsh, A.W., (2006). Ch. 7: Psychosocial Theories: Individual Traits And Criminal Behavior. (p. 174-179). Retrieved from: