Why Do Youth Join Gangs From A Theoretical Perspective

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This paper analyses why youth join gangs from a theoretical perspective. Sutherland’s Differential Association theory will be used to explain why youth join gangs because of its socio-psychological focus (Ball, Cullen, and Lilly 2015). I will argue that youth join gangs because of peer, familial and socio-economic influences. Differential Association theory is able to explain peer and familial influences as reasons youth gang involvement, but it is unable to account for why school influences lead youth to join gangs.
Sutherland’s Differential Association theory looks to explain crime from a socio-psychological perspective (Ball et. al 2015). It contends that criminal behaviour is learned through communication in intimate peer groups (Ball et. …show more content…

For one, if a youth does not have a strong familial tie it allows for the youth’s friends to ‘fill the gap’. For an association to have an effect on a potential criminal, it must be more important than ties with families (Maurutto 2016). Thus, the parents are less capable of influencing their child’s attitudes towards the law. Essentially, the parent is allowing their child to be influenced by outside influences such as gang associated peers. If these peers are also not sufficiently monitored by their parents it is more likely that the peer group will highly influence its member’s attitudes towards the law. If they are allowed to form negative attitudes toward the law, due to their parent’s inaction in performing necessary punishment functions, they will become more likely to form a gang. It is the compounding of these individual familial circumstances that lead youth to join gangs. This is how Differential Association, in the case of youth gangs, explains the effect of insufficient parental …show more content…

Having a peer be in a gang can reduce ones aversion to gang membership as they learn about their peer’s experience. Differential Association says that this could increase ones interest in being in a gang as they begin to align their attitudes with those of their gang-member peer. Following this, the gang member will express how they committed the crime and why they did it. Through numerous valuable interactions with this peer, a social learning process would occur acclimating a vulnerable youth to life in a gang. After some time, explains Sutherland, the youth would join the gang themselves due to the interaction with their gang associated

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