Juvenile Delinquency can be defined as the participation by participation in illegal behaviors or activities by a minor mostly between the ages of ten and seventeen years. It can also be used to refer to children who tend to have disobediences or mischievous behavior. The youth hate crimes are problems in the society since the young people turn the extremist ideas into violent acts (Rose, 2013). Sociology has a significant influence on the modern criminology and hence contributes to the theoretical explanations of the deviant behaviors. Juvenile hate crimes like any other human behavior, tend to be inherently social in nature. Several theories that attempt to explain why the juveniles commit the hate crimes have been suggested by respected sociologists, psychologists, as well as criminologists. The question is that can these social theories be applied in reducing the instances of Juvenile hate crimes.
Literature Review
Durkheim’s Concept of Anomie
According to the concept of Anomie developed by Durkheim, the usual rules that restrain a person from committing acts that are socially unacceptable can become suspended or weakened for some members of the society (Rose, 2013). In this state of anomie, it is not easy for some individuals to understand what is expected of them.
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Theory of Anomie by Merton
Robert K. Merton in 1938 developed a general theory of anomie by expanding and modifying Durkheim’s concept of anomie. Merton's general theory of anomie provides an organized framework of logical explanations which can be applied to the different kinds of deviant behaviours such as juvenile delinquency (Siegel & Welsh, 2014). Merton understood anomie as a state where a person experiences dissatisfaction due to a sense of discrepancy between the individual's aspirations and the available means the person has to actualize these ambitions. Merton concludes that the success ethic of Americans is stressed by their exposure to powerful socialization processes hence many people internalize the culture of "getting ahead" which includes accumulating material possession, making money and attaining high status in the society based on occupation and money.
Merton however, maintains that some people, particularly those who are disadvantaged and of lower classes, have a realization that they will not be able to realize these idealized goals by the legitimate means endorsed by the society (Bartollas, Schmalleger & Turner, 2017). Many individuals are placed into a state in which they feel hopeless or helpless because of this juxtaposition of socially approved, idealized goals, and the reality of reduced opportunities for achievement in ways that are socially approved. Under such cases, some people will revert to illegitimate methods to achieve the culturally approved goals. Merton in his Typology of Modes of Behavior identifies five behavioral patterns for individuals as the response to the culturally approved goals and the institutionalized means for attaining the idealized adjectives in American society.
Conformity is the first adaptation, and it encompasses the behavior of most members of the society. The adaption has the available institutionalized work ethic for achievement and accepts the success goals that are culturally approved. This adaptation, therefore, conforms to the expectations of the society (Rose, 2013). Innovation is the second adaptation, and it characterizes the situations where individuals who consent to the typical cultural goals of material and monetary success recognize that they do not have the legitimate and socially approved methods of realizing these goals. They become frustrated and dissatisfied and therefore utilize the norm-violating and innovative behaviors including dealing in drugs, stealing and other deviant means to attain the coveted cultural goals.
The frustration can lead to violence if it develops into hopelessness. Ritualism, which is the third behavioral adaptation involves adherence to culturally approved means of making progress and getting ahead. However, the individuals recognize that the accomplished of achievement is not equivalent to the level of effort or aspiration (Downes, 2013). The fourth adaptation, Retreatism abandons the cultural goals as well as the institutionalized means of achieving them. Rebellion is the fifth behavioral adaptation, and in this case, anger over the anomic situation is experienced, and it rejects both the culturally approved goals and the institutionalized methods of achieving them. This call for a new social order is a kind of response of the revolutionary or the social reformer, and it concerns violent gangs and other hate groups.
Cohen’s “Delinquent Boys”
Merton's anomie that explains the deviant behavior was elaborated by Albert Cohen in 1995. He developed a theory that is more specific explaining that "status frustration and blocked goals result in a significant amount of delinquent behavior (Bartollas, Schmalleger & Turner, 2017). Cohen further states that the lower-class boys who have the aspiration to increase the social status in a dominant, middle-class value system can respond through ways such as the delinquent-boy response, the corner-boy response and the college –boy response. The delinquent boy has similar manifestation as the youths who make the Innovation and Rebellion adaptation developed by Merton.
Their inability to attain status through the conventional means leaves them frustrated. These boys will find themselves in agreement with the group's expectations and are regarded by the larger society as the non-conforming delinquents (Siegel & Welsh, 2014). The corner boy involves the withdrawal of the youths into a subculture of the working-class boys that share a mutual set of values by which status can be realized within the group without conforming or competing with the middle-class society. The boys who picked this response frequently indulge in delinquent activities, particularly status offences including smoking, truancy and alcohol consumption.
The college boy response somehow corresponds to conformity mode of adaptation. The youths in the lower class take the challenge of the middle-class value system and through the differed gratification and higher education endeavor to attain the social status by conforming to the expectations of the middle class (Downes, 2013). According to Cohen, fewer lower-class boys chose this response because they have extremely low chances of occupational success since they have limited financial resources.
“ Delinquency and Opportunity “proposed by Ohlin and Cloward
Lloyd Ohlin and Richard Cloward contributed to the social strain approach by developing the concept of “illegitimate opportunity. They agreed with Cohen and Merton that the blockage of the goals could result in status frustration and force some youths in a position of untenable strain (Rose, 2013). The situation can cause a sense of anomie and alienation in which those who are affected can resort to achieving the increment in status by using illegitimate and delinquent means. Ohlin and Cloward contended that while the juveniles in the lower class have differential opportunities for attaining success by the legitimate methods, they also have differential opportunities for achieving it by the illegitimate opportunities.
In the surroundings where the illegitimate opportunities for the youth to acquire status and success are not readily available, they may get frustrated with their lack of opportunities and lock-in lowly status to attain the idealized goals. Ohlin and Cloward saw that in instances where the illegitimate opportunities are available, there was a response to the anomic frustration as being group oriented (Bartollas, Schmalleger & Turner, 2017) . This example of a delinquent response, however, is dependent on the kind of illegitimate opportunity that is available for the youths. Ohlin and Cloward presented three forms of the juvenile gangs that differed in the kind of deliquescent activity. These included the retreatist-oriented, crime-oriented and the conflict-oriented gang.
The retreatist-oriented gang members are overwhelmed with the feelings of hopelessness, normlessness and failure (Rose, 2013). These youths tend to focus their activity and attention upon the consumption of drugs in quest of the emotional and physical "highs". They mask their failure and show their contempt for normative standards of conforming society. The conflict-oriented gang comprises of youths who resort to violence and fighting as the principal means of securing status. They live in the areas where both the criminal and conventional opportunities are very weak or absent. The conflict-oriented activities occur under conditions of relative detachment from all the institutionalized systems of social control and opportunity either illegitimate or legitimate.
For the crime-oriented gang, their alienation involves criminal activities including fraud, extortion and theft. For this group, the criminal orientation is orchestrated and elicited by the adult criminal elements that carry out their operations in the neighborhood in which the anomic youths stay (Downes, 2013). According to Ohlin and Cloward, the criminal alternative and opportunity for the enhanced social status force these boys into instrumental delinquency and hence serve as “apprentice criminals” under the control and direction of the adult professions.
Ohlin and Cloward put forward one of the most innovative ideas which centers on how youths are motivated and recruited to abandon the quest for the social status and material success and adopt a retreatist orientation (Friedlander, 2013). The youths failing in both the illegitimate and legitimate approaches to material success are regarded as double failures which are likely to show their anomic frustration in a retreatist gang response.
Agnew’s General Strain theory
Robert Agnew attempts to offer a more extensive application of the social strain explanation of delinquent behavior. Agnew views delinquency and crime as an adaptation to stress and identifies three primary causes of stress that result in social strain (Friedlander, 2013). The first source is the inconsistency between goals and the means or between the expectations and the actual outcomes. The second source is the loss of something that is positive in a person's life. For the juveniles, this could include the loss of loved one or break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend. The third source of stress is the presence of negative events or circumstances. For instance, slum living conditions or criminal victimization
Cultural Transmission Theory
This theory was established in the year 1938, and it focusses on the competitive and contradictory content of the different social groups (Downes, 2013). An assumption was made that the proximity of the diverse sections of the urban population can result in the inevitable culture conflict as each group judged its standards as reasonable and correct and those of other, other groups as delinquent and deviant.
The Theory of Cultural Conflict developed by Sellin
Thorsten Sellin laid the necessary groundwork for the theoretical approach to explaining delinquent and criminal behavior. He noted that the customs, values, as well as the standards of conduct, lacked uniformity throughout the population (Cloward & Ohlin, 2013). The various social classes also occupy their own subcultural "islands" where their distinguishing norms, beliefs and behaviors prevail.
The Concentric Zone Theory
The sociologist Ernest Burgess proposed that areas that immediately surround the central business district are especially favorable to a wide variety of social problems and the individual maladjustments including delinquency and crime (Bartollas, Schmalleger & Turner, 2017) . Many researchers investigated the urban dynamics of industrialization, changes in neighborhoods and social disorganization to define their influence on delinquency and crime. For instance, Florian Znaniecki and W.I Thomas examined the social disorganization in a Polish neighborhood of Chicago, and they noted that there was a failure of existing norms and social rules to control behavior. They realized that the neighborhood, home, church and the friendship groups lost some of the power to control behavior in an environment that undergoes rapid social change. Research also reveals that social disorganization is firmly connected to delinquency in Middle Eastern countries.
“ High Delinquency Areas”
Henry McKay and Clifford Shaw discovered that delinquency and crime had definite patterns of concentrations in urban communities. Their findings were that Juveniles are concentrated in areas that are adjacent to the large industrial areas and the central business district. The rate of delinquents has an inverse variation as the distance from the center of the city. McKay and Shaw proposed that the rates of delinquency revealed the kinds of neighborhoods in which children are raised (Burfeind & Bartusch, 2015) . In addition, they contended that poverty-ridden and deteriorated areas of the city tend to create social disorganization which in turn produces delinquency. In their opinion, areas of high delinquency are characterized by local values and norms that are sometimes contrary to the norms, values and the best interests of the larger society (Rose, 2013). A local subculture tends to develop that successfully conveys these norms and antisocial values to the younger generations growing up in the area.
Miller’s Focus on Lower-Class Culture
Walter Miller in 1958 explained that the misbehavior of an adolescent is a product of its cultural context (Friedlander, 2013). He proposed that the lower-class neighborhoods and families internalized their culture content just as fully as the young people from middle class learn their culture.
Cultural Efficacy Theory
Robert Sampson and his colleagues expanded upon the earlier cultural transmission and social ecology theories and insisted that social disorganization, lower-class values and poverty result in the development of high crimes as well as delinquency (Cloward & Ohlin, 2013). Culture efficacy is less likely to occur where social disorganization and poverty thrive hence the connection between those variables and the high rates of delinquency and crime
The Media and Transmission of Cultural Values
Merton made an observation that individuals are exposed to powerful socialization that stress the success ethic. The success is quite often associated with material possessions. This is especially true with regards to the media (Burfeind & Bartusch, 2015) . People are bombarded with common media message, for example, successful people are beautiful, thin, have sparkling white teeth, wear expensive clothes and smell good (Siegel & Welsh, 2014). Thousands of youths experience these feelings on a daily basis. They are exposed to the finer things especially in the urban settings where the obscenely are juxtaposed against those who live in abject poverty.
Emerging cultural criminology, the theoretical perspective looks at the interplay between the media practices, the cultural process, and the connection between crime and materialism. While drawing from the many principles of cultural transmission and strain theories, cultural criminology speculates that in a society that stresses the value of consumption and materialism, those who cannot meet those expectations end up frustrated (Bartollas, Schmalleger & Turner, 2017) . As a response to this frustration, one may experience depression, social withdrawal, taking drugs and heavy drinking. Another possible response is striking out against those who can satisfy their materialistic dreams by way of petty theft, vandalism and even violence (rebellion)
Conclusion
In conclusion, the youth hate crimes are problems in the society because the young people turn the extremist ideas into violent acts. Sociology has a significant influence on the modern criminology and hence contributes to the theoretical explanations of the deviant behaviors. Juvenile hate crimes like any other human behavior, tend to be inherently social in nature as demonstrated by the cultural transmission and the Social strain theories. Several theories that attempt to explain why the juveniles commit the hate crimes have been suggested by respected sociologists, psychologists, as well as criminologists.
References
Bartollas, C., Schmalleger, F., & Turner, M. G. (2017). Juvenile delinquency . Pearson.
Burfeind, J., & Bartusch, D. J. (2015). Juvenile delinquency: An integrated approach . Routledge.
Cloward, R. A., & Ohlin, L. E. (2013). Delinquency and opportunity: A study of delinquent gangs (Vol. 6). Routledge.
Downes, D. (2013). The Delinquent Solution (Routledge Revivals): A Study in Subcultural Theory . Routledge.
Friedlander, K. (2013). A Psycho-Analytical Approach to Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Case Studies, Treatment (Vol. 9). Routledge.
Rose, A. M. (2013). Human behavior and social processes: An interactionist approach . Routledge.
Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. C. (2014). Juvenile delinquency: Theory, practice, and law . Cengage Learning.
