Social Structural Theories, Social Disorganization Theory and Cultural Deviance Theory - Research Paper Example

? Criminal justice Lecturer Youths form a major part of society today. This being the case, the youths are often associated with various delinquent lifestyle and uncouth behavior. This has taken the interest of researchers who have since come up with theories that explain why youths adopt delinquent lifestyle and are normally caught by criminal law. There are many theories that explain why youth turn to a felonious lifestyle among them are cultural deviance theory, social disorganization theory, status frustration theory, social structural theory, and labeling theory. This paper will focus on one particular theory, labeling theory, that attempts to explain why youth are associated with criminal behaviors and/ or turn to delinquent lifestyle. Cultural deviance theory asserts that conformity to the existing cultural norms of the society of a lower class results into crime. Youths or lower sub culture class has a set of unique beliefs and values, which are often in conflict invariably with the conventional norms of the society. Criminality in this aspect is the expression of non conformity to social norms or conformity to a lower class of sub cultural beliefs and values. Youth therefore commit crimes trying to respond to their own class of cultural norms in an attempt to deal with the social problems from middle class and adjustment. This theory is associated with labeling theory, the rationale for choosing it (labeling theory), in that they both address a particular class of society and their beliefs. According to labeling theory, the youths turn to a delinquent lifestyle and commit crimes when a good part of the members of society give them a label or associate them with such crimes and lifestyle, hence they accept such labels as their own personal identity. As youth interact with others in the society throughout their lives, they are usually given various symbolic labels. These symbolic labels often imply different attitudes and behaviors, thus the labels do not only give a description of an individual trait, but also describe the whole person. A negative label often results into a permanent harm of the targeted persons, especially when a significant other confers such a devalued status on the person. Being perceived as a deviant in the society and/ or being associated with a delinquent lifestyle often impact on the treatment youths receive at work, at home, at school, and any other places of social interactions. Those labeled usually find themselves turning to other people who are equally stigmatized by a similar or related label for purposes of championship and support. Law is, in most cases, applied differently and benefits people who hold social and economic power, while the powerless are often penalized. Labeling theory therefore is not only concerned with why the persons engage originally in the acts that make them labeled, but also deeply concerned with the reasons for a criminal career is formation. The origin of acts of crimes is not specifically discussed by this theory (Samuel, 2007). An individual becomes a deviant majorly due to the social distance that exists between the labeled and the labeler. Labeling theory is associated with various effects on the people who are labeled; these are the reasons why youth find themselves turning into a delinquent lifestyle and commit most crimes. They do this with a belief that even if they remain within the law, the society still associates them with such deviances and delinquent lifestyle. Some of the impacts resulting from this theory include the following: Stigma creation: whenever an individual have a public record of acts of deviance, the denounced individual separates himself or herself virtually from a place of group by a successful degradation ceremonies in a legitimate order. An impact on self image: the offenders who have been stigmatized may probably start reevaluating their own personal identities within the label Primary deviance: these are some crimes with very little effect or influence on the actor, such are easily and quickly forgotten. Secondary deviance: a deviant recognizes his or her personality or own behavior within the effects of the acts of deviance whenever they come across the social control agencies or significant others who apply those negative labels on them. This deviance entails a re-socialization of an individual with a negative label into a deviant role. The person who is labeled is changed into a person who adopts his or her role or behavior based on the label itself as a defense mechanism, an adjustment or attack. An amplification effect is hence produced, a self fulfilling prophecy (Lawrence, 2000). Therefore the major reason why youth turn into a delinquent lifestyle and commit criminal acts is basically due to the tag that the society has awarded them. If this can be reversed such that the youths are labeled with good and positive labels describing responsible members of the society, then such deviance may not be witnessed easily in the society. Due to the mentioned effects and deviance from the usual society norms, there have been concerns to prevent the youths from this implicated social deviance. The law enforcers as well as the community in general have made attempts to come up with programs that can assist in deterring youths from turning into a delinquent lifestyle and committing crime. This paper will also discuss one community based program that is primarily designed to prevent or deter youths from serious delinquent behavior. Such a program can be Communities That Care (CTC) program, a product the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP). Communities That Care program is based in the office, in the Government of the United States, of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). This program is a community based program of preventing and deterring delinquencies among youths at the community level. The Communities That Care program uses a public health approach in preventing and deterring youth problems and behaviors like delinquency, violence, school dropout, and substance abuse. The community, decision makers and stakeholders apply and understand the information about protective and risk factors, and programs that have been proven to produce difference in promoting acceptable healthy youth development, so as to effectively address the specified problems and issues that face the youth in their community (Lyal, 2009). Community That Care as a program guides the efforts of a community to prevent and deter youths from turning to delinquent lifestyle and other criminal acts, through specified phases. The phases of this process include: Getting started: where the readiness of a community, is assessed, to take part in efforts of collaborative prevention Get organized: the community leader get to commit them into the Communities That Care program and forms a representative and diverse coalition of prevention. Develop a profile: this where the data from epidemiology is used to assess the needs of prevention. Create a plan: in this phase, a selection of already tested and effective prevention programs, practices, and policies that are based on the data already assessed. Implement and evaluate: the new strategies are implemented with fidelity in a way that is congruent with the theory of the program, its methods of delivery, its content and nature, and evaluating the progress of the program over a given period of time. According to Miller (1995), in his peer reviewed article, “Covert participant observation: Reconsidering the least used method. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 11(2), 97-105” details the summary of the findings of the evaluation of Communities That Care program effectiveness. The program’s identification of protective and risk factors offers the foundation for the advances that prevent behavior problems and adolescent health. Communities That Care program has been tested by prevention scientists rigorously, they have also set the policies have been put to address the protective and risk factors in their studies. They have also identified other range of approaches of prevention to help deter delinquent lifestyle. The Communities That Care program, have been proven by these researchers to effectively prevent a deviance behavior among the youths in the community. 56 effective policies and programs have been proven effective in the above mentioned peer reviewed article, these policies and programs are inference in the Communities That Care Prevention Strategies Guide. According to Gibbs (1998) in his article, “Toward theories about criminal justice: Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, “sixteen of the programs have been proven after tests conducted twice with the same findings replicated. They have been also termed a Blueprint Model Programs, and if they are followed rigorously, they will reduce the delinquent lifestyle among the youths significantly. These programs often range from early childhood and parental interventions to the policies of the community that are related to alcohol, emotional skills, and school based curricula teaching social skills that will help the youths navigate their life. A study carried out by William (2001) on evaluating community efforts have detailed the efforts of the community to implement the Community That Care Prevention Strategies due to its affectivity in preventing delinquency and criminal acts among youths. William (2010) has evaluated the attempts by the community and law enforcers to implement the effective and tested programs and the core principles of the prevention system of the program respective of its delivery and content specifications. The findings of the study revealed that the Communities That Care communities achieved very high implementation reliability on the program and system levels when technical and training assistance supports the Community That Care as a program. Communities that were used as control never met these elements. At the beginning of the study, the communities using the program and the control community were at the same level in use of the intervention by the approach based on science. At the end of three years of strict implementation of the intervention, the leaders in the Communities That Care communities revealed a report of a high adoption of the prevention using the science based approach save for the control communities. The communities using the program intervention were also willing to fund the prevention program due to the positive effects it had on the youths in the community. Significant differences were sustained a year after the phase of implementation ended. The leaders in the Communities That Care community program gave a report of the norms of the community against drug abuse among adolescents. The milestones and benchmarks of the Communities That Care were used in tracking the implementation progress of the components of the Communities That Care prevention system. According to the study, the Communities That Care program have enacted a 90% average of key features of the prevention system which include: prioritizing protective and risk factors, developing a board of community, implementing the selected program implementation with fidelity, selecting effective and tested preventive interventions from the program prevention strategies, and assessing protective and risk factors periodically as well as adolescent and child well being via student surveys. The community coalitions implemented the benchmarks and milestones of the Communities That Care continuously to a greater extent as opposed to the community coalitions in the control communities. The results of the study states that the control communities never made any significant progress in the due time in accomplishing the benchmarks and milestones in scientifically implementing prevention programs that have been proven, as well as monitoring the impacts of the program. Therefore it can be conclusively inferred that the Communities That Care program is effective and will deter or prevent youths from turning to a delinquent lifestyle and committing crimes in the society. In summary, the labeling theory explains broadly why youths turn to delinquent lifestyle. The theory states that the youths turn to a delinquent lifestyle and social deviance when a significant part of the members of society give them a label or associate them with such crimes and lifestyle, hence they accept such labels as their own personal identity. As youth interact with others in the society throughout their lives, they are usually given various symbolic labels. These symbolic labels often imply different attitudes and behaviors, thus the labels do not only give a description of an individual trait, but also describe the whole person. A negative label often results into a permanent harm of the targeted persons, especially when a significant other confers such a devalued status on the person. This leads the mentioned individuals to commit crimes and adopt a delinquent lifestyle since they are perceived as synonymous with the awarded label. The labeled youths feel that they will still be associated with crimes even if they do not engage in one since the community already identifies them with a delinquent lifestyle and has given a criminal label, hence the youth ends up committing crimes and engaging into anti social behavior and a varied social deviance. The community, from the paper, has hence adopted programs to help in deterring or preventing this kind of deviance. As mentioned in the paper, a community based program, Communities That Care, has been adopted. From the studies mentioned in the paper, the Communities That Care program has proven that it is effective and is easily implementable among the youth in the community. For instance, Communities That Care program has been tested by prevention scientists rigorously, they have also set the policies have been put to address the protective and risk factors in their studies. They have also identified other range of approaches of prevention to help deter delinquent lifestyle. The Communities That Care program, have been proven by these researchers to effectively prevent a deviance behavior among the youths in the community. The program was experimented between two communities of which one used the program and the other did not. The findings of the study revealed that the control communities never made any significant progress in the due time in accomplishing the benchmarks and milestones in scientifically implementing prevention programs that have been proven, as well as monitoring the impacts of the program. In the contrary, the community that adopted the program showed significant changes and progress in preventing the adoption of a delinquent lifestyle. Technology has advanced criminal justice in many ways. Technology is responsible for advancing evidence search such as forensic science, evidences involving DNA, system investigation of blood samples and microscopic hair. The availability of computers and software for data entry has also led to arrest of the criminals. Criminal justice is also identified with some skills in making judgment. Some of the skills needed in the discipline and practice of criminal justice include: Ability to determine and analyze identified social problems and come up with solutions A wide understanding of the system of the criminal justice Gender and race considerations Literacy with advancing technology Sound decision making Critical thinking Moral values and ethics Skills and knowledge of the structure of the legal system Research, investigation and quantitative skills Management and supervision skills Understanding the nature of skills Mastery of reaction of the society to crimes (John, 2005). Criminal justice is an institution and/ or practice of upholding social control, mitigating and preventing crimes, efforts of rehabilitation, and sanctioning the people caught violating the laws with the penalties of criminal justice. The system of criminal justice consists of three main parts including: adjudications, legislations, and corrections. In this system of criminal justice, the mentioned parts work together under the rule of law in order to keep and maintain law. This is what is seen in the communities with youths who turn to delinquent lifestyle. References Gibbs, J. P. (1998). Toward theories about criminal justice. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 4(1), 20-36.  John, R. (2005). Criminal Justice: Mainstream and Crosscurrents. London: Prentice Hall. Lawrence, M. (2000). Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books. Lyal, S. (2009). The Emerging System of International Criminal Law: Developments in Codification and Implementation. The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Miller, M. (1995). Covert participant observation: Reconsidering the least used method. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, 11(2), 97-105. Samuel, W. (2007). Popular Justice: A History of American Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford University Press William, J. (2001). Power, Politics, and Crime. London: West view Press : Read More