Families, Delinquency and Crimes - Assignment Example

Running Head Families, Delinquency, and Crimes Families, Delinquency, and Crimes At the beginning of the 21st century, modern family is influenced by the external environment and neighborhood, economic conditions of family members and their social conditions. It is supposed that there is a strong collation between crime rates and delinquency rates and negative family conditions and poor neighborhood. Following Schaefer (2005), the influence on a family and children is achieved through negative impact of neighborhood and criminal situation in the region. The analysis of the population composition of neighborhoods with a high crime rate indicates that they are characterized by a concentration of foreign born and Negroes (Faulkner 2001). Associated with these differences among areas in terms of physical, economic, and population characteristics are more subtle differences in values, attitudes and traditions which are reflected in marked variations in child behavior and in the delinquency rate. Poverty and lack of prenatal care, unemployment and low income are direct causes of juvenile delinquency. Faulkner (2001) states that juvenile delinquency follows the pattern of the physical and social organization of the American city. The wide differences in standards and cultural values and delinquency rates among urban areas are an end-product of processes of city growth, and the effects of changes in land-use as industry and commerce "invade" residential districts (Schaefer, 2005). The rates of delinquency show similar variations among the local communities in different types of American cities. Social disorganization is the general basic causal factor of which juvenile delinquency and the other variables including bad housing, poverty, percentage of foreign-born and Negroes, and population change may be considered manifestations or dependent variables. he way in which poverty, the concentration of foreign-born and Negroes also become manifestations or resultants of social disorganization is not equally clear unless one views the relationship in the light of the Ecological assumption of sub-social processes inherent in the process of city growth which act selectively to segregate the poor, the foreignborn and Negro groups in areas of social disorganization (Brownlee, 1998). Diverse factors modify the family economic and personal aspects of the situation. Some of these are housekeeping, physical handicaps, popularity among friends and grocery storemen from whom money may be borrowed or credit asked, the financial circumstances and the cohesion of the broader family who may come to the support of the unemployed, the sympathy of the neighborhood which will provide occasional odd jobs. That is why prison statistics vary so widely and why some of them have introduced half grades which are much closer to reality. The difference between a short period of unemployment and chronic unemployment must also be weighed (Faulkner, 2001). It is obviously most difficult first to establish these degrees of unemployment and then to give them adequate and correct statistical expression. There are indications that the unemployed man is not only a husband emeritus but deposed factually as the head of the household. The failure to fulfill his function as breadwinner undermines his authority and his wife loses all respect for him. The husband, the most likely to resort to a criminal act under pressure of unhappiness, complains mainly of immorality, mental deficiency, bad housekeeping, nagging, family interference, extravagance, and sex refusal (Schaefer, 2005). 2) Children living in high delinquency areas are exposed to contradictory standards and forms of behavior. The presence of a large number of adult criminals also means that many children are in contact with criminal behavior and organized crime. They also more readily become familiar with the location of illegal institutions and the procedures and contacts with the corrupt officials which make possible criminal activity. Some urban areas have a high crime rate because dope peddlers, gamblers, bootleggers, sex perverts, visitors to hotels, cabarets, night clubs, and houses of prostitution congregate to buy the goods their minds are set on. For one night they bring the economic conditions of residential areas into a milieu of utter want (Putwain and Sammons 2002). Children learn antisocial behavior patterns from adult criminals. In this contact of two different worlds-different economically rather than morally-the bearers of money get the worst of it, although before the moment they are robbed they may have obtained other things which they wanted but which they intended to buy cheaper. Both groups, seeking anonymity, reach this disorganized area as visitors, as migrants, rather than as resident population for a brief hectic period of "boom." Children learn this behavior and follow the same patterns of social disobedience as adults do. gain family loyalty is permitted to assume the first place. Group life and structure are subject to other forces which do not stand still. They are deeply affected by technological innovations, the machine age, the age of birth control, the age of ideologies (Putwain and Sammons 2002). Recent years, critics admit the increasing tendency to develop units and subgroups in the struggle for life has not escaped the attention of the criminal, who uses the same protective device in his fight against organized society. Living in constant danger, the criminal has even been forced to elaborate units that function more smoothly than legitimate groups. The criminal group requires the most powerful automobiles, the most perfect psychology, the greatest discipline, and the most inviolate moral code. Through the medium of nascent and dying units all these basic factors of human development and reversion bear on criminal behavior (Putwain and Sammons 2002). 3) Marital violence and antisocial behavior are learned in children, and have a great impact on further social behavior of a parson. The lesson a family teaches to the younger members is not taught by words alone but by example. Before learning, children imitate. An immoral or criminal family uses all its group influence to corrupt the youngsters. There is another grave perplexity. The biological purpose for uniting in a group is mutual help. Children are as helpless as old people. The family has to support and guide the children through the early danger zone. Before the industrial revolution disrupted the family, the parents when old and weak could expect to be supported by the grown-up children, and so it went on through the generations, taking and giving, giving and taking (Davies et al 1999). Sometimes the family unit is externally intact but father and mother, one or both, have to be supported by the children. They are workshy, or weak-minded, alcoholic, or physically handicapped. The roles are reversed; the weak are called on to provide for the breadwinner. Like large parasites, parents force themselves on undeveloped and feeble hosts. The conduct of these parents teaches the children a very dangerous lesson. Exploited, the children grow up to become exploiters themselves. From their experience they acquire a totally wrong picture of the world. Long live the man who can live on other weaker ones. That is just what some forms of delinquency mean (Davies et al 1999). In some cases, home discipline may be weak, overstrict, or non-existent. The effect on children is not completely exogenous. Often certain traits are transmitted, such as brutality, weakness, “and indifference. Maltreated children do not become maltreating parents only because they have been brutalized; there is often an innate tendency, which is, of course strengthened by inadequate home discipline during the years of plasticity and emotional molding” (Davies et al 1999, p. 87). The unwanted child, the child who reminds the wife of the hated or despised husband, or who has escaped an attempt at abortion, will not receive much care and attention. Burt has pointed at the extreme possibility of an unbloody infanticide or exposure; the parents want to get rid of the unwelcome burden. 4) Abuse, immorality, irregular habits, nagging, are psychological in origin. The degree determines whether they are abnormal traits or not. Only bad housekeeping, discipline of children, evil companions, and inadequate income can be considered social forces. It appears, therefore, that domestic discord is indicative of deep-seated constitutional foibles and a few detrimental social conditions; usually more or less concealed, they come to light when the stress of new duties and the adjustments of matrimonial life are imposed. Domestic discord, from the point of view of the social services, embraces four manifestations: infelicity, desertion, nonsupport, and combinations that include separation. Since desertion is no longer a functional disorder but a structural disengagement, entailing specific and statistically controllable effects, it is instructive to isolate the factor of mere domestic infelicity. This is the passive and smoldering stage of the conflict. It may come to an end with separation, desertion, or divorce. It may persevere as a lifelong and uncured condition of unhappiness (Davies et al 1999). It appears that mental deficiency, nagging, family interference, and uncontrolled temper have a tendency to lead into a stagnant infelicity and not into separation. The very old father is tyrannized over by his children even when they are but half grown. The atmosphere of the house is that of living with a grandfather. It happens often that the old man is either too indulgent or too harsh. The husband who married very late is likely to die before the children have received a thorough education; biologically as well as sociologically, the situation is undesirable. Education rests not only on affection and understanding but on physical preponderance and respect. The unemployed father seems to fail in his role of provider, which makes him a faulty father (Faulkner, 2001). The greatest disorder comes not from a clear dominance of either husband or wife, but from "wars of independence" or inner revolts that flare up, break down, and arise again without establishing a new and lasting balance or reestablishing the old equilibrium. Economic success (which does not always coincide with efficiency), health, age, tendencies of dominance that often express the psychosexual personality of the two partners, determine the final outcome. The defeated and henpecked husband resorts not infrequently to the ambush of murder to regain his freedom. owever, when children continue to arrive in later years, the youngest watch in crowded rooms all the intimacies in which their elders are indulging. It often happens that parents, tired out by many efforts, do not trouble about the education of the last child and become indifferent to its shortcomings (Faulkner, 2001). 5) The course materials suggest that there is a strong correlation between crime rates and family conditions. In general, the purpose of the family unit is to shelter and guide the growing youngsters until they can walk by themselves. Since many of our wishes and urges have to be curtailed and rerouted, especially in a home without means, education requires a systematic and repeated effort in one and the same direction so that habitual attitudes, strong enough to resist any counterpull, are formed. Habits can only be built up by persistent enforcement; enforcement is a question of psychological relations-love, respect, awe, authority, example-and of methods of physical emphasis. It is possible to say hat a family in which discord or hatred prevails can scarcely exercise a strong educational effect toward cooperation and love. A father indulging in alcoholic excesses does not teach temperance and moderation, although children in poor homes seem to judge their drinking fathers rather leniently as long as they do not resort to brutalities. They are conceded this sort of escape from a life of insecurity and misery. From an unsatisfactory job, rest for the mind is sought in the saloon, rest for the body in bed. Paternal drinking has sometimes an unexpected educative effect-the children detest alcohol. The crisis of the family as an economic unit, brought about by the industrial revolution, scattering husband, wife, and children during the day in remote labor yards, is one of these factors. With the strength and attention men and women give their work, they deprive themselves of those reserves of nerve power needed for common life and felicity when evening comes. It can be doubted whether keeping together is a better solution than parting company; in one case the detrimental influence is removed; in the second it persists and asserts itself on the children. References Schaefer, R. T. (2005). Sociology Matters. 2rd edition. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages. Brownlee, I. (1998). Community Punishment: A Critical Introduction, Harlow: Longman. Davies, H., Croall, H. and Tyrer, J. (1998). Criminal Justice, 2nd edn, Harlow: Longman Faulkner, D. (2001). Crime, State and Citizen: A Field Full of Folk, Winchester: Waterside Press. Putwain, D., Sammons, A. (2002). Psychology and Crime (Routledge Modular Psychology). Routledge; 1 edition. Read More