Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law - Research Paper Example

Essay 1 This essay evaluates the criminal life lead by James from the scenario under deliberation. There is a high likelihood that James did not learn his burglary behavior from his father. Given that most of the time he spent with his friends, there is a possibility that he developed this vice from his peers. There are other several contributing factors that would mould a behavior similar to James’. These may include; substance abuse, family, individual induction, and mental health (Shoemaker, 2009). These factors may have contributed to James’ behavior causing low intelligence levels from lack of proper education and parental supervision and therefore developing disorderly conducts. To sum up the above factors, James’ behavior could have emanated from the troubled family, ignorant parents. Where both parents are in constant trouble, the children have a chance of being involved or become part of the arguments too. Any encounter with peer pressure or environments that would foster such behavior fuels the vices. If James had been reached earlier as a kid, there would have been chances that he would not have re-offended. However, any additional entry in the juvenile system reduces the chances for potential rehabilitation (Shoemaker, 2009). The best thing about juveniles is its ability for application and modification to handle individual cases such as James’. The society benefits where such children are rehabilitated into productivity. James would have minimized chances to become a burglar if he had been moved to a juvenile system to cub the condition in advance. Reaction formation lowers anxiety through picking a contrasting feeling, behavior or impulse. Take a situation where a victim would turn to treating their strongly disliked persons in very friendly ways to conceal their actual feelings (Merton, 2006). This is a form of reaction formation used as a defense mechanism to cover the true feelings from help of behavior from opposite manner. This can be related to James’ case where he defends himself by blaming it on the parents, probably out of the dislike that he had developed from the frequent fights. He had gone to an extent of going on crime for a very long time unnoticed from the fact that he behaved well and not raising attention of his actual deeds. Robert K. Merton (Merton, 2006) was famous American sociologist who developed the social strain theory, strain stands in for discrepancies that exist between defined cultural visions and institutionalized methods available to reach those visions and goals. He broke it down into to criterions, individual motivations or adherence to culture’s goals and individual beliefs on how to reach the goal. His deviances were identified to be; conformity, ritualism, rebellion, innovation, and retreatism. What makes this theory relatable to James’ case is the fact that individuals turn to deviance aimed at realizing accepted social goals and values. For instance James sold stolen property as a rejection of one of the culturally accepted way to make more money although he possessed the acceptable way in his society of making money (Cohen, 2007). This deviance is as a result of accepting a norm while ignoring the other to achieve the first. However not all crimes fit into this theory, crimes such as vandalism may not be explained as an urge for material gain. James would actually fit into this theory if he had good intentions with his life and not from malice or any other factor. An approach from the subculture perspective indicates that several socially disorganized and poorest regions, brood forms of crime that turn to become cultural norms that are carried forward from one generation to the other as a subset in a normal socialization. Criminals who succeed act as role models to the younger generation while serving models of normality and success. In an explicit application of this concept from the work of one Albert Cohen, he was amazed by the issue that delinquent behaviors were not fueled by economic needs such as vandalism (Cohen, 2007). He realized that status frustration was one of the causal elements where the victims avoid the feeling of being looked down upon in the society and therefore denying them a status. This leads to the development of a subculture to provide them with alternative ways of regaining their status and mostly lead them to delinquency. The subculture is regarded as the collective reaction after status denial (Cohen, 2007). James would have been living with the fear that his family may have been branded as failures or accorded a lower status from the acts of his parents. He may also have developed a feeling of the need to gain a status of being a bread winner as he was the male in his family; an extra coin to achieve this status would have been a causal attributable to this delinquency. James should to a great extent be blamed for his actions before turning the blame on the society. Essay 2 The psychological theory of delinquency takes the deviance of youths to result from unsolved drives or instincts in the human psyche. James was savvy of the facts that his parents had unsolved and frequent fights as a result of drunkenness. The criminal life lead by his father might still be disturbing the son years after his dead. The criminal behavior might have been copied from his father. Where there are conflicts, delinquency behavior occurs. For the sociological theory, it explains the distribution of fearing crime. It uses social pressures and social context. Related to this case are the conflicts between his mother and father (Shoemaker, 2009). Studies indicate that personality is constituted of three entities the identity, ego and superego. They delve deeper into the delinquent’s past experience as a way to reveal and resolve any unconscious misunderstandings. The sense of unconsciousness in guilt develops in the early years. There are indications that postulates psychological predisposition in committing delinquent and criminal acts. It can be hypothesized that several instances of delinquent behaviors result from not criminal tendency but rather defective and weak superegos that do not suffice the control in primitive or strong childhood desires that result to deviant characters. This theory expands delinquency from perspectives of emotions and personality flaws that could unnecessarily be attributed to involved unconscious conflicts. Sociological relation to defiance is symbolic interaction (Shoemaker, 2009). It can be actualized from the belief that every person is a product of their environment they grow in, which is true to a great extent. Sociologists take the basis of the sociological theory can be related to defiance acts as learned characters. Where children are brought up in families full of crime, they will pick the criminal acts naturally. Families that work hard in a society distill these values to their offspring. The stronger the relationships, the higher the likelihood of influences, therefore, guardians concerned of the people their children socialize with have justified concerns. From the psychological perspective it is notable that James father had unsolved issues from his family, a physically and emotionally abusive family, before building his own. He carried it along into his new family. He tried to fight these problems and ended up ignoring the welfare of his own son. Had these issues been initially solved from his father’s family, they would not have spilled over to James’ family and there would be no current issues of delinquency. Who knows, James’ father would still be alive were it not for a criminal life that he lead. Sociologically, it can be decoded that James’ father had developed a personality that defined his characters that lead him into a criminal life. The environment he had been brought up in had molded him to suit its requirements for survival, crime. The relationship with his family as a product of an abusive family had influenced his father to shift to crime and later channel it to his young family (Siegel, 2009). Psychological effects of juvenile acts can be in the future, the victims may suffer from post-traumatic stress. For children, the chances of full potential recovery without assistance from parents or guardians are very low compared to the recovery in adults. Their emotional or conceptual inabilities to adequately understand the juvenile acts to get a measure to cub the results are among the elements that mitigate from swift recovery. These problems are absorbed into the future days of all the involved persons. Sociological effects identified in the sociological theory, follows into the lives that follow delinquent characters. The victims tend to seclude themselves from the social circles which would influence their lives for a better turn. Once tagged as a delinquent, the individual gains a status in the society that affects the lives lead after such occurrences (Cullen 2006). The victims have a problem starting their own families that are stable and free of shadows of the past influencing the present. Take the past of James’ father, an abusive family that followed him to the present and affecting the relationship in this family. This is evident from the frequent fights that lead to little attention being accorded to the son. The lack of involved parents in the life of James provided a perfect environment and catalyst to committing ills in the society. This indicates that criminal and delinquent acts can and do impact on the futures of the affected individuals (Cullen 2006). Measures must be put in place to correct all the causal elements that foster delinquency to provide a better future for the children and the resultant families. References Cohen, A. (2007). Curve and surface fitting Avignon 2006. Brentwood, TN.: Nashboro Press. Cullen, F. T. (2006). Criminological theory: past to present : essential readings (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. Merton, R. K., & Barber, E. G. (2006). The travels and adventures of serendipity: a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science (Paperback ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shoemaker, D. J. (2009). Juvenile delinquency. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. (2009). Juvenile delinquency: theory, practice, and law (10th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning. Read More