Social Control Theory - Book Report/Review Example

? Book Summary All God’s Children is a book that gives a detailed cases study of Willie Bosket who has created a record of being oneof the most violent criminals in America. The author, Fox Butterfield is a believer in the implicit theory when explaining the source of violence in individuals. In this book, he gives the history of violence through Bosket family through five generation. He starts with Bosket great grandfather who was an African American slave in to his grandfather, father and now Bosket (Butterfield 2008). The story is also a n illustration of the oppression that the African Americans went through. Edgefield country in South Carolina is illustrated as being a very violent region. The people in this region had adopted the Irish culture of honor and this can to a great degree be attributed to the increase in violence in this region. The culture of honor advocates for people to protect their reputation and respect. This means that when any one of the person got into a fight with another man, they believed that winning would ensure that their respect was reserved. They did not mind dying in the quest for respect and honor. It was also common to use violence on the slaves in order to preserve respect. The slaves because of being at the receiving end of abuse they turned into abusers. They would thus be violent towards their fellow slaves. Moreover, considering that they did not possess any material property, all they had was their honor and respect which they fought hard to defend. Bosket family believed in the culture of honor starting from Aaron, Pud, James, and Butch down to Willies. Their lives were characterized by alienation from the society, absent fathers, abusive mothers and this created the fear of losing respect and felling unloved. These events were the major catalysts of violence in their lives. The book is divided into 16 chapters with four different parts. Part one is gives an outline of the family history and introduces Pud and Aaron who are the first two generations of Bosket family. Part two Give details of James and Butcher (Butterfield 2008). The next part is dedicated to Willies life as a youth up to the time he committed his first murder. Part four talks about Willies and Butch achievements such as the degree that Butch gets while still in prison. The last chapter talks of the downfall of these two where Willies get jailed for life while Butch loses his freedom again. Social Control Theory in Relation to Willie According to the social control theory, the inclination for a person to engage in crime is developed through the socialization process that they go through. This means that through proper socialization and social learning, people would not be inclined to engage in antisocial behavior such as violence or engaging in crime. According to this theory, there is various methods that can be used to refrain the youth form engaging in delinquent behavior. On is through the direct method this is where good behavior is rewarded by the parent guardian or teacher and bad behavior is punished. The youth are thus reinforced to do the good deeds only. The youth can also keep away from crime because their ego or conscience does not allow them. The delinquent behavior maybe as a result of indirect motivation where the youth fail to engage in crime as it would be a disappointment to people they cherish such as parents or close friends. This theory can be used to explain Willies inclination to crime He was socialized in such a way that made violence and crime part of him. For instance, he grew up with a mother Laura who had given birth when she was very young never married. He had sex with different men who sometimes abused her. Willies grew up in this kind of abuse. Moreover, when he was still young Willie would get into mischievous acts which made people laugh. Because of his mischievous, he earned the title “bobby”. It is quite evident that he was positively reinforced to continue with mischievous behavior and would thus not stop to perform greater mischief when he was an adult. Moreover, he grew in crime dominated neighborhood where he learned the street code as his father had. Laura had initially lied to Willie about his father telling him that his father was in the army while in reality he had been in jail for a long time on murder charges. Naturally, children tend to look up to their after as a role model. It is thus evident that Willie just follows the path that his father Butch outlines for him. According to the social theory, children refrain from criminal activities because they would not like to disappoint the people around him. However, Willie felt unloved by the people around him. His mother Laura hated Willie father Butch for abandoning them and would channel her anger to Willie. This made him feel more alienated to the people he lived with. This means that he did not care about disappointing her mother who already hated him but would engage in crime as a way of gaining recognition and respect. As a child, he was also sexually abused by James who had taken him under his care. The mother found that he had become unbearable and took him to a child facility where he again continued with his mischievous behavior. A judge said that he should be taken into a reform facility called Wilwyck which was meant to reform boys. This was the same facility that his father had been taken to when he was young. However, instead of reforming him, this facility made Willie more inclined to committing crime. The older boys tried to initiate him into the facility by gang raping him but he resisted by running off and throwing stones at them. It is natural that when children are faced with acts of violence when they are young, they end up showing the same attributes. When at the facility, he would run a way home but Laura would send her back to the facility. She rarely visited her here and this kind of rejection motivated him to commit more crime to gain respect. It is clear that the reason that Willie turned out to be just like his father Butch was that they were socialized in the same manner. They grew in the same neighborhood dominated by crime, experienced the same kind of rejection form family and even attended the same correctional facility. Significance of the Book In Relation to Class Reading The effect socialization had on Willie leading him to criminal activities can be compared to the effect racism has had on the minority in America. For instance, the whites have considered the African Americans to be untalented when it comes to formal education but they do well in music. You will find that it is like many African Americans have come to believe in this notion with the largest high school dropout being among the African American compared to the whites. Moreover, the music industry across almost all genres is dominated by African American. As a result of having poor education background, most African Americans are unable to climb up the social ladder. The prevalence of poverty among the African American community has continued to be very high in comparison to the Caucasian community many years after the abolition of slavery. The number of families that rely on welfare fund has a high percentage of African Americans with only a few Caucasian families. It is thus evident that the notion that the black are inferior in comparison to their white counterpart may have gotten to their head and has acted as a hindrance to their economic advancement. General opinion on the Publication In this book, Butterfield has made attempt of explaining why a family would engage through crime through five generation by giving history of each one of this generation. He gives incite on the fact that may cause people to be inclined to commit crime is quite convincing and I believe if applied can be very powerful in dealing with youth delinquency in America whose rates may have reduced but is still a major problem today. The publication shows clearly the cause of crime. These include the traditional honor code that was prevalent in the west for bother lower and upper classes. Under this code, for one to earn status or maintain one, they had to engage in violence. This code was at first only common in the people dominating the upper classes in the south. However, it was soon adopted as the “code of the street”. This code is passed form a generation to the next not unless there is an interruption at a certain generation. It is evident that the code of honor was passed through Bosket family form his grandfather to Willie because there was no intervention. A key thing that the author points out is the importance of parental involvement in intervention, perpetration, or tolerance of the violence tradition. This means that in order for any intervention program to work, the parent should be involved in it. Failure to intervene when the victim is still young makes it hard for the cycle to be broken. This can be seen I the cases of Willie and His father Butch. Although they were taken to correctional facilities, these programs failed to cause any permanent change in behavior. This is because the intervention came too late, it did not involve parents and the facilities were the hub of crimes making the youths more hardened to commit greater crimes. The customary positive interventions such as good parenting and the church are the most effective in correcting these behaviors. However, when these lack, programs that imitate them can be successful. This implies that for an intervention program to work parental involvement is crucial. It is also important to seek to cause an inner transformation in an individual so that they are now able to conceive crime as a bad thing. The rise in delinquency can be attributed to the disintegration of the society. Traditionally, the community was close knit with community parenting and this prevented the youths from engaging in crime. This is because they would not only be punished by the parents but by any other member of the society. The family unit has also disintegrated and this has resulted to poor parenting with most children been left to be socialized by their peers who may recruit them into gangs. Promoting the institution of marriage and having a closer knit social unit could help in a great way in dealing with juvenile delinquency. References Butterfield, F. (2008). All God's children: The Bosket family and the American tradition of violence. New York: Vintage Books. Read More