Juvenile Delinquency and Society
Throughout time, crime has played in an important part in the function of society. We see crime in the news everyday, in our communities, in our schools, and in some cases, even in our immediate families. Which reaches out and takes a stranglehold on the human-interest angle of the general public's mind, and makes us become enveloped in the thought processes of the modern criminal. Along these lines, the fascination with delinquent behavior and the mind of the delinquent has prompted the development of numerous theories, and the continuous, yet rigorous, study of youth behavior. But only recently has the concept of juvenile delinquency become an issue in the way crime among youth is viewed. Our society tends to hold children in special regards in most cases, and the implementation of the juvenile court system led to the development of specific theories such as neutralization, labeling, and social control theories, by people which had a first-hand interest in these juvenile delinquency cases. These theories help investigators, parents, family, peers, and the community, to better understand why our children do what they do. For years, factors such as gender, race, age, and social class, h
An additional theory to explain Matt's crime is the labeling theory. As a child is growing up, they are subjected to the views of the adults that "govern" their lives (Hewitt and Regoli, 2000). This in turn, allows the youth to mentally become what they are told, which has a built-in tendency to provide for delinquent acts to be committed in the future. For example, one such example of labeling relates to appearance, when a child is told they are physically unattractive, they begin to believe this, and self-confidence levels can plummet (Best and Heckert, 2000). Since Matt was stereotyped as a child, told that he would "never amount to anything", that "his family was white trash", that "his life was a waste", he began to believe this. Therefore, his crime was simply a product of being placed into a social category for all of his life. By stealing the car, Matt is dealing with an internal attempt to break free of this mold he has been cast in, yet he has the stigma attached to his persona. He has been told he is a delinquent, therefore, he commits delinquent acts. Parent's social class have a great effect on this as well. By being from a lower class family, Matt could have to live every day having his needs thrown in his face by his parents, that have to work themselves very hard to provide basic things. This stress could possibly manifest itself in the labeling of Matt (Hewitt and Regoli, 2000). Many juvenile delinquents hold shame in their labels, and have a greater association with the label with which they are identified (Hayes, 2000). One might assume that indirect labeling of a child may lead to the transformation of their self-image and the downward spiral of self-esteem (Liu, 2000). In actuality, Matt could be a very bright, outgoing, studious, hard-working child, but the negative labels he carries could give him the added confidence or incentive to turn to a delinquent route.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 2112
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)
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