Theories of delinquency
Theories
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Deterrence
Free will, rational choices
Swiftness, certainty and severity of punishment
Belief in certainty of apprehension the most
important factor, most direct relationship
• Severity of punishment does not appear to have
a direct effect
Biological
• Morphological: little support, except for
mesomorphic body build
• Inheritance: some support
• Other biological factors: diet, head injuries,
EEG findings, birth problems, lead poisoning,
hormones
• FAS, other drugs, LD, ADHD (prenatal care)
Psychological concepts
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Psychoanalytic approach
Personality (personality disorders)
Mental illness
Learning theory: reinforcement, findings on
punishment (immediacy, consistency, punishing
enough without being excessive, alternative
behaviors that are reinforced)
• Moral development research
Social structure
• Ecological theory
• City zones
• Transitional, (interstitial) areas, poverty, cultural
heterogeneity, mobility
• Criminal and victims tend to live in these areas
• Social disorganization theory (alienation, cultural
heterogeneity and lack of common value
system, less cohesion, less informal control
Strain theory
• People who cannot achieve societal goals will
experience strain
• U.S.: emphasis on getting ahead and being
materially successful, having money, prestige,
power through skill, education and hard work
• People react in different ways to this strain
• Criminals may try to achieve some measure of
material success through crime
General strain theory
• Individuals who are stressed may commit crimes
• Cultural goal of success may apply less to
juveniles
• Anger, frustration, disappointment, depression
and fear generated by negative social relations
• Not only economic goals but other
noneconomic ones having to do with
relationships
Consensus
• Durkheim and alienation
• Normlessness
• Difficulty to control society’s members when
there is a lack of consensus about appropriate
behavior
• Increasing lack of consensus in modern, diverse
complex societies
Subculture theories
• Set of norms, values and beliefs different from
those of the mainstream culture
• When these are at odds with those of the larger
culture, members of the subculture and more
likely to get into trouble
• Example of cults (Waco and Ruby Ridge)
• Cohen’s “middle class measuring rod”
(education and delaying gratification)
Subculture
• Status frustration, may rebel and act in
opposition to the middle class
• Differential opportunity theory
• Youths have the goal of economic success and
middle class membership
• If they cannot get those through mainstream
methods they might turn to delinquent
subculture
Subculture
• There is a stratified mainstream opportunity
structure (for example, college is more readily
available to some students, and opportunities
available through colleges also vary, not all
opportunities are available)
• There is also a stratified illegitimate opportunity
structure, need for connections to successfully
carry out crimes
Subculture
• Exemplified in criminal gangs (access to older
offenders, criminal opportunities), conflict gangs
(less structures available, crime tends to be
unorganized and spontaneous, less lucrative),
and retreatist gangs (little access to either
legitimate or illegitimate opportunity structures)
Subculture
• Miller and lower class culture
• After 2 years of observation, argued that lower
class values found in poor areas differ from
those in mainstream society
• Delinquency may occur when youths are
following norms and values of their immediate
environment that put them in violation of the
law (i.e., fighting, conning people)
Social process
• Differential association: learning from peers,
associates
• Associations affected by frequency of
association, duration of the association, priority
(age at which association is first made), and
intensity (prestige and emotional bond to the
association
• More definitions favorable to violating the law
Delinquency and drift
• Mental techniques (rationalizations) may help
shield a person from being guilty
• Youths may use these techniques of
neutralization to allow themselves to commit
delinquent acts (drift), and then back into
conventional behavior
• Denial of responsibility (not my fault, I did not
mean to do it)
Drift
• Denial of injury: didn’t hurt anyone
• Denial of victim: victim is unworthy and
deserved what they got
• Condemnation of others: shift blame to other
people, i.e., other people are corrupt or at fault
and people are just picking on me when others
are guilty
• Higher loyalties: did it for my friends
Social control
• Attachment, commitment, involvement and
belief
• Self-control theory: self control is the ability to
control one’s behavior. Those who commit
delinquent acts have low self-control—
impulsive, insensitive to others and need
immediate gratification, caused by inadequate
parenting practices
Labeling
• Primary and secondary deviance
• Primary can lead to status degradation
ceremonies, leading to labeling and then to
secondary deviance, deviance that is the result
of being labeled
• Diversion, due process, deinstitutionalization
Conflict theory
• Delinquent behavior is due to conflict in society
that comes about because of the distribution of
wealth and power
• Constant conflict in societies, some more than
others
• Conflict over issues, about the distribution of
wealth, about who gets to decide
Conflict
• Poor more likely to be prosecuted for crimes
because they have little power and no wealth to
protect them
• Delinquents more likely to be adjudicated,
middle class more likely to be diverted to
programs that their parents can pay for
(rationale of probation officers and others for
this)
Marxian theory
• Poor are exploited by the wealthy who take
advantage of their wealth and power to make
workers work hard for very little
• The more the wealthy can get out of the
workers for less money, the more profit for
them
• Therefore there is a tendency to exploit
• Use to have a cheap desperate labor supply
• If workers are kept poor, this creates the
conditions for crime