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uvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society Second Edition

Dedication

To William and Christopher, my little delinquents —KB

To Bryce, Avary, Gavin, and Olivia —RS

Juvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society Second Edition

Kristin A. Bates California State University, San Marcos

Richelle S. Swan California State University, San Marcos

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bates, Kristin Ann, author. | Swan, Richelle S., author.

Title: Juvenile delinquency in a diverse society / Kristin A. Bates, Richelle S. Swan.

Description: Second edition. | Los Angeles : SAGE, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016038632 | ISBN 978-1-5063-4749-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Juvenile delinquency. | Juvenile delinquents. | Juvenile justice, Administration of.

Classification: LCC HV9069 .B38 2017 | DDC 364.36—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038632

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

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https://lccn.loc.gov/2016038632

Brief Contents Preface Acknowledgments PART 1. UNDERSTANDING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

CHAPTER 1: Thinking About Juvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society CHAPTER 2: The Creation of Delinquency CHAPTER 3: Understanding Delinquency: Data, Correlates, and Trends

PART 2. THEORIES OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY CHAPTER 4: Micro-Level Theories CHAPTER 5: Macro-Level Theories CHAPTER 6: Critical Theories

PART 3. THE SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

CHAPTER 7: Families in Context CHAPTER 8: Schools in Context CHAPTER 9: Peers and Gangs in Context CHAPTER 10: Drugs in Context

PART 4. RESPONSES TO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY CHAPTER 11: Why a Separate Juvenile Justice System? CHAPTER 12: Policing and the Process of the Juvenile Court CHAPTER 13: Juvenile Corrections CHAPTER 14: Preventative, Rehabilitative, and Restorative Approaches to Delinquency

Glossary Notes Index About the Authors

Contents Preface Acknowledgments PART 1. UNDERSTANDING JUVENILE DELINQUENCY,

Chapter 1. Thinking About Juvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society,

Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Defining Juvenile Delinquency,

The Special Case of the Juvenile, The Definition of Delinquency, • On the Media: Live Streaming Delinquency and Crime,

Conceptions of Juvenile Delinquency, Normative Conception of Delinquency, Social Constructionist Conception of Delinquency, Critical Conception of Delinquency,

The Well-Being of Children, • A Focus on Research: Samuel Phillips Day’s “Juvenile Crime: Its Cause, Character, and Cure,” Economic Circumstances, Physical Environment and Safety, Education, The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline,

The United States as a Place Where Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Are Important,

• From the Classroom to the Community: Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth, Individual Versus Institutional Racism, Classism, and Sexism, • In the News: The Income Gap, The Intersectionality of Race, Class, and Gender,

The Sociological Imagination, Your Sociological Imagination Put to the Test: Five Vignettes,

The Juvenile Justice System and Diversity, Philosophy and Organization of the Book,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Social Construction and Media, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 2. The Creation of Delinquency, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, The Social Construction of Youth and Delinquency,

Ancient Times and the Middle Ages (776 BCE–1400 CE), The Colonial and Revolutionary Period (late 1400s– 1800), The “Child-Saving” Era, the Industrial Revolution, and the Creation of the Juvenile Court (1800s–early 1900s), • A Focus on Research: Chávez-García’s Intelligence Testing at Whittier State School, 1890–1920, Views of Youth and Delinquency in the Juvenile Court (1899–Present),

Popular Culture: A Target of Moral Panics About Delinquency,

• On the Media: Ahmed Mohamed and the Clock That Started a Panic, • On the Media: Award-Winning Perspectives on Juvenile Justice Issues, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Campaign for Youth Justice—“Because the Consequences Aren’t Minor,”

At the Crossroads: 21st-Century Social Constructions of Youth and Delinquency,

• In the News: The Deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Delinquency and Dependence in 21st-Century Films, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 3. Understanding Delinquency: Data, Correlates, and

Trends, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, How to Lie With Statistics,

What Goes Into a Good Statistic?, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Children’s Defense Fund,

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Data, How Do We Know What We Know? What Data Sources Do We Use to Map Trends?,

Data Sources for Correlates and Trends in Delinquency, • On the Media: Podcast: Improving Youth Programming: The Role of Research, • In the News: A Tyranny of Small Numbers, or Is YouTube the Start of the Next Australian Girls’ Violence Epidemic?,

Correlates of Delinquency, Age, Gender, Race and Ethnicity, Class, • A Focus on Research: Sampson’s “Immigration and Homicide Trends,”

The Nature of Delinquency as Measured by the UCR, General Trends in Delinquency,

Trends Measured by the UCR, Trends Measured by the NCVS, Self-Report Data: Monitoring the Future,

Trends in Delinquency for Gender, Official Trends From the UCR, Gender Trends in Illicit Drug Use From Self-Reports, Comparisons of Gender and Delinquency Between the UCR, the NCVS, and Self-Report Data: The Girls Study Group,

Trends in Delinquency for Race/Ethnicity, Official Trends From the UCR, Race and Ethnicity Trends in Illicit Drug Use From Self-Reports, Comparisons of Race/Ethnicity and Delinquency

Between Official and Self-Report Data, Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Juvenile Violent Crime Trend in City, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

PART 2. THEORIES OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, Chapter 4. Micro-Level Theories,

Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Pre-Classical Ideas, Classical Theories, Biological, Psychological, and Biosocial Theories,

Early Biological Theories, Psychological Theories, • On the Media: The Viral Blog Post: I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother, Biosocial Theories,

Differential Association Theory, Differential Association Theory and Class, Gender, and Race,

Social Control Theory/Social Bonding Theory, Classical Social Control Theory, • In the News: The Flint Water Crisis, Life Course and Developmental Theories, • From the Classroom to the Community: Helping Kids Make Better Choices: Mujeres Organization, Social Control and Gender: The Example of Power- Control Theory, Techniques of Neutralization Model,

General Strain Theory, General Strain Theory and Race, General Strain Theory and Gender, • A Focus on Research: General Strain Theory and Delinquency: Extending a Popular Explanation to American Indian Youth,

Micro-Level Theories and Public Policy, Summary, Eye on Diversity: Antibullying Exercise Evaluating a

School’s Program, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 5. Macro-Level Theories, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Social Structural Theories of Delinquency, Anomie Theories,

Durkheim’s Anomie Theory, Merton’s Strain Theory, Differential Opportunity Theory, Subcultural Theory of Delinquency, • From the Classroom to the Community: The “I Have a Dream” Foundation, Anomie Theories of Delinquency and Race, Class, and Gender Intersections,

Social Disorganization Theory, Park and Burgess’s Social Disorganization Theory, Shaw and McKay’s Social Disorganization and Delinquency Theory, Frazier’s Ecological Analysis of Delinquency Among Black Youth, Sampson and Groves’s Model of Social Disorganization, Collective Efficacy Model, Social Disorganization Theories of Delinquency and Race, Class, and Gender Intersections, • In the News: Voices of Youth Dealing With Crime and Delinquency, • A Focus on Research: Huang, Ryan, and Rhoden’s “Foster Care, Geographic Neighborhood Change, and the Risk of Delinquency,”

Social Structural Theories and Public Policy, Anomie, Social Disorganization, • On the Media: The Interrupters,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: A Look at Sexuality, Homeless Youth, and Delinquency,

Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 6. Critical Theories, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Critical Theories of Delinquency,

Labeling Theory, Origins of Labeling Theory, • In the News: Justice-Involved Youth, Development of Labeling Theory, Labeling, Self-Concept, and Gender, Labeling, Social Exclusion, Race, and Class, What About Positive Labeling?, Resistance to the Delinquent Label, • A Focus on Research: Holsinger and Hodge’s “The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Girls in Juvenile Justice Systems,”

Conflict Theory: A Focus on Socioeconomic Class, The Origins of Conflict Theory, The Development of Conflict Theories of Crime, Conflict Theories of Delinquency, • On the Media: Online Analysis of Miscarriages of Youth Justice,

Feminist Theories: A Focus on Gender and Intersectionality,

• In the News: Teen Computer Hacker Arrested for Targeting U.S. Government Employees, The Origins of Feminist Theories, The Development of Feminist Theories of Crime and Delinquency, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Equity Project and Justice for LGBT Youth,

Critical Theories of Delinquency and Public Policy, Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Are Critical Theories of Delinquency Being Put Into Action in Your Area?, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

PART 3. THE SOCIAL CONTEXTS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY,

Chapter 7. Families in Context, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Family Today,

Trends in the Family—Marriage, Divorce, and Unmarried Birth Rates, Trends in Family Structure/Composition, • On the Media: Podcasts, Parenting, and the LGBTQ Community,

Family and Delinquency, Family Structure and Delinquency, Family Process, • From the Classroom to the Community: Parent Responsibility Laws: Should the Parent Be Held Responsible for Youth Behavior?,

Diversity and the Family, Gender, Family, and Delinquency, Intersections of Gender, Class, Family, and Delinquency, • In the News: Mothers’ Job Curb Urged in Drive on Delinquency, Intersections of Race, Gender, Class, Family, and Delinquency,

Child Maltreatment, Child Maltreatment and Delinquency,

Girls, Abuse, Running Away, and Delinquency, Parents in Prison,

• A Focus on Research: Rosario, Schrimshaw, and Hunter’s Homelessness Among Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth, The Impact of an Incarcerated Parent,

Foster Care and Foster Youth, Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Parenting in Prison, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 8. Schools in Context,

Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, The Diverse School Experience,

Trends in Academic Achievement, International Comparisons,

The Budgeting of Education, School Failure, Dropping Out, and Delinquency,

School Failure, Dropping Out,

Disengagement and Delinquency, Crime and Delinquency in Schools,

Violence at School, • In the News: 9-Year-Old Tasered,

Bullying and Cyberbullying, • A Focus on Research: Leavy and Maloney’s American Reporting of School Violence and “People Like Us”: A Comparison of Newspaper Coverage of the Columbine and Red Lake School Shootings, Bullying, Cyberbullying, • On the Media: The New Trend: Cyberbullying Laws That Protect Teachers,

The Policy of Punishment in Schools: The School-to-Prison Pipeline,

• From the Classroom to the Community: The Dignity in Schools Campaign, Punishments in Schools: Corporal Punishment, Restraint, and Seclusion, Zero-Tolerance and Increased Social Control,

The School and Student Rights, Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Examining School Data on Delinquency, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 9. Peers and Gangs in Context, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Why Do Peers Matter to Delinquency?,

Friendship and Delinquency: How Gender Matters, The Kid in the Corner: The Impact of a Lack of Friendships,

• A Focus on Research: Jones’s “‘It’s About Being a Survivor’ . . .African American Girls, Gender, and the Context of Inner City Violence,”

Conventional Adolescence or New Forms of Delinquency? The Use of Technology as a Means of Peer Interaction,

Sexting, • In the News: Snapchat Leads to Burglary Arrest, Documenting Delinquency Online,

Gangs and Delinquency, What Is a Youth Gang?, How Common Is Youth Gang Activity?, What Ethnic and Racial Groups Have Been Represented in Youth Gang Formation in the United States?, Why Do Youth Gangs Form, and Why Does Gang Violence Occur? A Focus on Social Class, Race, Sexuality, and Social Inequality, Girls in Gangs, Responses to Youth Gangs, • On the Media: Portrayals of Gay and Transgender Youth in Gangs, • From the Classroom to the Community: Homeboy Industries,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Gangs and Technology, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 10. Drugs in Context, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Reasons for and Societal Understandings of Drug Use, The Role of Legal Products in Youth Substance Use, Youth Substance Use Patterns Today,

Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and General Drug Use Patterns, • A Focus on Research: Kopak’s Drug Use Among

Latino Youth: Two Popular Criminological Perspectives Infused With Latino Culture, Rates of Serious or Risky Youth Substance Use, The Repercussions of Serious Substance Use, • On the Media: Dope,

The Relationship of Substance Use to Delinquency, Gender, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality Factors, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Mind Body Awareness Project,

Responses to and Prevention of Youth Drug Use, Media Campaigns, Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.), Drug Testing, Drug Courts, Drug Rehabilitation Programs, • In the News: The War on Drugs Is a War on Kids, Differing Policy Approaches: Drug Prohibition, Legalization, and Harm Reduction Strategies, Cultural Issues and Drug Prevention and Rehabilitation Programs,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Finding Culturally Relevant Drug Prevention/Treatment Programs, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

PART 4. RESPONSES TO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, Chapter 11. Why a Separate Juvenile Justice System?,

Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, What Is the Goal of the Juvenile Justice System?, Justifications for Punishment,

• From the Classroom to the Community: The Equal Justice Initiative,

Juvenile Justice and Specialized Terminology, Philosophical Shifts and the Legal Treatment of Juveniles,

The Due Process Revolution, The “Get Tough” Period: An Emphasis on Retribution, Incapacitation, and Deterrence, The Federal Response to the “Get Tough” Trend: The

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, Turning Tides? The 2000s and the Reassertion of Youth Differences, • In the News: Why So Many Hawaiian, Samoan, and Filipino Youth in the Justice System?, • On the Media: Oyez!—Online Resources on U.S. Supreme Court Juvenile Justice Cases,

The Future of Juvenile Justice, • A Focus on Research: Dobbs’s Beautiful Brains: Scientific Discoveries about Adolescent Brain Development,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: A Look Abroad: The Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency in Iran, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 12. Policing and the Process of the Juvenile Court, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Police and Juveniles,

Roles of the Police, Police-Juvenile Interactions,

An Overview of the Juvenile Justice Process, Jurisdiction: Transfer to the Criminal Court or Remain in the Juvenile Court?, • In the News: Charging Juveniles as Adults Not Unusual: Law Requires Prosecutors to Charge Many Teens as Adults for Specific Set of Crimes, Diversion, Preadjudication Stage, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Juvenile Collateral Consequences Project, Adjudication Stage, • On the Media: Juvenile Injustice: The “Cradle to Prison Pipeline” Zine Series, Disposition Stage,

The Juvenile Justice Process and Race, Class, and Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Unequal Treatment, Gender and Unequal Treatment,

Family Court, The Juvenile Dependency Process, Crossover Youth: From Dependency Court to the Juvenile Justice System, • A Focus on Research: Victory’s Structured Abuse: Life in a Group Home,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Juvenile Intake Screening, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 13. Juvenile Corrections, Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Community Corrections,

Probation, Restitution, Home Confinement: Electronic Monitoring, Foster Homes/Group Homes/Halfway Houses,

Institutional Corrections, Detention Facilities: Preadjudication, • On the Media: They Call Us Monsters, Juvenile Correctional Institutions: Postadjudication, Boot Camps, • In the News: Hemorrhaging Florida Teen Dies in Custody Because Guards Think He Is Faking, Private Institutions, Jail/Prison, Reentry, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange: Stop Solitary for Kids: A National Campaign for Change,

Corrections and Gender, Race, Undocumented Youth, and LGBTQ Intersections,

Corrections and Gender, Corrections and Race, Corrections and Undocumented Youth, Corrections and LGBTQ Youth, • A Focus on Research: Sharma’s Contesting Institutional Discourse to Create New Possibilities for

Understanding Lived Experience: Life Stories of Young Women in Detention, Rehabilitation, and Education,

Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: A Look at Juvenile Institutions and Policies, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Chapter 14. Preventative, Rehabilitative, and Restorative Approaches to Delinquency,

Chapter Objectives, Chapter Pretest, Prevention,

• In the News: Attorney Dismisses Injunction Against Two Oakland Gangs, Screening and Early Intervention, Nurse-Family Partnerships, Early Education, School- or Community-Based Education and Skill- Based Programs, After-School Programs, Mentoring Programs,

Rehabilitation, Therapeutic Approaches, Prevention and Rehabilitation: Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and LGBT Intersections, • A Focus on Research: Salisbury, Dabney, and Russell’s Diverting Victims of Commercial Sexual Exploitation From Juvenile Detention,

Restorative Justice Approaches, • On the Media: Online Tools to Expunge Juvenile Records, Victim-Offender Mediation, Family Group Conferencing, Restorative Justice Circles, Restorative Justice and Institutional Change, Juvenile Restorative Justice, and Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender Intersections,

A Comprehensive Approach: The Models for Change

Program, Models for Change, • From the Classroom to the Community: The Community Youth Center and Support Services for Asian and Pacific Islander Youth,

The Future of Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Restorative Justice Approaches to Delinquency, Summary, Eye on Diversity Exercise: Global Approaches to Delinquency, Discussion Questions, Key Terms, Chapter Pretest Answers,

Glossary, Notes, Index, About the Authors,

Preface

My husband and I joke a lot about our sons. One of our sons is easily influenced by the threat of punishment. He will pretty much do anything to not receive a time-out. He is our gentle giant. Our other son is unconcerned by punishment, and we refer to him as our mafia don. I have a sneaking suspicion we may be bailing him out of juvie one day. Or he will become the next Zen Master—it could go either way. I love to watch these two kids and wonder what their futures will hold. Will they be into theater? And sports? Will they love school, like I did? Or rather spend all day outside talking each other into jumping off the roof of the house like my husband and his brother did? Will we hit a rough patch where they won’t want to talk to us? Will they come out the other side of their teenage years happy and healthy, with a strong dose of empathy for their fellow citizens?

One of the things I wonder most about my kids is whether they will engage in delinquency—or actually, more to the point, whether they will be caught and end up in the juvenile justice system. As you will see (and as you know, if you have ever been a teenager), almost everyone engages in some form of juvenile delinquency, or status offense, or ends up being a victim of it. The reasons for this are many, but two of the largest are that, first, the term juvenile delinquency (in addition to status offense) covers such a large array of behaviors and, second, we are constantly redefining behaviors that in the past were not considered delinquency and making them so. As the mother of two amazing boys, this scares the heck out of me and at the same time makes me certain that the study of juvenile delinquency and our societal responses to it is one of the most important academic endeavors a sociologist, a criminologist, or you, an undergraduate student, faces. I have taught juvenile delinquency for almost two decades. I never tire of the opportunity to explore this topic with undergraduates, but I have always wished that there were a text more dedicated to diversity that made central discussions of race, class, gender, and sexuality issues (or, in many instances, an acknowledgment of the lack of research in these areas). Enter my colleague and friend, Richelle Swan.

The two of us wrote this book. And throughout the text you will see examples and stories that come from our lives and scenarios based on the

lives of others. At times, we have written these in the first person—some are from Kristin, some from Richelle—but all illustrate the importance of a critical understanding of juvenile delinquency in a diverse society. So why did we write this book? While teaching juvenile delinquency we have observed several things: (1) Most books take a mainstream approach to juvenile delinquency and fail to emphasize the social diversity that explains varying experiences and behavior; (2) many students have never been introduced to a systematic critical approach to evaluating social behavior and social institutions such as juvenile delinquency and the juvenile justice system; (3) students learn more from real-world examples (of both delinquency and public policy) than they do from purely theoretical discussions; and (4) after taking a juvenile delinquency course, students are often more inspired to “do more” or “get involved” than they are at the end of almost any other course in the area of criminology.

This textbook is written from a critical perspective. It offers several innovative features that set it apart from other textbooks on the market. First, it offers a systematic critical understanding of juvenile delinquency, focusing on issues of race, class, and gender. Second, it substantively links theories of delinquency, not only to existing public policies but to existing community programs that focus on a critical response to juvenile delinquency and social control. And, finally, it guides you, the student, to explore the diversity in your own community and what this means for juvenile delinquency and social control where you live.

What’s New? Preparing a new edition of a book is both a rewarding and scary prospect. Rewarding because it suggests that the previous editions have been well- received and students and colleagues see some merit in the book. However, if the previous editions have been well-received, it is scary to change what we and others have grown to love. We wish to emphasize again how great the reviewers of our earlier efforts were. They helped guide several new substantive directions and also helped us maintain the philosophy and heart of the book as one that explores juvenile delinquency in a diverse society:

We reorganized each chapter to remove the spotlight boxes and, where appropriate, incorporate this information into the body of the text.

This allowed us to add a new textbox, On the Media, to each chapter that explores the impact of social media and new technologies on our understanding of juvenile delinquency. Throughout the book, we updated the research and, where possible, included more extensive discussions of LGBTQ youth, American Indian youth, and Asian and Pacific Islander youth. We also added tables in the theory chapters of the book (Chapters 4, 5, and 6) that summarize the theories’ main points. In Chapter 1, we added a new section on the juvenile justice system and diversity to introduce the topics that are found in the last four chapters of the book. In Chapter 2, we expanded the discussion of media panics about delinquency to include more on gaming and delinquency and the Internet and delinquency. In Chapter 3, we updated all the tables and figures to include the new trends that have developed in official and self-reported data on juvenile delinquency. In Chapter 4, we included extensive discussions of pre-classical, classical, biological, biosocial, and psychological theories. In addition, we offer a current example of the Flint, Michigan water crisis in the context of these theories. In Chapter 5, we updated the research on macro-structural theories and added an analysis of social disorganization and mass incarceration. In Chapter 6, we added consideration of gendered pathways theory. In Chapter 7, we added a new section on foster care and foster youth. In Chapter 8, we added a section on the school and student rights with a discussion of Supreme Court cases. In Chapter 9, we significantly expanded the section on the use of technology as a means of peer interaction and updated the discussion of sexting. In Chapter 10, we incorporated information about family drug use and significantly updated data related to the use of legal products and youth substance use patterns. We also added an expanded analysis of the war on drugs and an analysis of the effects of marijuana legalization on youth. In Chapter 11, we added the most recent decisions on juvenile justice by the U.S. Supreme Court and updated the section on the future of juvenile justice. In Chapter 12, we included an extensive discussion of the police and

juveniles. In Chapter 13, we added to the discussion of life without parole and solitary confinement for juveniles. In Chapter 14, we revised the prevention section to have stronger emphasis on the structural factors needed for effective delinquency prevention, added a consideration of diverting victims of sexual exploitation from detention, and added a new section on restorative justice and LGBT youth. Finally, we created pretests with answers for each chapter.

Special Tools for Learning Our goals are made evident in each chapter and throughout the text through a variety of specific learning features:

Juvenile Delinquency Vignette: Each chapter opens with a vignette that illustrates the concepts of the chapter from a diverse or critical perspective. These vignettes are used throughout the chapters to illustrate chapter concepts. In the News: One of the most successful parts of our juvenile delinquency courses is making the concepts of juvenile delinquency come alive to students by linking them to current events. Each chapter offers an example of a current event (in box format) that links a main concept from that chapter to a “real world” example. From the Classroom to the Community: This box will focus on how social science can influence/shape public policy and community experiences. We highlight examples of collaborative learning and community action and/or specific public policies addressing juveniles and juvenile delinquency. A Focus on Research: Each chapter highlights an influential piece of research that focuses on the experiences of a diverse population with juvenile delinquency and/or social control. For example, we focus on research on foster children, runaways, LGBTQ youth, youth of color, poor youth, and girls (among other diverse populations). On the Media: Each chapter will include a consideration of how different forms of traditional or social media are used to convey ideas about delinquency or to publicize acts of delinquency. Eye on Diversity Exercise: While each chapter will have woven throughout its main text a sociological discussion of the relationship

between a diverse society and juvenile delinquency, each chapter will also end with a very specific class exercise or service learning example that can be used as either a starting point for class discussion or a class activity/assignment. Discussion Questions: Each chapter additionally has a set of thought- provoking questions that can be used as the basis of in-class or online discussions. These questions draw upon material from the entire chapter and serve as good review tools. Chapter Pretest: Each chapter starts with a True/False pretest that allows students to test their knowledge before reading the chapter, to help address misconceptions up front. The answers are found at the end of the chapter.

Digital Resources SAGE edge offers a robust online environment featuring an impressive array of tools and resources for review, study, and further exploration, keeping both instructors and students on the cutting edge of teaching and learning. SAGE edge content is open access and available on demand. Learning and teaching has never been easier!

edge.sagepub.com/bates2e

Instructor Teaching Site SAGE edge for Instructors supports teaching by making it easy to integrate quality content and create a rich learning environment for students.

These resources include an extensive test bank, chapter-specific PowerPoint presentations, lecture notes, sample syllabi for semester and quarter courses, SAGE journal articles with accompanying review questions, video links, and web resources.

Student Study Site SAGE edge for Students provides a personalized approach to help students accomplish their coursework goals in an easy-to-use learning

http://edge.sagepub.com/bates2e

environment.

This site includes mobile-friendly eFlashcards and web quizzes, SAGE journal articles with accompanying review questions, video links, and web resources.

In the end, what we wanted to write was a text that sparks your critical sociological imaginations; that helps you understand our diverse society and the connections between individual experiences, social institutions, and power; and that helps you see there are important questions (and continuing questions) about how we define and how we respond to juvenile delinquency. But, most importantly, we hope this text inspires you to wonder about the future of the children around you and inspires you to act for those children. As you will see, there is a lot to do.

However this text inspires you, we wish you the best in your explorations.

Acknowledgments

Our deepest appreciation to Jerry Westby at SAGE Publications. Jerry championed our vision with sincerity, warmth, and humor. Special thanks to Jerry’s team for help with our second edition: Jessica Miller, Laura Kirkhuff, Jennifer Rubio, David Felts, and Diana Breti. We also thank Theresa Accomazzo and Megan Krattli, MaryAnn Vail, Rachael Leblond, Laura Barrett, Melinda Masson, and Scott Van Atta for their help on the first edition of this book. The team at SAGE was devoted to creating a text that was true to our vision and that would speak to both instructors and students.

We want to especially thank the California State University, San Marcos Department of Sociology. Our colleagues are truly outstanding. They support our professional endeavors, but, even more important, they support us personally. Their open hearts and critical perspective enrich our lives in and outside of work. It is wonderful to be inspired and to learn from our colleagues and friends. Hard to believe we are lucky enough to build careers here! We would also like to thank all of our students—they know that we often run ideas for our books by them in class and we really appreciate their feedback. In addition, we would like to thank the student research assistants who helped us stay up to date on the latest findings related to juvenile delinquency: Lexus Criswell, Jennifer Seidlitz, Olivia Victory, Sharghi Jami, Miranda Mendez, Emely Yanagida, Claudia Caywood, and Xochitl Palacios. Big thanks to Jeff Henson and Allen Lanese for all the computing help they provided us during moments of desperation. We would also like to thank the individuals who contributed to our online resource sites: Dawn Lee, Olivia Victory, Robbin Brooks and Rachael Zeller, Rita Naranjo, Diego Avalos, and Leo Sanchez.

Kristin would like to thank her graduate school mentors and friends from the University of Washington Department of Sociology: Bob Crutchfield, George Bridges, Joe Weis, Michelle Inderbitzin, Randy Gainey, Charis Kubrin, Sara Steen, Rod Engen, Edie Simpson, Ed Day, Chris Bader, and Tim Wadsworth. I am told our time at the UW is not the usual graduate school experience—all I know is seeing you guys is like coming home to family. Speaking of family, a big sloppy kiss to my parents (Bill and Dee Ann) and sisters (Laurie and Julie) who taught me that a fierce love and a

great sense of humor are the best foundations for a happy life. I owe much of my sanity to the Friday night group: I hope when we are 80 we are still dedicated to a Friday night of carbs, good beer, and an ardent protection of the no-fun zone. Special thanks to Sharon Elise, Marisol Clark-Ibáñez, Kim Knowles-Yanez, Deirdre Lowell-Caldera, and Heather Craig, the women in my life who remind me to stop and breathe and take a little time with friends. And to Richelle Swan, my daytime partner: I understand how lucky I am to have a colleague (but, more important, a friend) who I can talk into crazy projects, to whom I feel comfortable reading my first drafts and unorganized thoughts, and who is so gentle with her critiques and lessons. I am not sure where I would be without you, and I know I wouldn’t have had half the fun getting there. Finally, all my love to Jeff, my nighttime partner: the yin to my yang, the type B to my type A, the up to my down. Thank you for making me laugh about doing all my work while crying.

Richelle would like to thank her mentors and professors from her two graduate programs at Arizona State University (Justice Studies) and the University of California at Irvine (Criminology, Law and Society) who sparked her interest in issues of law, delinquency, and social justice: John Dombrink, Kitty Calavita, Valerie Jenness, and Diego Vigil. In particular, I would like to thank Peg Bortner as the inspiration for much of the writing about youth that I am doing today. In addition, I’d like to express an enormous amount of appreciation and gratitude to Kristin Bates, my research and writing partner. I am so lucky to have met such a generous and intelligent friend and mentor. I am very thankful for all of your ingenious ideas and plans that you share with me and know there will be many more to come! I would also like to thank my parents, Sharon and Richard, for their unbelievable generosity and support through this and every other project I’ve ever pursued. Similarly, I’d like to thank my sister, Alicia, and all the other members of my family for the encouragement they gave me throughout the process. In particular, I’d like to thank Chendo for always being there for me, for his patience with my work schedule, and for the laughter he provided when I needed it the most. The valuable support of Maricela Chaídez, Marisol Clark-Ibáñez, Mercedes Ibáñez, Fay McGrew, Theresa Suarez, and Sharon Elise also helped me during both stages of this project. Thanks to all of you!

We are particularly grateful to the reviewers who provided valuable feedback on the manuscript.

Reviewers for the Second Edition Margie Ballard-Mack, South Carolina State University Amanda Barrientez, University of Colorado Boulder James Blair, South Texas College Michael D. Collins, William Penn University Brandi Copenhaver, Somerset Community College Nancy A. Horton, Kaplan University James M. Stewart, Calhoun Community College

Reviewers for the First Edition Kathryn Branch, University of Tampa–Tampa Robbin Brooks, Arizona State University–Downtown Phoenix Adam Langsam, Northwestern Oklahoma State University–Enid Shanell Sanchez-Smith, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Miyuki Tedor, Cleveland State University–Cleveland Shela Van Ness, University of Tennessee–Chattanooga Elizabeth Legerski, University of North Dakota School of Law– Grand Forks Gregory Lindsteadt, Missouri Western State College–Saint Joseph Tamara Lynn, Fort Hays State University–Hays Mónica Herrera Pérez, Holyoke Community College—Holyoke Edward Powers, University of Central Arkansas–Conway Martine Wehr, Saddleback College–Mission Viejo Justin Pickett, State University of New York–Albany Verna Jones, Jackson State University–Jackson Jeri Kirby, West Virginia University–Morgantown Lisa Kort-Butler, University of Nebraska–Lincoln Lois Presser, University of Tennessee–Knoxville Victor Shaw, California State University–Northridge Julie White, University of Massachusetts–Boston Kareem Jordan, University of Central Florida–Orlando Keith Durkin, Ohio Northern University–Ada Kristen DeVall, University of North Carolina–Wilmington Nadine Connell, University of Texas at Dallas–Richardson

Part 1: Understanding Juvenile Delinquency

©iStockphoto.com/Craig Dingle; U.S. National Archives and Records Administration; ©iStockphoto.com/olaser

Chapter 1: Thinking About Juvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society 2 Chapter 2: The Creation of Delinquency 32 Chapter 3: Understanding Delinquency: Data, Correlates, and Trends 58

Chapter 1 Thinking About Juvenile Delinquency in a Diverse Society

©iStockphoto.com/Craig Dingle

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe why juveniles are treated differently than adults Explain the difference between juvenile delinquency and status offenses Summarize the three conceptions of delinquency and how they relate to our responses to juvenile delinquency Identify the social context in which juveniles are living and its effect on the well-being of children Compare and contrast the concepts of individual and institutional racism, classism, and sexism Explain why intersectionality is important

Describe the role of the sociological imagination in explaining the societal response to juvenile delinquency

Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 30.

1. The definition of juvenile changes with time and geography. 2. Status offenses are low-level crimes that are more often

committed by juveniles than adults. 3. The normative conception of delinquency argues the definition of

delinquency is an objective fact with which everyone agrees. 4. The cradle-to-prison pipeline refers to the structural and social

issues that make it more likely some juveniles will go to prison than others.

5. The sociological imagination argues we must ignore as much of the outside forces as we can in order to focus on the juvenile if we want to understand delinquency.

6. The juvenile justice system was created under the same philosophy of personal responsibility and deterrence that the adult system was created under.

7. The formalization of the juvenile justice system means that juveniles are now treated equally and fairly in the system.

Michael was in trouble, again, for stealing cigarettes from the store (this was the sixth time he had been caught). He was only 10 years old, and it was suspected that his father had made Michael steal. He had been referred to juvenile court. Michael was a quiet child, with a younger sister at home. He lived part-time with his father and part-time with his mother and qualified for a pilot program of the juvenile court that provided transportation to his court hearings because his mother had no means of taking him herself. He met with his probation officer and attended his hearings, but never really participated in the court activities. Michael did not appear remorseful for his actions. In fact, he did not appear to care about much except his younger sister. One day his probation officer bought him a hamburger, but the boy wouldn’t eat it in the car. The probation officer thought he was worried about getting the car dirty, but the boy said he was saving it to share with his sister.

The next time the probation officer met with Michael, he asked him how he and his sister had liked the burger. Michael told him that the little girl had dropped her half in the dirt, so Michael had given her his half of the burger and eaten nothing himself. So yesterday, Michael was picked up a sixth time for stealing cigarettes at the corner store. What should happen to Michael?

Anthony had never been in trouble. He was also 10 years old. He was caught yesterday beating a neighborhood boy with a large stick. He broke the boy’s nose and his arm and chipped a tooth. Anthony claimed that the boy started it by always calling him names and bullying him and his friend. Anthony says that while he was walking home alone the boy started to call him names again and throw rocks at him. Anthony did have multiple bruises, but no one could tell if these bruises came from the rocks or the boy defending himself from Anthony’s attack. When the police approached Anthony, he immediately started to cry and say he was sorry. He asked for his parents, whom the police called. Anthony had never mentioned the bullying to his parents, or any other adults in his life, but both his parents said that since school started this year, Anthony had been a bit more withdrawn about school. What should happen to Anthony?

One of these stories is true. The other is made up. But both stories represent the experiences of children in the United States. It is rarely the case that deciding the future for a juvenile is easy, yet we do it every day through our school policies, the community programs we choose to or not to support, the juvenile justice legislation we vote for, and the philosophies we hold about agency and responsibility, social forces, and social structure.

So we ask you: What should happen to Michael and Anthony? Are they delinquent? Is one more delinquent than the other? Is either of them “savable”? What should we do with them? Ignore their behavior? Get them help? Charge them with crimes and punish them? And, more important, do you think you and your classmates will agree on an answer?

In this introductory chapter, we will equip you to begin answering such questions. In order to help you embark on your exploration of juvenile delinquency we will first explain a bit about historical approaches to juvenile delinquency in the United States, and place the study of juvenile delinquency in its bigger context. We will look at the state of children’s lives in contemporary U.S. society, and the social dynamics that impact youth and their families and peers today. In addition, we

will introduce you to different ways of defining juvenile delinquency and to concepts central to the critical lens we will be using in our analysis of delinquency in this book. This chapter asks you to actively engage in the analysis of several delinquency vignettes as well, in an effort to get you brainstorming about the many controversies inherent in the study of juvenile delinquency.

Defining Juvenile Delinquency This is a book about juvenile delinquency—how we define it, how we measure it, how we explain it, and how we try to control it. But when we say juvenile delinquency we are really talking about two things: juveniles and delinquency. So, at its core, this book is about the experiences of juveniles and the behavior that society has decided is unacceptable. Both need defining.

The Special Case of the Juvenile Defining children and childhood has not always been easy. The definition has been dependent on the historical period. Prior to the late 1800s in the United States, children were seen as an excellent source of cheap and dutiful labor; because of this, they were not seen that differently than adults in the eyes of institutions (government, family, or legal). With changes in labor laws, children gained some legal rights and, with those rights, began to establish an identity that was more distinct from that of adults. With these distinctions came new protections, new expectations, and new definitions for the juvenile.

Most simply, as of 2015, juveniles can be defined as those individuals who are under a certain age: 41 states and Washington, D.C., consider those under 18 to be juveniles, 7 states consider those under 17 to be juveniles, and 2 states (New York and North Carolina) consider those under the age of 16 to be juveniles.1 But there is more to being a juvenile than just age. In general, society believes that juveniles have several different attributes than adults. The first is that the young may not be as responsible for their behavior as adults. In other words, if both an 11-year-old and a 21-year-old engaged in the same bad behavior (say, hitting someone), it is likely we would cut the 11-year-old more slack than we would the 21-year-old. This is because juveniles are less mature than adults, and we often see this lack

of maturity as a reason for their bad behavior. Closely related to this, we believe that juveniles can still be “saved.” In other words, we can rehabilitate them and teach them how to follow the rules and treat each other fairly. Ironically, this means that we have often treated them more harshly than adults in an attempt to teach them how to be better adults. We are less inclined to talk about saving adults. Finally, we believe that juveniles are innocent and in need of our protection. This includes protection from both outside forces (other adults, dangerous events, and other juveniles) and themselves.

In addition to different attributes, juveniles are mired in a different set of experiences than adults. First, juveniles claim a different position in society than adults. It is more likely that juveniles are being cared for by an adult and are not solely responsible for the care of others. In addition, juveniles hold less power in society than adults. Juveniles cannot vote, and they do not have the political power, or the relational power, of adults. In fact, some argue that childhood is the most oppressed time of an individual’s life.2 We demand obedience from children, we treat them in a way we would rarely treat adults (yelling at them in public, yelling at them in private, spanking them, giving them time-outs), and in many instances (far more than adults) we abuse them. They have far less say in the decisions about their life experiences than any other group. Finally, juveniles have the unique experience of school as their primary focus until they reach adulthood.

The Definition of Delinquency Even the definition of delinquency is a bit complicated. The truth is that the definition of delinquency has also been dependent on both the historical period and the geographic region. For example, delinquency is not uniformly defined throughout all states or even across counties. What is accepted in one region as “mischief” in another is defined as a crime. For example, a friend told us his story of growing up in Idaho and blowing up tree stumps with small sticks of dynamite with his friends. He lived in a small town with a lot of open space, a small population, and norms that were conducive to owning dynamite. The first time he told these stories, we were shocked at the fact he “got away” with using dynamite. Coming from an urban setting, with little open space, a large population, and norms that say that owning dynamite is dangerous and illegal, we couldn’t

believe that he was allowed to do this. In contrast, he never thought his behavior was delinquent, he didn’t hide it from the adults around him, and, when he looks back on these memories, he does so fondly, as an example of time spent outdoors with his friends. Had he tried to blow up a tree stump in our hometowns in the 1980s (when we were growing up), he would have been considered delinquent and arrested. If he tried to blow up a stump in our hometowns today, his act might even be defined as terrorism.

The definition of juvenile delinquency, then, is dependent on both our definition of the juvenile, and the time and place we are in. In the simplest terms, today, the definition of delinquency is an act committed by an individual under the age of 18 that violates the penal code of the region in which the act is committed. However, even this legal definition is in flux. In some states, acts committed by those under 18 can be considered crimes and the individual treated as an adult if the state has defined that behavior as too serious to treat the juvenile as a child. For example, in California, legislation was approved in 2000 that allows for juveniles who engage in many violent or serious crimes, or who are alleged gang members engaging in a wider range of crimes, to be defined as adults and moved to the adult criminal justice system.

In addition to delinquent acts, juveniles are subject to a second class of behaviors for which they can get into trouble. These acts are called status offenses. Status offenses are acts that are not considered crimes and for which adults cannot get in trouble, but that society does not want juveniles doing. These include running away from home (most often defined as an unauthorized absence from the home for 24 hours or more), school truancy (systematic absence from school), drinking alcoholic beverages or smoking cigarettes, and incorrigibility (repeated disobedient behavior in the home). Technically, juveniles should not be treated as delinquents for engaging in status offenses. In other words, the general policy is that juveniles should not be arrested or formally treated by the juvenile court for behavior that falls in this category. But, in reality, sometimes they are, especially if they are considered “chronic status offenders.” Chronic status offenders are those who engage in repeated and systematic behavior even after the behavior has been addressed by school, family, or a social service agency.

Status offenses: Acts that are considered problematic because of the

age of the person carrying them out (e.g., truancy and curfew violations).

on the Media: Live Streaming Delinquency and Crime

The social media landscape is ever changing, and it isn’t just those who grew up before home computers that have a hard time keeping up sometimes. Live streaming apps such as Periscope and Facebook Live can offer some fairly entertaining moments as individuals accidentally walk naked in front of phones and computers they do not know are live streaming. But recently, such apps have also been used to record crimes.

A high school student was recently arrested for live streaming her 17- year-old friend’s rape. Although she said that she initially recorded the rape to preserve evidence, the prosecutor alleges that over the course of the 10-minute video she got “caught up in the likes” and focused on the live stream rather than trying to help her friend.

This begs the question of the impact of such rapidly changing social media on juveniles’ (and adults’) understanding of how the world works and the place of each of us to act in that social world, rather than just offering it up as observations for “likes” and “shares.”

Discussion Questions 1. Describe all the ways that youth use social media in their

everyday lives. How are these experiences with social media similar to interactions that might have occurred before social media existed? How are these experiences different?

2. Give an example of how social media might be used to encourage delinquency. Give an example of how it might be used to discourage delinquency.

Source: Adapted from McPhate, M. (2016, April 18). Teenager Is Accused of Live-Streaming a Friend’s Rape on Periscope. New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/us/periscope-rape-case-columbus- ohio-video-livestreaming.html?_r=0

Conceptions of Juvenile Delinquency

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/19/us/periscope-rape-case-columbus-ohio-video-livestreaming.html?_r=0

Normative Conception of Delinquency How we define juvenile delinquency is also dependent on our general conceptions of misbehavior and deviance. Many believe that juvenile delinquency is a social construct, and even those who believe in a more normative conception of delinquency acknowledge that race, class, and gender (among other such concepts as age, sexual orientation, nationality, and ability) are somehow connected to delinquency.

It is more likely deviance textbooks than delinquency textbooks that discuss conceptions of deviance and delinquency, but it is important to understand that our definitions of delinquency are not black-and-white. They are based on conceptual orientations about how definitions are created. Rubington and Weinberg argue that there are generally two ways of conceptualizing deviance and delinquency as either “objectively given” or “subjectively problematic.”3 Clinard and Meier also suggest two general conceptions, the reactionist or relativist conception and the normative conception.4 Thio argues that we can view deviance from a positivist perspective or a constructionist perspective.5

Normative conception of delinquency: A conception that assumes that there is a general set of norms of behavior, conduct, and conditions with which we can agree.

While none of these authors are using the same language, they are defining similar ways of conceptualizing “misbehavior.” The first conception—that of an “objectively given,” normative, or positivist conception of deviance —assumes that there is a general set of norms of behavior, conduct, and conditions with which we can all agree. Norms are rules of behavior that guide people’s actions. W. G. Sumner broke norms down into three categories: folkways, mores, and laws. Folkways are everyday norms that do not generate much uproar if they are violated.6 Think of them as behaviors that might be considered rude if engaged in—like standing too close to someone while speaking or picking one’s nose. Mores are “moral” norms that may generate more outrage if broken. In a capitalist society, homelessness and unemployment can elicit outrage if the person is considered unworthy of sympathy. Similarly, drinking too much or alcoholism may be seen as a lapse in moral judgment. Finally, the third type of norm is the law, which is considered the strongest norm because it

is backed by official sanctions (or a formal response). In this conception, then, deviance and delinquency becomes a violation of a rule understood by the majority of the group. This rule may be minor, in which case the individual is seen as fairly harmless, or the rule may be major, in which case the individual is seen as “criminal.” The obvious problem with this conceptualization goes back to the earlier example of Michael and Anthony. It is unlikely you and your classmates agree on the definition of delinquency and crime in those two cases. This leads to the second conception.

Many behaviors that are not considered crimes for adults are still considered wrong for juveniles. These acts are called status offenses.

©iStockphoto.com/Lena Rostunova

Social Constructionist Conception of Delinquency

The second conception of delinquency—the “subjectively problematic,” reactionist/relativist, social constructionist conception—assumes that the definition of deviance and delinquency is constructed based on the interactions of those in society. According to this conception, behaviors or conditions are not inherently deviant; they become so when the definition of deviance is applied to them. The study of deviance is not about why certain individuals violate norms, but instead about how those norms are constructed. Social constructionists believe that our understanding of the world is in constant negotiation between actors. Those who have a relativist conception define deviance and delinquency as those behaviors that elicit a definition or label of deviance:

Social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders. For this point of view, deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an “offender.” The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label.7

This is a fruitful conceptualization, but is also problematic. What about very serious violations of norms that are never known or reacted to? Some strict reactionists/relativists would argue that these acts (beliefs or attitudes) are not deviant. Most of us would agree that killing someone and making it look like he simply skipped the country is deviant; however, there may be no reaction.

Folkways: Everyday norms that do not generate much uproar if they are violated.

Mores: “Moral” norms that may generate more outrage if broken.

Laws: The strongest norms because they are backed by official sanctions.

Social constructions of delinquency: Popular ideas about delinquency that are created and influenced by social, political, and economic factors and that change over time.

Critical Conception of Delinquency A third conception of deviance and delinquency that has not been advanced in many textbooks is a critical conception.8 Those working from a critical conception argue that the normative understanding of deviance and delinquency is established by those in power to maintain and enhance their power. It suggests that explorations of both have focused on a white, male, middle- to upper-class understanding of society that implies that people of color, girls, and youth from working poor neighborhoods are, by definition, delinquent. Instead of focusing on individual types of deviance or delinquency, this conception critiques the social system that exists that creates such norms in the first place. This too is a useful approach, but, frankly, there are many things that the vast majority of society agrees are immoral, unethical, and deviant and should be illegal, and the system actually serves to protect society’s interests. This book adopts a critical approach to crime and delinquency, but offers a discussion of the theories that fall under both the normative conception and the social constructionist conception of delinquency (see Table 1.1).

The Well-Being of Children In order to better understand juvenile behavior (delinquent and nondelinquent) in the United States, it is important to understand the social context in which juveniles are living. Since 1994, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has partnered with several other federal agencies to track the well-being of children in the United States. Its priorities were to foster better collection of data and communication between agencies and the community on the state of children and childhood. Part of this effort is a yearly report, America’s Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being.9 The report tracks seven key areas of well-being, including family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health.

The most recent study reports that there were 73.6 million children (ages 0–17) in the United States in 2014. These numbers are projected to increase over the next 30 years. Approximately one third of those children fall in the age range of 12–17 (25 million, 2014 numbers). While the overall number of children has been increasing in recent years (and the increase is projected to continue), the proportion of children to adults has been decreasing, down from 36% in 1964 to 23.1% in 2014. This decrease in proportion of the entire population is due largely to the decrease in the mortality rate (i.e., people are living longer).

Racial and ethnic diversity is also increasing among children. In 2014, 51.9% of children were white (non-Hispanic), 24.4% were Hispanic, 13.8% were black, 4.8% were Asian, 0.9% were American Indian or Alaskan Native, 0.2% were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and 4.1% were two or more races.12 It is projected that by 2050, Latino children will be 32% of children, with white children making up 39% of the child population.

Critical conception of delinquency: A conception that critiques the existing social system that creates norms of oppression.

A Focus on Research: Samuel Phillips Day’s “Juvenile Crime: Its Cause, Character, and Cure”

In 1858, Samuel Phillips Day wrote an article on juvenile delinquents, titled “Juvenile Crime: Its Cause, Character, and Cure.” Day argued that examining juvenile crime is even more important that examining adult crime, because the juvenile is the embodiment of the future and the past. Day listed the causes of delinquency as “pauperism, compulsion, evil example, temptation, and hereditary predisposition; incommodious dwellings and low lodging-houses; ignorance, intemperance, minor theatres, penny gaffs, dancing and singing saloons, gaming and betting.”10

As to the cure for delinquency, Day lamented the misdirection of “current” programs and policies, the waste of resources put toward these misguided programs, and the indifference he felt that much of society had for saving children. “There is more wisdom, more care, more knowledge applied in England, if not elsewhere, to the origin and growth of animals than to human beings; the latter owe their origin and growth to fortuitous circumstances, the former to intelligent care and scientific foresight. It is to this unpardonable neglect and stultified apathy that are due the horrible crimes and miseries set forth.”11

Day concluded that while the “old” are beyond training, society should focus on the young because the young can still be saved from bad families and bad social training.

Discussion Question As you read the chapters in this book, think about Day’s characterization of juveniles and the causes of juvenile delinquency. Do we still characterize juveniles and juvenile delinquency this way?

Economic Circumstances The report offers several indicators of the economic well-being of children. The percentage of children living in poverty has increased in the last decade from its low in 2000 and 2001 of 16% to 20% in 2013. But what is most striking is the link between race and ethnicity and the likelihood of living in poverty. In 2013, 39% of black, non-Hispanic children; 30% of Hispanic children; and 11% of white, non-Hispanic children lived in poverty. This means that the poverty rate was 3.5 times

higher for black than for white youth and almost 3 times higher for Latino children than for white children. And as for a statistic that might be an indicator of the growing gap between those at the bottom and those at the top, both the percentage of children living in extreme poverty and the percentage of those living in households with very high incomes increased (extreme poverty increased from 7% to 9% between 2000 and 2013, and very high-income households increased from 7% to 13% between 1991 and 2013). In addition, 21% of children (15.8 million) lived in a household that was considered food insecure in 2013. Food insecurity is defined as reduced food intake; difficulty obtaining food, including a poor-quality diet because food cannot be obtained; and anxiety about obtaining food. While some food-insecure households managed to keep the effects from the children in the household (the adults reported they went without food so that the children did not have to), a majority of the households reported that children’s eating patterns and diets were affected, too.

Physical Environment and Safety Although the percentage of children living in polluted conditions has decreased, in 2013, approximately 50% of all children still lived in an area where at least one air pollutant was above the allowable levels. Water pollutants have also decreased since these reports were first created. The percentage of children who lived in areas where the community drinking water did not meet health-based standards decreased from 18% in 1993 to 6% in 2013 (although it has fluctuated between 5% and 11% over the past 15 years). Although air and water pollutants have been decreasing, inadequate housing has been increasing for children. Inadequate housing is measured by crowding, physical inadequateness, and cost burden (greater than 30% of family income). Forty percent of households with children suffer from at least one of these housing problems. In addition, “during 2009, an estimated 346,000 children utilized homeless shelters or transitional housing services, a rate of 4.6 per 1,000 children.”13 And, an estimated 138,000 children, or 2 per 1,000 children, were found to be homeless during at least one night in 2013.

One of the most troubling conditions in the United States is the number of children living in poverty. Almost 1 in 4 children live below the poverty level, with proportionally more youth of color than white youth living in poverty.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images

Education Educational attainment has also been increasing for juveniles. The percentage of children graduating with a diploma or GED increased from 84% to 92% between 1980 and 2013. But these levels were not the same for all children. White children increased their graduation rate from 87% in 1980 to 94% in 2013, while black children increased their rate from 75% in 1980 to 92% in 2013. Latino children had the greatest percentage increase, but they had consistently lower graduation rates than either white or black children: 57% in 1980 and 85% in 2013.

In addition to high school graduation rates, the percentage of those who enroll in college right after high school has increased (although it has

fluctuated) from 49% in 1980 to 66% in 2013. These percentages have also been dependent on race and ethnicity. White youth are more likely to immediately enroll in college (67%) compared to black (57%) and Latino (66%) youth. Gender also influences this likelihood. In 2013, 64% of males, but 68% of females, immediately enrolled in college. Although the percentages by gender fluctuate significantly, for many years there was no statistical difference in the likelihood to enroll by gender. It is interesting to note that the likelihood to enroll in college decreased for all groups (except Latinos) between 2009 and 2013, perhaps due to the impact of the economic challenges in the United States and their effect on the affordability of college.

The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline

A black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime; a Latino boy a 1 in 6 chance; and a white boy a 1 in 17 chance. A black girl born in 2001 has a 1 in 17 chance of going to prison in her lifetime; a Latina girl a 1 in 45 chance; and a white girl a 1 in 111 chance.14

While many well-being indicators for youth are decreasing, educational attainment is increasing; however, compared to other countries (see Chapter 8, on schools and delinquency), the United States still lags behind.

©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Futcher

The Children’s Defense Fund, a nonprofit organization, has identified a phenomenon it refers to as the cradle-to-prison pipeline (see Figure 1.1; in Chapter 8 you will learn about the school-to-prison pipeline). The cradle- to-prison pipeline refers to the many issues for children that make it more likely they will become incarcerated at some stage in their lives. These issues include pervasive poverty, inadequate access to health coverage, gaps in early childhood development, disparate educational opportunities, intolerable abuse and neglect, unmet mental and emotional problems, substance abuse, and overburdened, ineffective educational and juvenile justice systems that focus on zero tolerance and other suppression policies.15

What do these indicators tell us about the overall health and well-being of juveniles in this country? For the most part, indicators tell us that children are doing better in many ways now than they were 40 years ago—children are less likely to be living in a polluted area and more likely to have clean drinking water, more likely to graduate from high school, and more likely to enroll immediately in college. However, there are several things of which to be cautious. First, even though conditions are getting better for youth in some arenas, economic conditions are actually worse for children; more youth live in economic uncertainty now, insecure about both shelter and food. And both the gains and the losses made for children are dependent on race and ethnicity, gender, and class. In other words, whether a juvenile is black, Latino, white, Native American, or Asian, and whether the juvenile is male or female, or from a working poor or well-off family, impacts his or her experiences in the United States.

The United States as a Place Where Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality Are Important What does it mean when we say that in the United States race, class, and gender still matter? It means that in the United States we have different experiences based on our race/ethnicity, class, and gender (we also have

different experiences based on our age, sexual orientation, nationality, and abilities). One of the reasons we have these different experiences is because in the United States we define, describe, and distinguish people based on these different categories. This process is called social differentiation.16 Some categories are ascribed, meaning you are born into them and cannot change them; your race is an example of this. Some categories are achieved, meaning that they are more flexible, or that you have a better chance of changing them if you wish (or you can try to change them); your social class and religion are examples of these. Social differentiation leads to ranking; in other words, as we differentiate between people based on certain categories, we tend to rank the levels of these categories. For example, is it better to be rich or poor, educated or not educated, an adult or a child? These rankings are what form social inequality. Once the levels of a category such as age, race, gender, or class have had values placed on them (i.e., they have been ranked), we have placed “judgments of inequalities” on them.17 We have implicitly or explicitly decided it is better to be one value in that category than another. These value judgments may be more implicit than explicit, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. For example, no one comes right out and says it is better to be an adult than a child, and, in fact, some who have an idealized sense of childhood may argue that being a child is better. But when you examine the level of power that is conferred on adulthood and childhood, it is easy to see that juveniles have much less power than adults have. They are more oppressed and rely on the “kindness of strangers” more than adults.

Figure 1.1 The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline

Source: Created using piktochart.com.

From the Classroom to the Community: Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth

The Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth is a project at the Northwestern University School of Law that investigates convictions of youth who have some credible basis for a claim of innocence. It is the only innocence project in the country that focuses on juveniles (instead of adults). The center believes that age may be a contributing factor to a wrongful conviction.

Among the leading contributors to wrongful convictions are false confessions. While it seems unlikely to many of us that we would ever falsely confess to a serious crime we did not commit, this has happened in numerous cases. Youth are overrepresented in false confession wrongful convictions. There are several reasons this is the case. First, law enforcement interrogation tactics are designed to be unbearable; police emphasize that the individual is already caught, and there is little to no hope that the accused will go free. In addition, the techniques include long periods of interrogation and, oftentimes, false information about the state of the case. These tactics are allowed to be used on juveniles. Second, youth are socialized to respect authority and authority figures such as the police. The combination of harsh tactics and youth who often trust and want to please the police means that false confessions can be likely. Youth who made false confessions and were finally exonerated report that they thought if they told the police what they wanted to hear they would be able to go home to their families.

In addition, juveniles are unsophisticated and are, therefore, less aware of their rights and less likely to be able to understand the long-term consequences of their confessions. Even when read their Miranda rights juveniles often do not understand the intricacies of those rights (for example, that they are allowed to actually remain silent and not answer police questions). The combination of not understanding their rights and failing to recognize the long-term consequences of confessing means that youth will falsely confess in hopes of getting out of the interrogation room. As of 2016, more than 100 individuals convicted as youth have had their cases overturned as wrongful convictions, and some of these individuals spent more than 20 years in prison before

they were exonerated.

Discussion Questions 1. What are the reasons that youth might offer a false confession to a

crime they did not commit? How is it that juveniles might be more susceptible to these confessions than adults?

2. What safeguards could be put in place to ensure that juveniles do not engage in false confessions?

Source: Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth. (2009). Northwestern University School of Law. Retrieved from http://cwcy.org/Default.aspx

Social differentiation: The process by which we define, describe, and distinguish people based on different categories.

Ascribed category: A category that an individual is born into and cannot change.

Individual Versus Institutional Racism, Classism, and Sexism Individual racism, classism, or sexism occur when individuals hold personal attitudes of prejudice based on race, class, or gender and act on these attitudes in a discriminatory fashion.18 This prejudice and discrimination can appear as the stereotyping of individuals based on their race, class, or gender. An example of this is the stereotype that girls are more delicate and prone to crying and hysteria than boys so they should not be trusted to do certain jobs or be in charge of important events. Sometimes individual racism, classism, and sexism are most evident in a person’s speech; especially among young people they might manifest themselves in name-calling and bullying. But individual acts of racism, classism, and sexism can have a strong impact on the juvenile experience beyond bullying. For example, a teacher who assumes that most young, Latino men are in gangs has made a racist assumption that might impact the education that young Latinos receive in his classroom. A police officer who has classist beliefs about who is most likely to use drugs (she believes

http://cwcy.org/Default.aspx

that working-class juveniles use drugs more than wealthy juveniles) might focus her policing in poor neighborhoods or handle teens from rich neighborhoods informally by taking them home to their parents if they get in trouble, while handling poorer teens formally and arresting them for their bad behavior.

Although racism, sexism, and classism were more overt in the past (e.g., schools—and other institutions—were segregated), there are still many examples of race, class, and gender impacting individual experiences in the United States. How might the experiences of these children differ over time?

©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Futcher

Achieved category: A flexible category that individuals may be able to move in and out of.

Social inequality: Unequal distribution of resources, services, and positions.

Individual classism: Prejudice or discrimination based solely on

someone’s class.

Individual racism: The belief in the inferiority of certain racial or ethnic groups, often accompanied by discrimination.

Individual sexism: Prejudice or discrimination based solely on someone’s sex.

Institutional classism: Classism that occurs when individuals are disadvantaged or oppressed because of their class because of the routine workings of social institutions.

Institutional racism: Racism that occurs when individuals are disadvantaged or oppressed because of their race because of the routine workings of social institutions.

In the News: The Income Gap

A lot has been heard in the news lately about the income gap in the United States and the world. The United States ranks worse than most of Europe and Asia, including India and China, and large parts of Africa. While no country has income equality, the gap has been increasing significantly in the United States over the last 30 years. The average household income (adjusted for inflation) has not changed over the last three decades while the average household income for the top 1% has almost quadrupled (see Figure 1.2). The gap is puzzling to some economists who see industrialized countries as the least likely to experience an income gap. The idea is that a gap forms and exists for a while with a transition from one economic system, say agrarian to industrialized, but eventually those at the bottom start to catch up as everyone moves into better-paying jobs. However, this has not happened this time. One of the speculations is that education is not affordable for all households in the United States, so those in the bottom percentiles do not have the resources and therefore the opportunity to advance, while those at the top continue to accumulate wealth. We expect this will have a detrimental effect on juveniles in the United States if education remains out of reach for a portion of them.

Figure 1.2 The Income Gap in the United States, 1970–2014

Source: Gilson and Perot (2011).

Discussion Question 1. In addition to a lack of education, what might be other reasons

that the income gap in the United States is increasing instead of decreasing? When coming up with your answers, determine whether you are focusing on characteristics of those in the upper or lower economic groups or on broader, macro concerns, such as institutional characteristics.

Individual racism, classism, and sexism are important aspects of the juvenile experience in the United States, but institutional racism, classism, and sexism probably have a far greater impact on the juvenile experience. Institutional racism, classism, and/or sexism occur when individuals are disadvantaged because of their race, class, or gender because of the routine workings of institutions in the United States.19 Institutions refer to organizational structures such as the political system, the legal system, media, and education. For the purposes of this book, we are most concerned with institutional racism, classism, and sexism that might exist in the criminal and juvenile justice systems and the educational system.

For example, the adult criminal justice system is still a very classist system of justice. How so? In its simplest terms, individuals will have a very different experience in the system based on how much money they have. Requiring bail means that those who can afford to pay will spend their time before trial at home, while those who cannot pay will spend their time

before trial in a jail. Don’t ever underestimate the benefit of living at home, instead of jail, while waiting for trial. Those who are at home can participate in their legal defense in a way that those in jail cannot. Those at home have the benefit of friends and family around them in a way that those in jail do not. Those at home arrive at their trial in street clothes, better fed, better rested, and better prepared in a way than those in jail. All else being equal between the individual who can pay bail and the one who cannot, the ability to make bail affects the experience of each individual.

Institutional sexism: Sexism that occurs when individuals are disadvantaged or oppressed because of their sex or gender because of the routine workings of social institutions.

The Intersectionality of Race, Class, and Gender In addition to race, class, and gender in their individual constructs having an important impact on the experiences of individuals in the United States, many argue that the intersection of these constructs has an important and exponential impact. What does this mean? At its most simple, this means that on many occasions we are impacted by racism, classism, and sexism (as well as heterosexism and ableism) all at the same time. Kimberlé Crenshaw explains intersectionality like this:

It grew out of trying to conceptualize the way the law responded to issues where both race and gender discrimination were involved. What happened was like an accident, a collision. Intersectionality simply came from the idea that if you’re standing in the path of multiple forms of exclusion, you are likely to get hit by both. These women are injured, but when the race ambulance and the gender ambulance arrive at the scene, they see these women of color lying in the intersection and they say, “Well, we can’t figure out if this was just race or just sex discrimination. And unless they can show us which one it was, we can’t help them.”20

People will come to different conclusions about what the roots of a given act of delinquency (such as shoplifting) are, depending on what theoretical lens they use to examine it.

While Crenshaw is specifically examining the differential experience that one might have with the law, the idea of intersectionality can be applied in many more instances than just this. One of the central considerations of intersectionality is that a power hierarchy exists in social relations. In other words, a system of power exists in which some hold more power than others based on the social groups they identify with. Hill Collins calls this power hierarchy a “matrix of domination.”21 The farther down the matrix an individual is situated, the more inequality that individual experiences. These experiences are not additive but exponential.22 For example, if we examine the illustration by Crenshaw above, it isn’t just that being black and a woman means that you are discriminated against based upon your race and gender. It can also mean that the system does not know how to alleviate those multiple oppressions and often compounds them.

In addition to the fact that intersectionalities can reinforce inequality, Hill Collins and Burgess-Proctor argue that these intersectionalities can mean that individuals experience both oppression and privilege.23 They argue that no individual or group can be entirely oppressed or privileged and that the social location on this matrix of domination means that at times individuals and groups can be either oppressed or privileged over one another.

The Sociological Imagination As you begin your investigation of juvenile delinquency in this book, it is important for you to turn on your “sociological imagination.” This idea comes from the work of C. Wright Mills, who argued that the only way to truly understand the experiences of the individual is to first understand the societal, institutional, historical conditions that individual is living under. In other words, Mills believed that no man, woman, or child is an island. Below are excerpts from his profound book.

Men do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them.

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. With that welter, the framework of modern society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies of a variety of men and women are formulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues.

The first fruit of this imagination—and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it—is the idea that the individual can understand his own experience and gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in many ways a magnificent one.

In these terms, consider unemployment. When, in a city of 100,000, only one man is unemployed, that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the man, his skills, and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million men are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of

possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals.

What we experience in various and specific milieu, I have noted, is often caused by structural changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieu we are required to look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the institutions within connected with one another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieu. To be able to do that is to possess the sociological imagination.24

We have an example that might help explain the importance of a sociological imagination that should resonate with college students. In the United States, one of the persistent philosophies is individualism and personal responsibility. Under this philosophy, individuals are assumed to be solely responsible for their successes and failures. This philosophy relies heavily on the notion that individuals are rational actors who weigh the cost and benefit of their actions, can see the consequences of their behavior, and have perfect information. This example helps individuals who rely heavily on this conception of the individual to see the importance of social structure to individual behavior.

As a college student, you are often reminded that you are responsible for your own work and your own grades. As professors we expect that you come to class, study at least 2 hours a week outside of class for each unit you are taking, start your papers for class early in the semester, don’t plagiarize, and stay awake in class. We expect you to pick a major in your sophomore year, that you know what general education courses you need to take, and that you make appointments with your advisor when you have questions. If you put in this effort, ask for extra help when needed, come to office hours, and study hard, we expect you will graduate in a timely manner with a degree in your intended major. But is this always the case?

During hard economic times when state and federal budgets are uncertain, your experience as a college student is different than when economic times are better. As university budgets become tighter, it may be harder to get the major you want. Even if you do get the major you want, the courses to

complete that major are fewer and farther between, and class sizes increase, which means it is harder to get one-on-one time with your professor. All of a sudden the degree that you expected to earn in four years (if you are going full time) takes six years because you cannot get classes, and because tuition has increased and you need to go part time so that you may work more hours to pay that tuition. The economy has an impact on the educational system and through this has a very real and personal impact on you. This impact will not be uniform across populations or categories of people. For example, working-class students may be impacted sooner or more strongly by some of the economic forces than wealthier students.

Your Sociological Imagination Put to the Test: Five Vignettes It may be easy as a college student to see how a stagnant economy affects your experiences as you earn your degree, but now we turn to the experiences of juveniles, their behavior, and the juvenile justice system. How do social forces and the social structure affect individual juveniles?

Vignette 1: The Problem of Jesse

Jesse is 6 years old. He is in the first grade at a public elementary school in a medium-sized city. While in kindergarten and now the first grade, Jesse has gotten into a fair amount of trouble. His mother and father have been called more than once to come get him from school. Most of Jesse’s behavior can be considered “youthful”: While in kindergarten, he hid under the table while other children were doing their work; he was disruptive in the classroom, laughing and running around when he should have been working; he hugged kids on the playground “enthusiastically”; and on occasion he would play “war” with other little boys, and he would hit or kick them during the game. He does not listen well to his teachers. But some of his behavior is a bit more troublesome. He is openly defiant with his teacher and the playground supervisor. If he is told to stop doing something, he often takes this as a challenge to go further. His rough behavior has hurt several kids on the playground (nothing serious, but both children started to cry).

The school that Jesse attends is an excellent one in the district. It receives Title I money, which means that a large percentage of its children qualify for free lunches, it earns very good test scores, and it can count on heavy participation from the parents and PTA. However, the budget has suffered a series of blows for the whole district. Teachers have been threatened with layoffs. The music teacher, PE teacher, and librarian have been laid off. The class size has increased every year over the past 5 years. This year, Jesse’s class has 32 children in it, with one teacher, no aides, and intermittent help from parents.

Jesse’s teacher admits that she has a problem with Jesse. She says that she cannot teach the other 31 children if she has to focus so much attention on him. She estimates that about 10%–15% of every day is spent somehow dealing with Jesse. She is frustrated with the situation, feeling pressure from the school to keep up with her coursework and achieve good test scores, and frustrated with the number of children in the classroom.

Jesse’s most recent run-in happened when he drew a stick figure of a man who looked like he might be naked. Jesse’s mom was called and asked to come to the principal’s office. The principal showed the picture to Jesse’s mom and explained that the school had a zero-tolerance policy for such things and that if Jesse drew any more pictures ever of stick figures whose “private parts” were showing he would be suspended from the school.

Can this situation be resolved? If so, how should it be resolved? What are the main problems you see in the scenario? What factors are contributing to these problems? How might these problems be resolved?

What did you define as the problems in this scenario? Did you focus on Jesse’s behavior? Admittedly, Jesse is disruptive. He clearly does not know how to interact with the children around him in a manner that the school expects. And his openly defiant behavior with his teacher disrupts the learning environment, making her job harder and taking away from the educational time she has with the rest of the class. Besides, let’s face it, it is really irritating to be around a child who is disruptive and defiant.

But is this all that is going on? Using your sociological imagination, what might be contributing to the focus on Jesse’s behavior?

The first issue is the budgetary problems for the school. The school has had to lay off the librarian, the PE teacher, and the music teacher. This means that those activities, PE, music, and visiting the library, fall to the teacher to organize and supervise. In other words, the teacher is being asked to do her job, and the job of three other professionals. In addition, she is being told to do her job with more students in the classroom (32 this year) with no increase in professional help (no additional aide). Instead, the teacher must rely on the help of her students’ parents. In this context, Jesse’s behavior is even more disruptive. If the teacher had an aide or fewer children (for example, in California there was a program to maintain class size for grades K–3 at 20 students, which has been scrapped in many districts because of the budget problems), she might be able to work with Jesse and help him understand how to change his disruptive behavior.

The second issue is the school’s zero-tolerance policy. This policy often catches incidents that no one would expect would lead to suspension. In the case of the picture that Jesse drew, a stick figure was determined to be naked, and though that may or may not have been Jesse’s intention, a zero- tolerance policy does not leave room for discretion in many of these instances. Instead, if someone defines the juvenile’s behavior as wrong, the child automatically receives the punishment. It probably would not help Jesse and his behavior to be suspended over the drawing of a stick figure.

Vignette 2: Theories of Delinquency—Normative, Social Constructionist, and Critical

Jessica and Alicia are 13-year-old twins starting the eighth grade at Parkside Elementary. They live with their mother, Andrea, in a house several blocks from the school. They moved into the house about a year ago, and Andrea works extra shifts and overtime whenever she gets the chance so that they can make the house payments. Prior to moving into the house, they had lived across town in a school district that was underfunded and dangerous. The street they lived on had experienced repeated violence. Even though Andrea must work extra shifts, she is less worried about her kids in this neighborhood than the one they were in previously.

But because of the increased house payment, Jessica and Alicia often come home to an empty house. Recently, they have met a

young girl, Laurie. Laurie shoplifts candy from the convenience store near their house, sticks sugar in the gas tanks of cars she doesn’t like (she particularly does not like Acuras because her mother drives one), and has been known to torture small animals.

Recently, Jessica and Alicia were caught stealing Butterfingers from the convenience store (Laurie had left the store about five minutes earlier and was not caught taking anything). The police were called, and they called Andrea. She came and picked the girls up and took them home. The next afternoon, Jessica, Alicia, and Laurie went back to the store. They were told that they were not allowed back in because they had been caught stealing the day before. Jessica and Alicia were very embarrassed, and Laurie was very mad about being denied entry. Laurie suggested they put sugar in the convenience store clerk’s gas tank. Neither Jessica nor Alicia wanted to and had started to walk away, but Laurie pulled sugar out of her backpack and was prying open the gas tank when the same police officer pulled up to the back of the convenience store. She stopped Laurie and detained all three girls for attempted vandalizing.

What are the problems that you see in this scenario? What might be the solutions that could address these problems?

If you focus on the shoplifting behavior of Jessica and Alicia, and the vandalizing and torturous treatment that Laurie engages in, you have approached this scenario from a certain conceptualization, normative. What might be the reasons for Jessica, Alicia, and Laurie’s behavior? Some may suggest that because Jessica and Alicia are left alone at home, they are not getting supervised as well as they should be, while some might argue this is because they come from a single-parent household. Others might point to Jessica and Alicia’s new friendship with Laurie. They might argue that Jessica and Alicia are learning this delinquent behavior from their new friend. Finally, those who focused on Laurie’s delinquency might argue that she seems to have very few good coping mechanisms for strain in her life; she clearly has a strained relationship with her mother, and being denied entrance to the convenience store pushed her to vandalize the convenience store clerk’s car.

Those of you who identified the major problem in this scenario as the fact that Jessica and Alicia have just been arrested for an act they did not

engage in, vandalizing the car, may be approaching this scenario from a social constructionist’s conceptualization. Social constructionists may argue that Jessica and Alicia have been labeled because of their past behavior and their friendship with Laurie. Given that the police officer had just interacted with Jessica and Alicia the day before, it is likely that she may expect that they were involved in the vandalization, too. Even though Jessica and Alicia did not vandalize the car, the expectation of the police officer is that they were a part of the act. This expectation impacts the interaction that the police officer has with them and the treatment (getting arrested) that Jessica and Alicia experience.

Finally, a few of you might have identified the main problem of the scenario as the fact that Andrea had to move her children to a whole new neighborhood in order to help them receive a good education with a decreased likelihood they would be hurt while walking home from school or playing in their yard. Those of you who focused on this are taking a critical conceptualization. Instead of focusing on the minor delinquency, this conceptualization focuses on the structure of the system that requires that an individual actually move in order to remain safe and get a decent education. Those following this conception would also critique a system that had required that an individual work two jobs in order to make rent and support her family. This conception would be less interested in the behavior in which each girl engaged.

Vignette 3: The Problem of Appropriate Policies

The members of the South State Legislature have come close to finishing their proposed budget for the fiscal year. However, they find themselves with something of a predicament. For the first time in 30 years they do not have enough programs to spend money on. For this reason, they find they have $25 million (which is a lot less than you think it is) that they can allocate to a special program or project. The drawback is that this money may only be available this one time—there is no guarantee that future budgets could provide continued support. There has been a proposal that this money be used on the children of South State to show a renewed commitment to the next generation at the turn of the century. Two proposals have been put forth for the one-time allotment of funds.

Rebecca Hanlin has suggested that the money be used to increase

the bed size at two South State detention centers. This would include building or adding on to several buildings in each facility, and supplying the needed infrastructure, such as beds, bedding, and food, for the increase in inmates. The existing facilities are well made, but nearing their maximum capacities, and Hanlin has made an argument that it is likely, given the demographics of the area and a predicted increase in teenagers in the area in the next 10 years, that there will also be an increase in delinquency rates. She wants to be ready with larger detention facilities.

Richard Harring has suggested that the money be used to create five new community facilities in underserved areas that would include small libraries as well as sports equipment. These facilities would be open after school and on weekends for children under the age of 18 to use. The five areas he has suggested have little available for juveniles at the present time.

Both proposals have been reviewed by the South State Legislature and have been determined to be within the proposed budget of $25 million. It is your job to decide which of the above proposals should be sponsored and receive the $25 million. The money can be spent on only one project. Spend a moment deciding which one you would choose. What are your reasons for making this choice?

These two proposals come from fundamentally different philosophies about how to approach juveniles and juvenile delinquency (which we will discuss further in the last section of the book). If you chose Rebecca Hanlin’s proposal, it might be argued that you are supporting a deterrent or punishment philosophy, in which you expect that delinquency will increase and that the only way to combat delinquency is to be ready to punish those who have engaged in it. Over the last 30 years, this philosophy has been argued for and supported (with increased funds) in many jurisdictions in the United States. We have increased our budgets for the criminal justice system, increased our laws that address juvenile misbehavior, and increased our policies that socially control juveniles.

In contrast, if you chose Richard Harring’s proposal, it could be argued that you are supporting a preventative philosophy toward juvenile delinquency. This philosophy focuses on offering resources and support to juveniles before they engage in misbehavior and are picked up by the police. Prevention can focus on areas or juveniles who society suspects

might be more likely to engage in delinquency (or who have less personal resources) such as Richard Harring’s proposal, which focuses on underserved communities. Or prevention programs can focus on the juvenile population as a whole (such as California’s push to lower class sizes to a manageable 20 students per classroom; while this program’s first intent was to support better performance in the classroom, a secondary outcome might be less delinquency as juveniles get more rewards out of their educational experiences).

Vignette 4: Unequal Enforcement—Class

Lillyburg has had an increasing homeless problem, especially homeless youth. In order to curb this problem, a new law has just been suggested in Lillyburg, making it a misdemeanor to sit on public sidewalks or in nondesignated sitting areas, between the hours of 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Opponents of this proposal point out that this law may be differentially enforced because Lillyburg is a large tourist town and often tourists can be found sitting on sidewalks and in nondesignated sitting areas. Proponents of the bill insist it will solve the homeless youth problem and that because it is only a misdemeanor, the law is not meant to be overly punitive. Most individuals will only be fined for breaking the law by sitting on sidewalks between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. Should this proposal be made into a law? What are the ramifications of such a law? Who is most likely to be affected by a law like this?

Randall Kennedy discussed the impact of unequal enforcement in his book Race, Crime, and the Law.25 While he focused his attention on the detrimental effects of unequal enforcement of the law on communities of color, his ideas can be applied in this example, too. Unequal enforcement is the idea either that the law is written in a manner that focuses attention on one group disproportionately over another, or that supposedly neutral laws are applied in a manner that oppresses one group more than another. The law in Lillyburg can be used as an example. In its language, this law is class, race, and gender neutral. It merely stipulates that it is illegal to sit on the sidewalk between 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. However, the discourse around this law shows that it was written for a less neutral purpose. Homeless youth are the target of this law. And it is likely in the application of this

law (who it is used against) that homeless juveniles will more likely be arrested. It is unlikely that a tourist family with a couple of kids will be arrested for sitting in a nondesignated sitting area.

Loitering and public nuisance laws are rarely uniformly applied. What is considered loitering, and what is considered the proper use of a public park bench?

©iStockphoto.com/Juanmonino;

In addition, while the punishment (sentence) attached to this law is minimal in the eyes of most individuals (someone arrested for sitting would be fined), given that the law is aimed at homeless youth (by definition, juveniles who have so little resources they are living on the street), even a small fine can mean jail time because they will have no way of paying. Finally, a policy such as this, focused on individuals who will probably habitually break it (in other words, homeless youth have very few choices about where they can go; it is likely they will still live on the streets and sit on the sidewalks), will likely mean that the homeless youth will be considered chronic offenders, and, as we will see, chronic juvenile offenders are treated differently in the juvenile justice system than nonchronic offenders.

Vignette 5: Unequal Enforcement—Race and Gender

Maria is a 16-year-old Latina who has just gotten in trouble with the police. She was with her cousin in their neighborhood (a working-poor, Latino neighborhood near Tempe, Arizona) while he was holding 10 ounces of methamphetamine (meth), which is the minimum amount to be charged with selling drugs (instead of possession of meth). Maria claims she did not know her cousin had the drugs and he was not selling at the time they were caught. Because it is Maria’s first offense, she was charged with possession (because she was with her cousin), but charged in the juvenile court. The court adjudicated her true (found her guilty of drug possession) and gave her a disposition (sentence) of three days in detention. Upon completing her disposition, Maria received probation and must comply with a list of rules in order to remain out of trouble. Included on this list is that Maria must improve her grades in school, comply with a 7 p.m. curfew, and have no contact with her boyfriend (whom her probation officer has decided, because of several conversations with Maria’s mother, is a bad influence on her).

Last week Maria came home at 7:15 p.m. and her mom called her probation officer, telling him that Maria had been late home and that she suspected Maria had been out with her boyfriend. Maria does not dispute that she came home 15 minutes late, but says she was late because the bus she takes from work did not show up, so she had to start to walk home, and catch a later bus that finally happened by. She could not call her mom to tell her because her mom took away her cell phone when she got in trouble in the first place.

The probation officer considers this to be a violation of her probation, and Maria is now back in court for this violation. The court has no evidence that Maria saw her boyfriend, but they do have Maria’s admission that she was 15 minutes late coming home. The judge hearing the case admonishes Maria for violating her curfew and not listening to her mother about who she should date and gives her 30 days of detention for the violation.

What are the main problems you see in the scenario? What factors are contributing to these problems? How might these problems be resolved?

This case might be considered harsh and unlikely, but it was a real case witnessed by the authors. In this case, Maria has found herself in trouble. She is hanging out with individuals who are getting in trouble with the police and dragging her into that trouble. But what does our sociological imagination and a critical perspective help us observe about her experiences? First, Maria and her cousin live in Arizona in a predominantly Latino community. It is likely that this community experiences a stronger police presence than other communities in Tempe because of the strong, declared focus on immigration in Arizona. In other words, had Maria and her cousin been from a different neighborhood her cousin may not have been caught (which is a whole separate discussion, but given that Maria was unaware of her cousin’s possession of meth, it certainly would have benefitted her to not get caught).

Now that Maria has been caught up in the juvenile justice system, she must contend with a new issue. While status offenses should not be used to arrest a juvenile, once a juvenile has been arrested and brought into the system, behaviors that are considered status offenses are often listed on probation agreements. The dating and sexual behavior of girls is often managed and controlled through these agreements,26 as it is for Maria. Over the years, the juvenile justice system has focused more attention on the sexual behavior of girls than that of boys.27 In this instance, with very little concrete proof of interaction between Maria and her boyfriend, it appears the judge has taken this into consideration when deciding on the disposition that Maria will serve for violating her curfew.

This case can be used as an example of the importance of the intersections of race and gender for the experiences of many juveniles in the juvenile justice system. It could be argued that Maria has more likely been caught up in the system in the first place because of the community she was in when arrested, and certainly her experiences once in the system are somewhat dependent on her gender.

These vignettes are examples of the issues that this book will explore. They represent our focus on theory and contextual concerns such as family and school. They illustrate the importance of thinking beyond personal responsibility and agency to include an understanding of social forces and social structure when examining juvenile delinquency and the societal responses to it. And, they illustrate the importance of examining juvenile delinquency through an intersectional lens, which highlights the effects of

race, class, and gender and other social variables on juvenile delinquency and the societal responses to it.

The Juvenile Justice System and Diversity This chapter, so far, has explored the importance of diversity in the United States and the impact that such characteristics as race, gender, or sexual orientation may have on juveniles. We see that it can impact their educational experiences or their likelihood to be in poverty. We also see from the vignettes above that race, gender, class, and other characteristics, such as sexual orientation and age, can impact the experiences that juveniles have as they go through the juvenile justice system.

Figure 1.3 illustrates the stages of the juvenile justice system in comparison to the adult system. We spend a significant amount of time in Chapters 2, 11, 12, 13, and 14 discussing the history, stages, and philosophy of the system from policing to corrections, but we want to spend the next several paragraphs introducing the system and emphasizing the importance of diversity and inequality for juvenile experiences in this system. As you will learn in Chapters 2 and 11, the juvenile system was created under a different philosophy than the adult system. While the adult system focuses on punishment, the juvenile system was created under a philosophy that children are savable and thus rehabilitation, not punishment, should be the focus. This meant that the system for many years operated with a lack of formal legal procedures (in other words, the system did not follow a systematic set of rules, but instead relied on “informal” justice) and judicial discretion.28 This informality and discretion was based on the idea that the system needed to pay attention to the child as an individual and offer what was best for each child’s circumstances. The problem with that system was that often the treatment looked very much like punishment (children were kept for long periods of time with little focus on rehabilitation), and the discretion meant that children were vulnerable to the decision-making practices of individual workers in the system.29 And certain children were found to be even more vulnerable than children in general. For example, girls who were suspected of sexual behavior were kept in detention facilities until a marriageable age, while boys who were found to be engaging in sexual behavior were not held in detention.

In the 1960s and 1970s, the Supreme Court made several changes as a result of the realizations that discretion in the system and a lack of formal protections for youth meant that youth were vulnerable to unequal treatment. These changes instituted formal rules, the most important of which were that juveniles had the right to an attorney, a notice of the charges against them, to confront their accuser, and to not incriminate themselves. If these rights sound familiar, it is because they are from the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Juveniles were not afforded these constitutional rights until 1967. The introduction of these rules is known as the due process era because juveniles were given many of the same due process rights as adults. In order to assure these rights, though, the juvenile justice system had to create formal procedures (e.g., creating the role of prosecuting and defense attorney for all court cases).

The irony is that with the formalization of the system came a similarity to the adult system. Remember that the juvenile justice system was created to be different from the adult system, and yet, with the introduction of these constitutional rights, the juvenile system became more similar to the adult system.30 Now both systems follow similar legal rules, and often their outcomes (punishments) look very similar, too. So similar that some researchers argue that maybe it is time for a single criminal justice system for both juveniles and adults.31

Figure 1.3 Comparing the Juvenile and Adult Justice Systems

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics. (1997). Criminal Justice System Flowchart. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/largechart.cfm

A second irony of this formalization is that it did not protect juveniles from being treated differently based on their personal characteristics. The adult and juvenile justice systems both experienced an increased focus on rules and guidelines meant, in part, to decrease the discrimination that was found to exist when judicial discretion (the practice of having judges make the decisions about how long an individual should be sentenced) was in play. However, many researchers found that when judicial discretion was limited through such practices as sentencing guidelines, the discretion did not disappear but merely moved to an early stage.32 For example, prosecutorial discretion became much more influential because the decision of how to charge an individual was now more important.

Figure 1.3 illustrates the five main stages of both the adult and juvenile systems: (1) entry into the system, (2) prosecution and pretrial services, (3) adjudication, (4) sentencing and sanctions, and (5) corrections. Both the juvenile and adult systems have these five general stages, but as the figure illustrates, within these five general stages there are slight differences. The top two lines of the figure show the adult process for felony and misdemeanor arrests; the bottom line shows the juvenile process through the system. While much of the experience is becoming more similar between the systems, on its surface this figure shows one of the bigger differences that stems from the initial philosophy of the juvenile system at its creation. The system was created with the belief that juveniles could be saved, so instead of punishment the system should focus on treatment. This meant that the system was created using different language that did not represent the punishment language of the adult system. For example, where the adult system refers to a trial, the juvenile system says hearing; where the adult system says sentence, the juvenile system refers to a disposition. We will go into much more detail in Chapters 12 and 13 about the stages of the juvenile justice system.

Philosophy and Organization of the Book This book is an introduction to the study of juvenile delinquency written from a critical perspective. It offers a critical understanding of juvenile delinquency, focusing on issues of race, class, and gender. The book is organized into four sections. The first section focuses on how we define and measure delinquency, paying special attention to the historical progression of juvenile delinquency and the role that media play in our

contemporary understanding of delinquency. In these chapters we will focus on how the concept of juvenile delinquency was first used to control communities of color, girls, and the working poor, and we will compare this to current processes that may be similar. We will examine the trends in delinquency since the 1980s, paying special attention to the relationship between race and ethnicity and delinquency and gender and delinquency. And we will ask ourselves, “Does the type of data we use impact our understanding of delinquency and these relationships?”

Our second and third sections of the book focus on the contexts of delinquency and theoretical explanations of delinquency. We will start by offering three theoretical chapters on micro-level theories, macro-level theories, and critical theories that either help predict the likelihood than an individual might engage in delinquency; help explain changing trends in delinquency, or delinquency rates for neighborhoods and communities; and explain why certain laws are created, certain communities are focused on, or certain groups are targeted as delinquent. In section three, we will examine the relationship between family, schools, peers and gangs, and drugs and our understanding and beliefs about delinquency. What are the contexts in which juvenile delinquency seems more prevalent? Do our societal beliefs about family, school, peers and gangs, or drugs impact our beliefs about delinquency? And do juveniles’ social location, as youth of color, boys or girls, and/or youth with or without resources, affect the contexts of delinquency?

Our fourth section of the book examines societal responses to delinquency. We will examine why we have a separate juvenile justice system, the process of the system, the correctional stage, and prevention, rehabilitation, and restorative approaches to delinquency. In these chapters we will focus on the impact of race, class, and gender and other social variables on both the creation and maintenance of these various policies and programs, and the impact that race, class, and gender have on the experiences of youth in these arenas.

When finished with this book, you should be better prepared to apply your sociological imagination to the connections between juveniles, their behaviors, and the world in which they live.

Summary

The study of delinquency is more complex than you might think at the outset. Not only must we understand the context in which youth exist, but we must understand the changing societal definitions of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. We think this makes this area exciting and full of possibilities for advancing the understanding of youth behavior. As you start your exploration of juvenile delinquency, we will end this chapter with a final story to illustrate the complexity of youth behavior. One of us has a son who has an anxiety disorder. He is almost paralyzed with worry that he is violating the rules. I have found that allowing him to swear gives him a bit of power over his anxiety. And, let me tell you, the only people better at swearing are truck drivers and his mother. So yes, when he gets anxious, I hear him whisper the F word under his breath (and yes, he is still in elementary school). So the questions are this: should parents OK epic swearing for elementary school children? Is he more likely to engage in delinquency because his parents allow him to break the norms on swearing for young children? How do I manage his anxiousness and swearing outside the household? If he engages in delinquent behavior down the road, is it my fault because I allowed the swearing? If I told you that much of his anxiousness stems from being bullied at school, would it change your answers above? In the long run, if he turns out to be a rule-following adult, does any of his youth behavior matter?

We are not sure that this book will answer all of these questions for you, or that the book is even meant to, but we hope that it helps you prepare yourself to think critically about these questions and stand behind whatever answer you arrive at.

Eye on Diversity Exercise: Social Construction and Media

Two of the themes in this chapter are the characterization of the juvenile and the social construction of juvenile delinquency. In this activity, try your hand at investigating how the media portray juveniles and juvenile delinquency.

1. Search the Internet for media pieces on juveniles and/or juvenile delinquency. Is there a difference in how print media presents these topics compared to television news?

2. Using LexisNexis, find five articles on juvenile delinquency. What are the behaviors that are being described in these articles? Do the articles suggest a reason for the delinquent behavior being reported? What are the conceptions of delinquency that the media reports are using? Is one conception used more than others? If so,

why might this be the case? 3. Finally, what are the characteristics (categories) of the youth who

are being portrayed as delinquent in these articles? Are certain categories overrepresented in the news articles?

Discussion Questions 1. Explain the conceptions of delinquency. Using each conception of

delinquency, explain juvenile gangs and the societal reaction to them. 2. Explain the current well-being of children. What is their economic,

physical, and educational well-being? Are they currently better off than they were a decade or two ago?

3. What is the difference between individual and institutional racism, classism, and sexism? Give an example of each.

4. How are intersectionality and the matrix of domination important to our understanding of the impact of race, class, and gender on the experiences of juveniles?

5. What is the sociological imagination? How might it be used to help understand juvenile delinquency?

Key Terms Achieved category 13 Ascribed category 12 Critical conception of delinquency 8 Folkways 7 Individual classism 14 Individual racism 14 Individual sexism 14 Institutional classism 14 Institutional racism 14 Institutional sexism 14 Laws 7 Mores 7 Normative conception of delinquency 6 Social constructionist conception of delinquency 7 Social differentiation 13

Social inequality 13 Status offenses 5

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. True 2. False 3. True 4. True 5. False 6. False 7. False

Student Study Site

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SAGE edge for students provides a personalized approach to help you accomplish your coursework goals in an easy-to-use learning environment. You’ll find action plans, mobile-friendly eFlashcards, and quizzes, as well as videos, web resources, and links to SAGE journal articles to support and expand on the concepts presented in this chapter. Check out the website for original videos of former offenders discussing their experiences as juveniles.

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Chapter 2 The Creation of Delinquency

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe how the concept of juvenile delinquency developed over the course of U.S. history before culminating in the creation of the first juvenile justice system Explain how different forms of popular culture have been the focus of moral panics about delinquency Analyze the connections between social constructions of youth and mainstream ideas about juvenile misbehavior Compare and contrast ideas about youth and juvenile delinquency related to one’s race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality

Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 56.

1. The primary vision of delinquency that developed in Western societies resulted in the similar labeling of youth across all social statuses.

2. In ancient times and during the Middle Ages, there was no formal concept known as juvenile delinquency.

3. The age at which youth were thought to be capable of having a “guilty mind” has changed over time.

4. Houses of Refuge and other institutions housed children in need of care along with those labeled delinquent or predelinquent in an effort to “save” them.

5. The creation of the first juvenile court was based on the philosophy of retribution.

6. In the 21st century, it is clear that moral panics about violent music, websites, and films as causes of delinquency are justified by scientific research.

7. Youth of color, particularly boys, are often portrayed by the media as people to fear, rather than people to protect.

To Hon. Caleb S. Woodhull, Mayor of the City of New York (1849)

I deem it to be my duty to call the attention of your honor to a deplorable and growing evil which exists amid this community, and which is spread over the principal business parts of the city. It is an evil and a reproach to our municipality, for which the laws and ordinances afford no adequate remedy.

I allude to the constantly increasing numbers of vagrant, idle and vicious children of both sexes, who infest our public thoroughfares, hotels, docks, &c. Children who are growing up in ignorance and profligacy, only destined to a life of misery, shame and crime, and ultimately to a felon’s doom. Their numbers are almost incredible, and to those whose business and habits do not permit them a searching scrutiny, the degrading and disgusting practices of these almost infants in the schools of vice, prostitution and rowdyism, would certainly be beyond belief. The offspring of always careless, generally intemperate, and oftentimes immoral and dishonest parents, they never see the inside of a school-room. . . . Left, in many instances to roam day and night wherever their inclination leads them, a large proportion of these

juvenile vagrants are in the daily practice of pilfering wherever opportunity offers, and begging where they cannot steal. In addition to which, the female portion of the youngest class, those who have only seen some eight or twelve summers, are addicted to immoralities of the most loathsome description. Each year makes fearful additions to the ranks of these prospective recruits of infamy and sin, and from this corrupt and festering fountain flows on a ceaseless stream to our lowest brothels—to the Penitentiary and the State Prison.

In presenting these disagreeable facts for the consideration of Your Honor, I trust that I may be pardoned for the suggestion, in conclusion, that in my opinion some method by which these children could be compelled to attend our schools regularly, or be apprenticed to some suitable occupation, would tend in time more to improve the morals of the community, prevent crime, and relieve the City from its onerous burden of expenses for the Alms-House and Penitentiary.

—Respectfully submitted, Geo. W. Matsell, [NYC] Chief of Police1

In 2010, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated that he was concerned about the numbers of young people being detained in juvenile institutions and the fact that they were often placed far from their homes and families.2 He noted that juveniles placed in institutions tend to recommit acts of delinquency after release and to return to those same institutions, which is, ultimately, an unproductive cycle. Bloomberg stated that it would be best for young people who engage in nonviolent delinquency to be treated under a rehabilitative model and to have access to services within their own communities.3 As a result, Mayor Bloomberg eliminated the Department of Juvenile Justice in December 2010 and subsumed it within the Administration for Children’s Services in order to break the cycle of delinquency and treat juvenile misbehavior, first and foremost, as a child welfare issue.4

The Social Construction of Youth and Delinquency As the opening writings about juvenile delinquency in New York City written over a century apart demonstrate, social constructions of youth and delinquency or mainstream ideas about youth and misbehavior, and what to do about youth and misbehavior, change over time. In order to understand how the concept of juvenile delinquency developed and

culminated in the creation of the juvenile justice system, it is important to consider how differing ideas about youth have emerged over the course of history. These ideas about youth are difficult to generalize about because they are socially constructed differently in different places and cultures around the world.5 Although in Western countries we tend to automatically think of teenagers when we think about juvenile delinquency, this concept is not recognized in a similar way in all cultures of the world, nor do Western countries themselves frame the years of adolescence in exactly the same way. As we will discuss in this chapter, the very notion of adolescence did not always exist—it was created in light of social and economic changes that necessitated a new, more extended, experience of childhood.

The concept of juvenile delinquency emerged out of a particular Western vision of what it is to be a child or a young adult, and entire systems of justice were developed to address the special needs of youth labeled as “juvenile delinquents.” And, even within a given Western society, we can observe that the labeling of youth as juvenile delinquents occurs much more in certain segments of our communities than in others. As Mennel explains, “When considered a violation of mores, juvenile delinquency becomes less a fixed concept and more a description of certain kinds of behavior by certain kids living in certain places.”6 Popular ideas about youth and their behaviors have been shaped by raced, classed, and gendered biases and concerns. In this chapter we will highlight the historical ideas about juveniles and their behavior that eventually led to the creation of the first juvenile court in the United States in 1899. In addition, we will consider the role of popular culture (music, films, books, games, etc.) in moral panics about delinquency both preceding and following the creation of state juvenile justice systems in the United States.

Social constructions of youth and delinquency: Popular ideas about delinquency that are created and influenced by social, political, and economic factors and that change over time.

Ancient Times and the Middle Ages (776 BCE– 1400 CE) Young people certainly acted up or misbehaved prior to being labeled

juvenile delinquents by society. Consider this description of an event experienced by one young man named Ariston (estimated to be 17–19 years of age) at the hands of another young man, Ktesias, and his father, Kronon, in Ancient Greece (4th century BCE):

First they tore my cloak off of me, and then, tripping me up and pushing me into the mud, they struck me so violently that they split my lip and caused my eye to close up. They left me in this sorry condition, so that I could neither get up or utter a word. While I was lying there, I heard them making a number of abusive comments, much of which was so offensive that I would shrink from repeating some of it in your presence. . . . After this I was picked up naked by some passers-by, for my assailants had carried off my cloak.7

As explained by Garland, although this act involved violence of one youth against another (with the help of his father, something we generally do not see too much of today), it would not have been labeled as delinquency because such behaviors were not seen as related to age at that point in history.8 The acts committed were fueled by the consumption of alcohol on the part of both Ktesias and his father, and they took place within the context of military service. Based upon the historical data available, it appears as though Greek society at that time encouraged misbehavior among male youth and that this example was not an isolated one. There was even a law at that time that stated that young men should not beat their parents, which indicates that parental beating by children must have raised the concern of at least a few lawmakers. There are limited sources of data for scholars to explore specifically related to juvenile misbehavior in ancient cultures, but data related to other social practices of the time indicate that youth were often treated and punished in ways that were comparable to those of their adult counterparts.9 Youth were treated as the property of their fathers, corporal punishment was common, and youth were often beaten harshly.

If we skip ahead in history to examine a period on which scholars have had more luck finding information, the Middle Ages (5th century CE–15th century) in Europe, we can see that still very little distinction was made between human beings based upon age.10 At that time and place in history, society was heavily interdependent, living and working together in large

groups. This was because the economy was agricultural, and lots of bodies, young and old, were needed to prepare and work the crops. Because of this, the biggest age-based distinction that played a role in the process was whether a child had mastered the basic physiological and emotional functions needed in order to work in the fields. Usually, once children turned 7 years of age, they were for all intents and purposes considered adults. Seven-year-olds could usually speak well (they had no need to know how to read because there was not yet any printed material), and their oral communication skills were considered sufficient preparation for many of the daily tasks of the adult world.

Although young people engaged in behaviors that we would label as delinquent today, they were not labeled as such in ancient times.

©iStockphoto.com/Pekic

Life was not easy for children of this period, and they were often subjected to practices of abuse and neglect that resulted in short life spans.11 Those who did survive engaged in many of the same activities as adults, including drinking alcohol, gambling, and engaging in sexual behavior. These behaviors were accepted among youth, and adults did not see any need to shelter their children from what are seen today as adult behaviors; extended families and communities lived very closely together, and there

was very little privacy to be had, even if it was desired. Everyone had an eye on one another, and this informal social control kept a lot of young people from misbehaving.

The Colonial and Revolutionary Period (late 1400s–1800) As the Europeans began to colonize North America, the ideas about childhood that they employed in the “New World” were similar to those that they employed prior to the Colonial period. Youth were seen as developing over time, but there still was not a tradition that emphasized age in the manner that we have today. There was a notable labor shortage during this period, so the tradition of youth working at a young age was especially helpful to adults. Gender-based distinctions developed further at this time, and boys were encouraged to develop their skill sets as apprentices in the working world, while girls were encouraged to learn to serve and care for others by becoming domestic servants or wives.12 The raising of children and young adults remained a group project, as the people for whom the youth worked or apprenticed had a large role in their upbringing. There was no sense of the nuclear family in the manner that is emphasized today, but extended families were seen as the primary source for disciplining and educating youth.

In the Middle Ages and in most of the Colonial era, legal assumptions were made about young people that mirrored the idea that young people were not that different from adults. The English common law tradition that was employed focused upon whether youth were capable of mens rea, or having the guilty mind needed to preplan an act of wrongdoing. Once again, the 7-year mark was seen as an important one. Generally speaking, individuals under 7 years of age were seen as too young to be able to rationally plan an act of harm in advance. But once people turned 7, their capacities for such forethought and planning were debated. This held true for all individuals between 7 and 14 years of age; they were assumed not to have the capability to plan a crime, but exceptions were made to that assumption on a case-by-case basis. (An age within this period that was considered important was 10.5 years of age—before that it was deemed less likely that a youth would be a rational planner, but after that it was seen as more likely.) After individuals turned 14, they were considered to be basically adults and were held to have the same abilities to reason and

make decisions, and to have a brain mature enough to harbor a guilty mind.13 There were no medical technologies available at that time to measure physiological development accurately, so that assumption went largely unquestioned. Over the course of this time in history, juries were very wary of convicting white youth and sending them to jail with adults, because the jurors believed they would simply be dooming these youth to lives of crime. One critic of this approach in the early 1800s, John Pintard, embodied this common sentiment in his description of prisons as a place where “little Devils are instructed to become great ones and at the expiration of their terms turn out accomplished villains.”14 As we will demonstrate later in this chapter, youth of color were not treated with the same concern by juries.15

As society began shifting from an agrarian to an industrial economy, a shift in ideas about youth followed. The development and spread of the printing press inspired a major transformation in the idea of what it meant to be a child or an adult, which gradually established a stronghold between the 16th and 18th centuries.16 Once the printing press was put into use, an assortment of books, newspapers, and other materials were printed. The mainstream of society suddenly had access to a wealth of ideas, but people’s access to these ideas depended on their ability to read. It takes time to learn to read, and thus adults began to recognize that young people needed a period of time to do so. Parents who were literate began teaching their children at home, or enlisting the help of neighbors to teach their children. The initial efforts to create schools in which children received a more formalized education began during this period, but at that point schools did not separate students into different classes by age; they were all included in the same classroom. Children generally did not attend school consistently because they had to balance school and work. Yet, a shift away from seeing children as mini-adults early on in their lives was clearly under way because of the perceived need for formalized education. In addition, the loosening of informal controls that came from urbanization and industrialization changed the habits of working-class youth in ways that were visible and that garnered attention by the media. For example, a newspaper article from 1791 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, noted,

Mens rea: A Latin term meaning “guilty mind.”

The custom of permitting boys to ramble about the streets at night, is productive of the most serious and alarming consequences to their morals. Assembled in corners, and concealed from every eye, they can securely indulge themselves in mischief of every kind.17

As more youth from the lower social ranks began spending time on the streets, adults from privileged social classes became concerned about the number of youth who appeared to be without adult protection. The concept of juvenile delinquency began to take a particular shape at this time. As Mennel (1973) explains, “Thus, during the eighteenth century, juvenile delinquency slowly ceased to mean a form of misbehavior common to all children and became instead a euphemism for the crimes and conditions of poor children.”18

The development of the printing press brought about a major shift in many societies’ ideas about childhood and the needs of young people.

Daniel Maclise;

The “Child-Saving” Era, the Industrial Revolution, and the Creation of the Juvenile Court (1800s–early 1900s)

In order to address what some saw as serious social problems, large-scale organized efforts to address the issue of neglected and abandoned youth, as well as delinquent youth, were undertaken by religious and social reformers, such as those associated with the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as the Quakers). Beginning in the 1820s, a number of different institutions were created in the United States to provide youth with the discipline that founders believed they were no longer experiencing in their own families, to keep youth out of adult prisons, and as a means for reformists to deal with what they perceived as the negative aftereffects and threats posed by immigration,19 which they framed primarily as an issue of begging or pauperism. The institutions that were created included almshouses or “poor farms,” in which poor children and adults were housed; asylums, farm schools, and labor schools for homeless and/or delinquent youth; and houses of refuge that were assigned by state and local courts to take in youth ruled to be in need of care (dependent or neglected children) or deemed delinquent or predelinquent. It is important to note that youth labeled as either poor or in need of discipline were treated as one and the same in these institutions, conceived of as a means for “saving” youth who had not yet been fully corrupted.20 These institutions were aimed at teaching youth the value of hard work and individual responsibility, typically by means of religious and moral instruction. The development of the first houses of refuge in New York (1825), Boston (1826), and Philadelphia (1828) was followed by the opening of many other such institutions in the Northeast and Mideast in the years prior to the Civil War.21

The superintendent of the Chicago Reform School annually wrote reports about the state of the boys who were part of the institution. In this report, he included a number of tables that addressed a variety of topics, such as those in Table 2.1, in which he enumerated what he saw as the causes of each boy’s history of delinquency. Some of his categories are still used today. A few are indicative of the period in which he wrote. We would not, for example, expect to see the categories “naturally ugly” (which he used the most), “hereditary criminality,” and “love of a wandering life” utilized by administrators dealing with youth today.

Once a large number of children in society were deemed in need of special care, there was an accompanying shift in the ways in which reformers characterized their parents as well. Typically, the characterization was that the parents of the children in the institutions were lazy, incompetent, or

otherwise deficient human beings. Oftentimes parents wanted their children removed from an institution, but they met with resistance in legal justification rooted in parens patriae, the concept that in some cases the state is justified to step in and serve as a substitute parent. In the precedent-setting case of Ex parte Crouse (1838), the Pennsylvania Supreme Court refused to let the father of Mary Ann Crouse remove her from a house of refuge:

The object of charity is reformation, by training its inmates to industry; by imbuing their minds with principles of morality and religion; by furnishing them with the means to earn a living; and above all, by separating them from the corrupting influence of improper associates. To this end, may not the natural parents, when unequal to the task of education, or unworthy of it, be superseded by the parens patriae, or common guardian of the community?22

Houses of refuge: Institutions developed in the United States in the early 19th century to house children who were poor and steer them away from pursuing a life of crime.

Parens patriae: A Latin term signifying that the state should serve as a substitute parent in cases in which children’s actual parents either neglect or abuse them, or simply cannot control their behavior.

Youth placed in houses of refuge were subject to days full of moral and religious training, and a great deal of labor. Boys would make goods such as shoes, nails, or furniture, and the folks running the houses of refuge would receive small sums of money from contactors for the labor of each boy who helped them run the institution.23 Children were often placed in apprenticeships outside of the institution; boys were placed on farms away from the city, on whaling or merchant ships, and with tradespersons, and for girls the only type of apprenticeship deemed acceptable was to be indentured as maids. All of these practices separated youth from their families and worked to weaken the bonds formed by everyday interaction; sometimes parents were not even notified where their children were sent.24 Although they were touted as places of treatment and labeled as houses of refuge, scholars of these institutions note that sometimes little actual

refuge was found, and instead youth were often subjected to abusive conditions, lack of adequate food and water, and essentially prison-like conditions.25

The development of houses of refuge and other institutions was driven by different ideas about white male youth and white girls, as well as of youth of color in general.26 Those who ran institutions treated youth of color and girls as inferior beings.27 For example, during the years of slavery in the southern United States, black youth who misbehaved were disciplined within that system and the delinquency of white youth generally was ignored.28 Black children in free states were generally not admitted to the houses of refuge, but in the cases in which they were, they were segregated and treated as less important than the white youth.29 Unlike the shift in ideas of youth that white youth experienced in the early 1800s, black youth were still treated as virtual adults and were typically housed in adult prisons.30 Not until 1850 was a house of refuge designed specifically for black children created, the House of Refuge for Colored Children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As Frey (1981) explains, there were racialized and classed motives behind its construction:

Source: Nicols, D. B. (1970). Fourth annual report of the officers of the Chicago

Reform School . . . for the year ending September 30, 1859. In W. B. Sanders (Ed.), Juvenile offenders for a thousand years: Selected readings from Anglo-Saxon times to 1900 (pp. 395–397). Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Note: Table shows the probable cause of delinquency as ascertained from the facts of the inmates’ previous history.

Since reformers believed that early habit formation of a child could make him into either a good citizen or a criminal, and since they believed that the earlier a child was admitted to the House of Refuge, the better were his chances for reformation, it follows that they also believed that the early admission of black children to such an institution could transform these children from potential criminals into law-abiding citizens who would accept the white, middle class values of the Managers.31

White girls of this period were not placed into institutions as frequently as white boys were, but when they were it was often because they were judged to be “fallen women” who were engaging in sexual behavior,32 behaviors that were generally ignored when engaged in by boys. Gendered notions of what it was to be a girl made it a commonly held perception (arguably still held by many today) that girls were weaker and more vulnerable to temptation than boys. Some went as far as to say girls and women needed to be watched over more closely than their male counterparts because they were innately more sinful. Based upon these presumptions, reformers thought it was important to intervene in suspected girls’ lives as early as possible and to watch over them for as long as possible.33 Girls of poor and working-class European immigrant families were considered much more likely to be delinquent and were more likely to find themselves in an institution than native-born white girls.34 When girls were put into institutions with boys, they were segregated within the institution. In 1856 the first reform school specifically for girls, the Lancaster Industrial School for Girls, opened in Massachusetts. It housed delinquent girls from 7 to 16 years of age. After a girl in the school turned 16, she was indentured to serve a family outside of the institution until her 18th birthday.35

Although the stated intent behind houses of refuge was to positively influence young people through discipline and labor, scholars today note that the outcomes of institutionalization were often negative ones.

New York Public Library

Large-scale shifts in society came to the United States with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Most notable are the development of machines and technology that changed the economic base of the society from agricultural to industrial, and a significant rise in the rate at which people were immigrating to the United States. People were needed to work in the factories that had been established, and the labor force began shifting away from the fields and farther from home. As capitalism took hold, opportunities for wage labor unrelated to the apprenticeship system multiplied. Requirements for factory labor were not high, and a young person could obtain a job quite easily. Over a million children between the ages of 10 and 15 were workers, according to the 1880 census.36

The predominant social construction of what it meant to be young during this period was in transition. In the late 1800s, the concept of adolescence began to be utilized as an extended period of childhood.37 Upper- and

middle-class Anglo American adults began to consider children as delicate people in need of protection and began organizing their family lives in a way that focused on their home and their immediate family. This conceptualization was at odds with child labor, a practice that involved low-income and immigrant youth who were forced to work to help their families make ends meet. Movements for social change gained momentum as activists, often middle- and upper-class white women and men, considered how to best address the role of youth in society’s institutions and to spread their ideals about childhood and parenting in light of the challenges being posed by modernization, immigration, and the rise of technology.38 Their actions became known as those of the Progressive movement, a social movement that began in roughly the 1890s and lasted until the beginning of World War I in 1914, and one in which reformers believed that they could utilize the expert knowledge provided by science to improve society. In order to protect youth and to allow them a longer period to develop and to be nurtured into well-rounded adults, reformers successfully campaigned for mandatory, and eventually age-graded, public schooling, which was put into effect by most Northern and Midwestern states by 1900,39 and for child labor laws that resulted in the establishment of minimum age requirements for jobs and restrictions on the number of hours that youth could work. These changes were attempts to force parents to exclude their children from contributing in any significant way to the economic stability of their families, and to take what were seen as adult responsibilities out of the hands of youth.40

The idea of adolescence reinforced ideas about youth and delinquency that had been developing over the course of the 18th century. The psychiatrist who coined the term adolescence, G. Stanley Hall, stated, “A period of semicriminality is normal for all healthy boys . . . those whose surroundings are bad will continue it, but others will grow away from it as they reach maturity.”41 The idea that youth were redeemable, and that minor acts of delinquency did not doom an offending youth to a life of crime, fueled reformers’ desires to address youth misbehavior in new ways. The houses of refuge, reform schools, and industrial schools established until that point began to be criticized by observers in light of acts of violence and abuse exposed there.42 Reformers became less enthusiastic about the ability for these institutions to be the primary means of shaping wayward youths’ behavior and began campaigning for a more substantial change—the separation of the adult and juvenile justice

systems.

The first juvenile court was created in 1899, in Cook County, Illinois, and it marked one of the most important historical changes in the treatment of juveniles. By 1925, all but two states had established their own juvenile courts (Center for Juvenile & Criminal Justice, n.d.). We will examine the common characteristics of the various state juvenile justice systems that were developed near the turn of the 20th century in detail in the last section of the book. For now, it is sufficient to note that the development of the juvenile court was predicated upon the notion that youth are markedly different from adults, and that they are developing and are in need of protection by and from adults. The first court employed a rehabilitative philosophy, the idea that children who had engaged in misbehavior could be influenced to change their behaviors to more socially acceptable ones. Rehabilitation was a popular philosophy during the Progressive era, and it was linked to the acceptance of psychological and sociological theories of crime and delinquency at that time—theories that located the reasons for misbehavior not as purely rational choices for which the offender was fully responsible, but as factors outside of the conscious control of the actor. In other words, if physical, psychological, and/or social factors were related to the creation of delinquency and crime, they could be scientifically identified, and then changed or eliminated (see also Chapter 11).

A Focus on Research: Chávez-García’s Intelligence Testing at Whittier State School, 1890–1920

How did child savers and reformers make distinctions between the children whom they thought were worth saving and those whom they did not? Miroslava Chávez-García conducted a sociohistorical study on the ways in which administrators of one reform school in California, the Whittier State School, utilized preconceived notions about youth of color, as well as intelligence testing, which often led to their removal from the reformatory.43 In her article, “Intelligence Testing at Whittier State School, 1890–1920,” she examines how popular scientific ideas at the turn of the 20th century shaped the decisions that were made about young males in the institution. Quite popular at that time was the field of eugenics and the idea that intelligence and criminality were genetic traits that could be scientifically identified.

The Whittier State School began as a place for the reform of

delinquents from the ages of 10 to 16 who had not been placed in San Quentin, California’s first adult prison. The Whittier youth would be released by the age of 21 according to the law. When the state of California created the school, it also created the Preston School of Industry, primarily for older males from 16 to 20 years of age. In 1912, businessman Fred Nelles came to take over the Whittier State School, and attempted to change it to reflect the day’s philosophy about delinquency—that youth would respond to nurturing rather than harsh punishment. He emphasized athletics and schooling as a means of reforming youth, and many of them responded to the approach. He also hired a psychological researcher, J. Harold Williams, to conduct intelligence testing on each of the youth because he believed such tests could reveal a boy’s mental abilities and the reason for his delinquency.

Although Nelles and his testing assistants were aware of the critiques of the Stanford-Binet test that they administered—that it did not accurately measure the intelligence of people who were not thoroughly familiar with the English language, or who had not been formerly schooled— they persisted with their approach. At the end of the process, Williams claimed that 28% of the boys were feebleminded and that 25% were borderline feebleminded. He additionally claimed that there were racial and ethnic differences in the intelligence of the boys and that the most notable issue with feeblemindedness was among youth from Mexico (60% of the boys were considered feebleminded), followed by African- American boys (48%) and lastly European American boys (6%). He attributed what he considered the deficiencies of the Mexican-origin youth to their “Indian blood.”

Williams and Nelles recommended that the mentally defective boys be separated from the rest of the youth and sterilized, as to never pass on what they thought were genetic abnormalities that would prevent youth from becoming productive members of society. They encouraged the development of a second state hospital for the feebleminded that would allow for sterilization of wards without their consent, which was created in 1917 (the Pacific Colony). They released a disproportionate number of boys of color from the Whittier State School as a result of their intelligence test scores—some of them ended up in the industrial school and were tracked into vocational programs, and some ended up in the Pacific Colony, and possibly sterilized. The approach used at the Whittier State School for classifying its youth and segregating those deemed unintelligent was replicated at reform schools across the country.

Discussion Question According to Chávez-García’s historical research findings, intelligence testing of the young people in reform schools was motivated by a societal interest in eugenics at the time. What does the term eugenics signify? How might recent or future scientific approaches to delinquency and criminality be used to support eugenics campaigns? Should such approaches be supported and developed if they can be used to “weed out” people who are thought to be inferior?

Source: Chávez-García, M. (2007). Intelligence testing at Whittier State School, 1890–1920. Pacific Historical Review, 76, 193–228.

The creation of juvenile courts at the turn of the 20th century marked a new era in how youth were dealt under the law.

Lewis Wickes Hine, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Washington, D.C.

The stated purpose of the juvenile court was to address the needs and behaviors of youth who had allegedly misbehaved (delinquent youth) and those who were in need of care because they had been neglected, abandoned, or abused (dependent and/or neglected youth). In order to distinguish between the juvenile court and the adult court, a completely different language for every stage in the process was created—cemented in an idea that had been percolating for some time: that juvenile delinquents should not be equated with adult criminals.44 It served as response to arguments made by parents of youth institutionalized indefinitely in cases such as that of Mary Ann Crouse, discussed above, and made it so youth could have their time in court. Scholars have cautioned against looking back on the child savers’ creation of the juvenile court as a purely benevolent or kind move as the operation of the courts favored white boys who were thought to have the potential to be reformed and molded into valuable citizens, unlike girls of all races and boys of color.45 In addition, the juvenile courts made it possible for the state to intrude upon family life in ways that were previously never allowed, and juvenile court actors created a whole other category of offenses known as status offenses (acts labeled inappropriate for youth, simply because of their age, such as drinking alcohol, running away from home, truancy, and walking outside at night; see also Chapters 1 and 6) that expanded the number of youth who would one day find themselves wrapped up in the juvenile justice system.

Views of Youth and Delinquency in the Juvenile Court (1899–Present) The views about youth upon which the juvenile court was based were not questioned in any substantial way until the 1960s.46 The 1960s were a time of a rise in the teenage population as the large population of children born after World War II (i.e., the generation known as the baby boomers) entered adolescence. This generation garnered quite a bit of attention, and as a subset experimented openly with drugs, protested against social and legal institutions, and rose up against the status quo. The group’s actions were often tied to the many movements for social change that had grabbed the attention of the public during this period of U.S. history. Large numbers of people had become active in social movements such as the

civil rights movement, the peace movement (also known as the anti– Vietnam War movement), and the feminist movement, all which shared concerns about legal fairness and equality. Urbanization had resulted in racial and ethnic diversity in major cities, and increased attention to the legacy of discrimination that remained even after the abolishment of segregation in 1954 and other Jim Crow laws (laws that allowed for a two- tiered social system in which black Americans were disadvantaged) with the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Frustration with racism and classism led to several uprisings as people became more conscious of the injustices that they faced. There were over 164 of these uprisings or “race riots” in just the first six months of 1967, along with protests at college campuses across the country.47 These events brought social tensions to public awareness, and it became apparent that the U.S. justice system was seen by many to target communities of color and the poor and working class. Less discussed, but present as well, were the numerous ways that juvenile justice courts and detention centers were used to deviantize and abuse LGBT youth and to attempt to “cure” them of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity through rehabilitation programs.48 Others were threatened by the social unrest and were looking to get tougher on juvenile misbehavior. As we will examine in Chapter 11, this era marked the beginning of a due process revolution in which young people who were accused and/or adjudicated delinquent gained additional legal rights.

Rehabilitation: The idea that youth who engage in delinquency and misbehavior should be taught how to change their ways in order to develop prosocial behaviors.

Popular Culture: A Target of Moral Panics About Delinquency Now that we have taken an in-depth look at some of the major changes in the way that youth and juvenile delinquency were defined historically prior to the development of the juvenile justice system, it is revealing to look at some of the accompanying moral panics or scares about delinquency that have occurred over the course of U.S. history.49 These scares typically share a number of elements: The news and/or entertainment media spread exaggerated information about the prevalence and seriousness of delinquency and/or an alleged source of juvenile delinquency in the

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community, interested community members pick up on the information, and attempts are made to fuel some sort of change or reform to the system. Regardless of whether any meaningful change is accomplished, the particular characterization of the juvenile delinquency problem tends to fade away, and subsequently reemerges in another form.50 What is interesting about these scares is that they often involve competing images about youth simultaneously: the idea of youth as vulnerable and impressionable and the idea of youth as mini-adults ready to pounce on any opportunity to engage in something dangerous.

These panics not only are fueled by the publicity generated by media sources, such as television shows, news stories, and print journalism, but often the very focus of the scares is the consumption and/or use of different means of communication and entertainment and how they allegedly lead to delinquency. In this section of the chapter we will focus on some of the means of communication and entertainment that have grabbed the attention of politicians, scholars, newsmakers, and the general public because of their alleged links with juvenile delinquency. There have been other sorts of scares related to juvenile delinquency as well; scares about youth drug use and youth weapon use are also popular, and will be discussed in other chapters in this book.

When we examine these historical panics about delinquency and popular culture, it helps us place current moral panics about delinquency in the proper context. Then, when we consider, for example, heightened concerns about the effect of Internet use on youth delinquency in the 21st century, we can attempt to be more objective about the issues at hand. Are such concerns deserving of serious attention, or are they simply the result of overzealous adults targeting a trend because it is popular with young people or because they misunderstand it?

Moral panic: Heightened concern over an issue that is not in line with its seriousness or frequency of occurrence in the world.

on the Media: Ahmed Mohamed and the Clock That Started a Panic

In September 2015 in Irving, Texas, 14-year-old Ahmed Mohamed, a student of Sudanese ancestry who is Muslim, was suspended from his high school after he brought a homemade clock to school to show his

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engineering teacher. Ahmed aims to be an engineer and likes creating different devices. His English teacher was upset after the alarm on the clock went off in class and she reported him to the principal, who then called law enforcement. They said they suspected that the clock was a bomb. The police searched Ahmed and escorted him out of school in handcuffs to a juvenile detention facility. He was fingerprinted, made to take a mug shot, and then suspended for three days after release. Widespread publicity of the event started a social media campaign on Twitter—#IStandWithAhmed—that highlighted the discrimination that Muslim youth face when they are assumed to be involved in terrorism. Ahmed received messages of support from around the world, including from President Obama. His experience is focused upon in a “trap transmedia” project created by Jamel Mims, which includes a rap and video named after Ahmed and aims to draw attention to the discrimination faced by Muslim Americans.

The panic that ensued when Ahmed Mohamed brought a homemade clock to school was the result of negative stereotyping of Muslim American youth.

Bilgin S. Sasmaz/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Discussion Questions 1. How does the panic around Ahmed’s clock reflect how many non-

Muslim adults perceive and stereotype Muslim American youth?

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2. How did the social media response in support of Ahmed challenge this social construction?

Sources: Rao, S. (2015, Sept. 17). Zuckerberg, Obama and more stand with Ahmed. Colorlines. Retrieved from https://www.colorlines.com/articles/zuckerberg-obama-and-more-stand- ahmed; Rao, S. (2016, June 1). Watch: The story of Ahmed Mohamed told via trap music and magical realism. Colorlines. Retrieved from https://www.colorlines.com/articles/watch-story-ahmed-mohamed-told- trap-music-and-magical-realism

Some of the first scares about the influence of music and the arts came early in the history of the United States. In the late 1700s there was a burgeoning concern about the dangers of “explicit” songs and photos as inspirations for juvenile delinquency, as explained in the words of an English doctor of the time:

Even ballad singers and street musicians are useful in their spheres to promote vice. . . . Observe who listen to and buy those lewd ballads, you will find that young people of both sexes, particularly apprentice boys, servant maids, and gentleman servants, are the purchasers. They read them with the greatest avidity, and thereby poison their morals, by affording them fuel to their turbulent passions.51

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https://www.colorlines.com/articles/zuckerberg-obama-and-more-stand-ahmed

https://www.colorlines.com/articles/watch-story-ahmed-mohamed-told-trap-music-and-magical-realism

Hardly imaginable in today’s world, silent movies were seen as a likely source of delinquency by some adults in the United States in the early 1900s.

Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

The concerns about music and photography were followed with a related concern—acting and drama, and their purported negative influence upon youth. The concern was that youth would be corrupted not only by watching acting, but by engaging in acting. An administrator in the Philadelphia House of Refuge described his perception of this threat:

A new source of juvenile corruption has been opened in the city, which deserves to be noticed. They allude to what for want of a more appropriate phrase may be called children’s theatres . . . the actors and the audience are minors of both sexes, though it is supposed that the whole is under the direction and for the benefit of adults. They are established in obscure places, the price of admission is low, and there

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is unlimited license in them for every sort of vicious indulgence.52

In the early decades of the 1900s, there were concerns about all forms of media as delinquency instigators. Dime novels, small, cheap books that tended to have extreme plots full of action, were thought to be full of bad ideas that would tempt young people into wrongdoing.53 As one delinquency theorist of the time noted, “It is not unknown to find counterfeiting and even murder springing from bad reading.”54 The “flaming youth” era of the silent films of the 1920s and the “talking films” of the 1930s were seen by some adults as providing youth with easy exposure to provocative and dangerous ideas.55 During this period, a lot of negative attention was focused on jazz music as well. Magazine articles with titles such as “Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?” were written as a means of raising awareness about the dangers of jazz.56 The music form was accused of bringing out evil in the listener. Jazz dancing and jazz music were considered to be dangerous for the youth, and part of the concern was rooted in racism because jazz was closely associated with black musicians. Claims about jazz and delinquency typically had the following tone:

Anyone who says that “youths of both sexes can mingle in close embrace”—with limbs intertwined and torso in contact—without suffering harm lies. Add to this position the wriggling movement and sensuous stimulation of the abominable jazz orchestra with its voodoo-born minors and its direct appeal to the sensory center, and if you can believe youth is the same after this experience as before, then God help your child.57

Communities across the country passed laws prohibiting jazz music in public dance halls as a result of this scare.

Another mass medium began getting a lot of attention in the 1930s and 1940s, and in the 1950s reached a peak in terms of the popular attention it was given as a possible source of the corruption of youth.58 This source of fear was the comic book. Comic books were thought to be very influential during the early 20th century, and by the 1950s all sorts of comics were being printed weekly—those considered relatively innocent such as

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Donald Duck and Archie, and then a variety of others that raised the concern of many adults, such as comics having to do with romance, crime, and horror. (Tales From the Crypt was one that garnered quite a bit of negative attention in the horror genre.) J. Edgar Hoover used comics to advertise the crime fighting of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but by the 1950s the main concern discussed among social scientists, government officials, law enforcement agents, and members of the Catholic Church was that comic books were being used as tools to learn how to commit acts of delinquency and crime. These comic books, along with other media, were the focus of a series of televised congressional hearings on the causes of juvenile delinquency in 1954 (known as the Kefauver hearings for one of the senators who helped lead them). Ultimately, a rating system for comics was put into place as a result of these concerns, the Comics Code Authority, and comic books stamped with approval were ones deemed safe for young people to read.59

on the Media: Award-Winning Perspectives on Juvenile Justice Issues

Every year, the National Council for Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) announces their choices for the Annual Media for a Just Society Awards (http://www.nccdglobal.org/newsroom/media-for-a-just- society-awards).

The NCCD analyzes a number of types of media—books, films, magazines, newspapers, radio, TV/video, and web sources—before they choose which pieces have done the best job of spreading accurate information about the juvenile and adult justice systems in the United States. Some examples of winners that focused upon juvenile justice issues are the film The Central Park Five by Ken Burns; the newspaper article “Will Juvenile Lifers Get a Second Chance?” by Alan Prendergast of Westword; the book Burning Down the House: The End of the Juvenile Prison; and episodes 1–3 in the VICE news documentary series Last Chance High. In 2015, the NCCD’s Just Society Youth Media Award went to Marlo Scott for his online article in Represent, “My Looking-Glass Self.”60

In the article, Marlo, a former foster youth, describes his path through high school and college and the way he consciously changed his self- concept and presentation of self in order to change his life.

He acknowledges that he was a smart kid in middle school but he felt he needed to act tough to gain the respect of his peers. Mario explains that

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although he enjoyed his image as a “thug” for a while, he knew during his first year of high school that he wanted to change his image in order to accomplish his goal of going to college one day and becoming an accountant. Marlo’s story is a reflexive look at how one young person put the concept of Cooley’s looking glass self (see Chapter 6) into use in his own life.

Discussion Questions 1. What are the benefits of new forms of media that provide outlets

for first-person accounts of delinquency? What can we learn from them?

2. What do you think it would take for there to be more socially just depictions of youth and their behaviors in the media? Explain the reasoning behind your answer.

Music continued to be targeted throughout the decades as a cause of delinquency—in the 1950s with rock music and worries about the influence of a gyrating Elvis Presley—and in the 1960s and 1970s with concerns over “hippies” and the influence of groups such as the Grateful Dead. In the 1980s and 1990s, more scares about music entertainment garnered attention. This time, the concern was not with jazz or mainstream rock music, but with heavy metal rock music and rap music.61 The concern with heavy metal music occurred in the mid-1980s, and at its root was the idea that its lyrics might corrupt youth. Indicative of this argument was that the “lyrics glamorize drug and alcohol use, and glorify death and violent rebellion, ranging from hatred of parents and teachers to suicide— the ultimate act of violence to oneself.”62 In 1985, the issue of what was called “porn rock” was investigated by the U.S. Senate, and the Parents’ Music Resource Center (PMRC), a group led by women who were tied to the political power structure in Washington, DC, at the time (e.g., Tipper Gore, who was married to Senator Al Gore, and Susan Baker, who was married to Treasury Secretary Al Baker), was asked to participate in the hearing. A psychiatrist working with the PMRC claimed that

the individual identified in the newspapers as the Night Stalker has been said to be into hard drugs and the music of the heavy metal band AC/DC. . . . Young people who are seeking power over others through the identification with the power of evil find a close

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identification. The lyrics become a philosophy of life. It becomes a religion.

The PMRC also claimed that listening to heavy metal music would lead children to violence against others: teachers, parents, and women.63 They claimed that a good deal of heavy metal music was linked to Satanism, and worship of the devil would certainly lead teenagers to nothing but negative behavior. According to their argument, youth needed to be protected from the threats posed by such music. Many record companies began to put parental advisory stickers to signify explicit lyrics on albums that same year.

Beginning in the early 1990s, delinquency and crime became associated in the mainstream media with rap music. As Binder explains, the concerns about rap music immediately were framed differently than those around the predominantly white genre of heavy metal music—rap and rap listeners were almost always characterized as a danger to society.64 When the PMRC or others voiced concerns about rap music’s effect on youth, they tended not to ever voice concern about the young men of color who might be “corrupted” by the lyrics, as they did with heavy metal, but instead considered the threats these young men might pose to others in society in the form of hanging out together and possibly raping women or threatening others.65 A particular form of rap, “gangsta rap,” became popular in the early 1990s with groups such as N.W.A. and rappers such as Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre at the top of music sales. These rappers garnered a lot of negative attention from concerned adults because of their songs’ explicit lyrics, gang references, and use of violent and sexist language.66 The concern was once again that the music would provoke delinquency, but delinquency on the part of young men of color, particularly young black men, was at the crux of the uproar. This concern has remained until the present day. In fact, in spite of all the concern about rap music in the 1990s, it was not until 2007 that a congressional subcommittee conducted a hearing on the issues of language and violence in rap music. Lawmakers quoted rapper 50 Cent’s lyrics and analyzed the role of the explicit music on young listeners.67 In the 21st century, concerns about the dangers of some forms of cultural consumption, such as listening to electronic and other forms of music at raves, are not always characterized by moral outrage; instead, they are highly bureaucratized efforts at “quiet

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regulation.”68 In spite of the different form of claims-making present in these regulatory efforts, like moral panics, they ultimately facilitate the social control of media and cultural forms, as well as their consumers.

From the Classroom to the Community: The Campaign for Youth Justice—“Because the Consequences Aren’t Minor”

The Campaign for Youth Justice (CYJ) is a social action group based in Washington, D.C., that is actively challenging the misconceptions about youth and their experiences in the justice system. The CYJ motto, “Because the consequences aren’t minor,” reflects the group’s primary concerns, which are the results that come from prosecuting and imprisoning youth in the adult justice system. One of the many campaigns that the CYJ is behind is National Youth Justice Awareness Month; a Missouri mother named Tracy McClard whose son killed himself during his incarceration in the adult system started an advocacy campaign in which the facts about youth justice are focused upon in cities across the United States yearly during activities in October. Since 2008, activities such as 5k run/walks, art exhibits, poetry slams, and film screenings have been undertaken during National Youth Justice Awareness month as a means of pointing out that youth who are punished within the juvenile justice system are less likely to reoffend than those who have been incarcerated in the adult system. In spite of popular notions of youth, CYJ argues that youth are not yet mature adults, but developing children in need of different punishments than their adult counterparts.

Discussion Question 1. Are you familiar with CYJ’s or similar campaigns in your own

community? What types of activities do you think best get the word out about information related to treating youth who have committed acts of delinquency as adults? Are any of your ideas different from those used by CYJ?

Sources: Campaign for Youth Justice. (n.d.). Current campaigns. Retrieved from http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/change-the- system/current-campaigns.html; Campaign for Youth Justice. (n.d.). National youth justice awareness month. Retrieved from http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/change-the-system/national- youth-justice-awareness-month.html

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http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/change-the-system/current-campaigns.html

http://www.campaignforyouthjustice.org/change-the-system/national-youth-justice-awareness-month.html

Another moral panic about media effects on youth occurred in the 2000s, and this panic was focused on playing video games or “gaming.” Although videogames played at home on a TV or computer have been popular since the 1980s, the concern about violent or sexually suggestive video games and their effects on youth’s behavior did not become a major concern until the 1990s. In 1992, a videogame called Night Trap ignited the fears of many adults who misconstrued its content as gratuitous violence that could lead to aggression among the youth who played it, particularly boys. Uproar over the concern led to yet another set of congressional hearings on offensive video game content, and ultimately, by 1994, the video game industry began a rating system to indicate which games were appropriate for which age groups. In spite of this “solution,” adult concern over violent video games as a gateway to violent acts of delinquency continued. In the 2000s the games became increasingly realistic due to sophisticated technology. Claims that playing games such as Grand Theft Auto, which has 3D graphics and players who assume roles as characters who engage in virtual crimes, led teenagers to engage in such acts themselves began being heard in courtrooms across the United States. Politicians led the charge yet again against the video game industry in an effort to protect youth gamers. In 2010, California, following several other states,69 attempted to pass a law stating that “extremely violent video games” could no longer be sold to minors. The U.S. Supreme Court in Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association (2011) agreed with a lower court that ruled that the law was unconstitutional.70 The majority decision made reference to the many moral panics about delinquency and youth that had come prior to the violent video game scare before claiming that such a restriction violated the right to free speech.

In December of 2012, the shooting of 20 children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut renewed interest in the effects of violent video games on youth and young adults. The 20-year-old shooter, Adam Lanza, was barely out of his teenage years when he shot his mother at home, took three of her guns, went to Sandy Hook Elementary to commit a mass shooting, and then killed himself.71 Some news stories that followed the tragedy claimed that Lanza spent a lot of time playing violent video games, like Call of Duty, in his basement.72 Although these claims were ultimately disputed, public concern about violent video games gained international attention as the vice president of the United States, Joseph Biden, met with gaming industry executives to

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encourage them to think twice about the promotion of violence for entertainment.73 Legislation was proposed in the House of Representatives to ban the sale of violent video games to minors, and President Obama encouraged Congress to dedicate $10 million to the study of the connection between violent video games and societal violence.74 In Southington, Connecticut there were efforts to gather and burn a bunch of violent video games as a statement of outrage (that never came to pass).75 Less than six months later, Nathon Brooks, a 14-year-old from Moses Lake, Washington, received widespread attention beginning in March 2013 when he was accused of shooting both of his parents after his parents took his video games away.76 He told police that he was playing video games “24/7” until he was grounded and his parents took his electronic devices away. Brooks took a pistol out of the family safe and shot both of his parents, who survived. He was first charged with two counts of attempted murder, but ultimately, he pled guilty to two charges of assault, a lesser punishment for which his parents argued.77

Amidst all the heightened attention given to a possible video game– violence connection, there were some opposing voices. For example, psychologist and video game scholar Christopher Ferguson noted in an editorial for the Hartford Courant newspaper,

Of course most young males play at least some violent video games; by this standard it would be possible to link almost any crime by men under 40 to them. That’s about as meaningful as linking crime to anything else almost everybody does — watching Sesame Street as a kid, wearing sneakers, drinking soda. Newtown was an opportunity for moral crusaders to harrumph over violent video games as they did over rock music in the 1980s and comic books in the 1950s.

By focusing, uselessly, on violent video games, these debates suck the air out of discussions of real issues such as tackling mental illness before it can do harm. During the past 20 years in which video games have soared in popularity, youth violence has dropped by almost 90 percent. We would do well to remember this, concentrate on more pressing matters such as poverty, and forgo discussion of cultural issues, if we are really serious about crime.78

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Ferguson’s points reflect the findings of one arm of recent video game research that do not support the assertion that violent video games lead to real-life violence and claim that the harmfulness of video games is often assumed by clinicians and researchers, in part because of a generational divide.79 Adachi and Willoughby found that the competitive element of video game play is linked to an increase in aggression over time, not necessarily the violent content of a given game.80 They also claimed that it is important to shift the attention from the negative effects of video games to the more positive—such as the role of strategic video games in developing pro-social skills that help adolescent gamers do well academically.81

As the use of the Internet becomes increasingly integrated in the lives of young people, other forms of online expression have come under public scrutiny as possible inspirations for delinquent acts. One of these forms is online storytelling, such as on the website Creepypasta, which is a compilation of scary stories and urban legends that have been cut and pasted to the website or have been created on the Creepypasta Wiki.82 The stories are often ghost stories or horror stories, and although they may include stories of murder and suicide, website founders state the purpose of the website is a literary one. They had to defend their website repeatedly in the 2010s after the commission of violent acts by teens who said characters on Creepypasta motivated them. In the most publicized example, two 12-year-olds in Wisconsin, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier, went with their mutual friend, Payton Leutner, into the woods and allegedly stabbed her 19 times.83 They claimed that they did so in order to please a character known as Slender Man that they had read about on Creepypasta Wiki: a tall, thin, faceless character who wears a suit, has tentacles on his back, and abducts children.84 The girls noted that they had hoped to gain his favor through the blood sacrifice of killing their friend and, ultimately, to be protected from any harm that he might otherwise do to them.85 In 2015, another incident involving Creepypasta came to light in Elkhart, Indiana. A 12-year-old girl allegedly stabbed her 50-year-old stepmother, Maria Torres, because she thought a Creepypasta clown named Laughing Jack told her to do so.86 The Laughing Jack character is portrayed online as a clown that approaches kids, gains their trust, and eventually kills them and stuffs them with candy.87 In both of these cases of preteen violence, the mental health of the perpetrators has been called

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into question,88 yet popular interest in the stories remains fixated on the role played by the words and images on the Internet.

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In recent years online characters like Slender Man have been blamed for influencing serious acts of delinquency.

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By LuxAmber (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons wikimedia

At the Crossroads: 21st-Century Social Constructions of Youth and Delinquency As we have described in this chapter, the treatment of the subject of youth and delinquency has had a long history, full of twists, turns, and repetitions. In contemporary society, adults portray youth in two fundamentally different ways: “Children play a dual role in terms of innocence and brutality, protection and control. We can justify excess in protecting children, and increasingly, we can excuse excess in punishing them, particularly—and paradoxically—if extreme sanctions will protect the innocence of children.”89 In the last decade of the 20th century, following the well-publicized school shooting in Columbine, Colorado, media sources increasingly spread the message that youth were often more frequently people to be afraid of, rather than people to protect.90 In keeping with our historical past, black and brown youth, particularly young men, were characterized as people law-abiding adults should be afraid of and protected against.91 Girls, although not seen as quite as threatening as their male counterparts, were also the objects of heightened concern, as claims that they were getting out of control—joining gangs, acting like boys, and being overtly assertive and violent—were publicized.92 LGBT youth were demonized and abused by the public and in juvenile institutions by adults who were charged with protecting them.93 These messages about youth have not disappeared in the 21st century. As Henry Giroux explains, “Put bluntly, American society at present exudes a deep-rooted hostility and chilling fear about youth.”94

In spite of the widespread fears about youth that persist, we can look at the Supreme Court decisions made in the 2000s (as we will in Chapter 11 of this book), and see that the justices are utilizing the same social characterization of young people who engage in delinquency that Progressive reformers did over a century ago—that of youth as people who are developing mentally and socially, deserve time to do so, and can redeem themselves in light of any mistakes that they make during their childhood and adolescent years. Perhaps the balance is slowly shifting, and

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soon this idea of youth misbehavior will once again predominate.

In the News: The Deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice

On February 26, 2012, an African-American 17-year-old, Trayvon Martin, was shot to death by a self-appointed neighborhood watchperson, George Zimmerman. Martin was walking back to his father’s girlfriend’s home in a gated community in Orlando, Florida, after going to the store during a break in the NBA All-Star game that he was watching. He was carrying some Skittles candy and an iced tea from the store.95 It was raining, and he was wearing the hood of his sweatshirt up to keep from getting wet. Zimmerman was patrolling the neighborhood and noticed Martin walking. He confronted Martin for walking through the neighborhood and ultimately shot him, which he claimed was in self-defense, although Martin was unarmed. On July 13, 2013, a jury made up predominantly of white women found Zimmerman not guilty in the death of Martin.96

The deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice resulted in widespread mourning and social protest.

REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

On August 9, 2014, an 18-year-old unarmed African-American young

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man named Michael Brown was killed as the result of multiple gunshots to his body in Ferguson, Missouri by a white police officer named Darren Wilson.97 What happened that day was subject to many conflicting accounts, but ultimately what has been shown is that the use of deadly force against Brown was an extreme response, and less fatal police tactics could have been employed. A grand jury of six white men, three white women, one black man, and two black women was convened to consider the case. Nine votes out of twelve were needed to indict Wilson, and the grand jury ultimately did not indict him.98

On November 22, 2014 in Columbus, Ohio a 12-year-old African- American boy, Tamir Rice, was shot and killed by a white police officer-in-training, Timothy Loehmann. Loehmann and his supervisor, Frank Garmback, responded to a 911 call from someone near the rec center who stated there was “a guy with a pistol” that was “probably fake.” Video of the incident showed that when the police drove up to the area where Rice was standing, Loehmann shot him within seconds of his arrival. While the grand jury deliberated, prosecutors hired their own investigators who wrote reports that the officer’s use of lethal force was justified and released them to the public.99 A grand jury decided not to indict either Loehmann or Garmback on criminal charges.100 Outrage and controversy has followed the decision, as the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office noted that the grand jury did not actually vote on the issue of indictment, which is highly unusual.101

The law enforcement-related deaths of Martin, Brown, and Rice are related to numerous others that have occurred. In the aftermath of these killings, The Guardian did a study that revealed that in 2015, “Despite making up only 2% of the total US population, African-American males between the ages of 15 and 34 comprised more than 15% of all deaths logged this year by an ongoing investigation into the use of deadly force by police. Their rate of police-involved deaths was five times higher than for white men of the same age.”102 This finding was also supported by other studies, such as one published by Amnesty International.103

Discussion Questions 1. 1. The outcry over the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown,

and Tamir Rice is related to the widespread perception that their deaths were one of the violent outcomes experienced by youth of color after they are stereotyped and assumed to be dangerous.

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What are some ways that people are challenging these stereotypes and assumptions?

2. What are some additional social changes that you think are necessary to prevent the use of deadly force against youth of color?

Sources: Amnesty International (2015). Deadly force: Police use of force in the United States. New York: Amnesty International USA; Associated Press. (2014, August 22). Racial and gender makeup of grand jury revealed in Ferguson case. CBS News. Fantz, A., Almasy, S., & Shoichet, C. E. (2015, Dec. 28). Tamir Rice shooting: No charges for officers. CNN News. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/tamir-rice-shooting; Gutman, M. (2012). Trayvon Martin neighborhood watch shooting: 911 tapes send mom crying from room. ABC News, March 16. Retrieved from http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/treyvon-martin-neighborhood-watch- shooting-911-tapes-send/story?id=15937881#.T2vBicyyzQo; Lee, J. (2015, Oct. 28). Outrage is growing over the Tamir Rice investigation. Is the grand jury process stacked in favor of the cop that killed the 12- year-old? Mother Jones. Retrieved from http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/tamir-rice-leaked- reports-grand-jury; Sandy, E. & Grzegorek, V. (2016, Jan. 20). The grand jury in the Tamir Rice case did not take a vote on charges. Scene. Retrieved from http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and- heard/archives/2016/01/20/the-grand-jury-in-the-tamir-rice-case-did- not-take-a-vote-on-charges; Swaine, J., Laughland, O., & Lartey, J. (2016, Jan. 2). Young black men killed by police at highest rate in year of 1,134 deaths. Retrieved from http://www.alternet.org/civil- liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134- deaths; Tienabesco, S., Gutman, M., & Wash, S. (2013). George Zimmerman found not guilty and goes free. ABC News, July 13. Retrieved from http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-found- guilty-free/story?id=19653300

Summary

Adults’ ideas about who young people are and how they should be treated have undergone large shifts over time. Social constructions of youth from ancient times to the Middle Ages provided a common understanding that young people over the age of 7 were capable of handling an ever-increasing amount of responsibility, and when children misbehaved they were often treated as an adult would be. The English common law tradition that came to influence the region that is

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http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/28/us/tamir-rice-shooting

http://www.abcnews.go.com/US/treyvon-martin-neighborhood-watch-shooting-911-tapes-send/story?id=15937881#.T2vBicyyzQo

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/tamir-rice-leaked-reports-grand-jury

http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2016/01/20/the-grand-jury-in-the-tamir-rice-case-did-not-take-a-vote-on-charges

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/young-black-men-killed-us-police-highest-rate-year-1134-deaths

http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-found-guilty-free/story?id=19653300

now the United States was one that focused upon mens rea, or whether a young person was capable of having a guilty mind and preplanning an act of wrongdoing in advance. Typically, children from the ages of 7 to 14 were thought to have some ability to do such planning, and those above the age of 14 were assumed to have the same abilities as adults. After the invention of the printing press and with the advent of industrialization, adults began to question their ideas about childhood and decided that some children, particularly white children from middle- and upper-class families, needed to be formally educated over time. Urbanization that accompanied industrialization led to an increase in population in major cities, as well as a more visible presence of children on the streets who were from working-class and/or poor families. Concerns about the seeming lack of supervision of such children fueled reform efforts in the “child saving” era of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The child saving era brought with it the creation of a number of new institutions that reformers used to address children’s behaviors or their family situations: “poor farms,” asylums, farm schools, labor schools, and houses of refuge. Most of these institutions functioned to teach lessons about hard work and individual responsibility. The legal justification of parens patriae, or the state as a substitute parent for children who were deemed to be abused or neglected, or to have parents who could not control them, led to the increased institutionalization of youth. These institutions treated the young people differently depending on their race, ethnicity, and gender. For example, black youth were not allowed in houses of refuge until 1850 and, unlike white youth, were still treated as adults and housed in adult prisons until that time. Girls from immigrant families and poor and working-class families were much more likely to be placed in an institution for concerns about their immoral behavior than native-born white girls were—and girls in general were watched over more closely and disciplined more often than boys.

In the late 1800s, the concept of adolescence was created, and its increasing acceptance as a stage of human development during the late 19th century culminated in the development of the first juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. This was followed by the creation of juvenile courts across the country, and the founders of such courts claimed that they were based on a rehabilitative philosophy—the idea that young people who had committed an act of delinquency were capable of changing their behavior and staying out of trouble if they were given the support and guidance to do so. Status offenses, acts that are considered problematic because of the age of the person carrying

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them out (e.g., truancy and curfew violations), were among the many that adult reformers targeted in the day-to-day functioning of the juvenile justice system. Juveniles were considered distinct from adults, and the juvenile justice system was set up to treat them differently from adults; in turn, they were given fewer legal rights than adults. This changed a bit in the due process revolution of the 1960s when a number of significant legal protections were established.

Moral panics about delinquency have accompanied the many shifts in how young people have been viewed over time. These scares typically share a number of elements: The news and/or entertainment media spread exaggerated information about the prevalence and seriousness of delinquency and/or an alleged source of juvenile delinquency in the community, interested community members pick up on the information, and attempts are made to fuel some sort of change or reform to the system. Sometimes media forms themselves are often targeted as the source of delinquency; panics about music, comic books, and video games frequently occur.

Eye on Diversity Exercise: Delinquency and Dependence in 21st- Century Films

The mass media have long played a role in socially constructing delinquency by portraying images of youth and delinquency that can impact the viewer. Typically, images of youth of color, girls, and the working class in the news, on television, and in film have been stereotypical ones that misrepresent the broad range of life experiences of these young people.104 Just take a quick look at some of the titles of the films that depict delinquency in the mid-20th century—Good-Time Girl (1948), So Young, So Bad (1950), and So Evil, So Young (1961). Although usually films misrepresent the complex realities of children who act out delinquently and/or are wards of the state, documentary films, though not nearly as popular as fictional films, do a better job of showing the true experiences of youth.

For this exercise, explore depictions of youth, delinquency, and dependence in films released in the 21st century. These films may be fictional dramas or documentaries focusing upon actual events and people. It is revealing to compare and contrast depictions of youth and delinquency (and issues of dependency, neglect, and abuse leading to state institutionalization) from countries around the world as well, and thus our list of suggested movies is international in scope.

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Some suggestions: Girlhood (2015, France); DOPE (2015, U.S.); The Life of a King (2013); Fish Tank (2009, U.K.); Independent Lens: “Me Facing Life: Cyntoia’s Story” (2011, U.S.); White Irish Drinkers (2010, U.S.); Yelling at the Sky (2011, U.S.); Neds (2010, U.K.); The Unloved (2009, U.S.); Confession (2005, U.S.); If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle (2010, Romania); The Edukators (2005, Germany); The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia (2009, U.S.); Holy Rollers (2010, U.S.); Bullet Boy (2004, U.K.); The Black Donnellys (2007, U.S.); Liberty Kid (2007, U.S.); I’m Gonna Explode (2008, Mexico); The Glass House (2009, Iran).

After watching a film, or films, answer the following questions:

1. How do the filmmakers portray the factors that lead to delinquency and dependence on the part of youth?

2. How are issues of race, class, gender, and sexuality portrayed? 3. When filmmakers explicitly or implicitly address the “solutions”

to delinquency, what do they focus upon in the film or films you have chosen to analyze?

Discussion Questions 1. After reading about the history of the social construction of

delinquency in this chapter, what three facts about it did you find the most surprising? Explain why you found them surprising. Did they challenge your understanding of how we have come to define delinquency today?

2. Why is it the case that many scholars look back on the houses of refuge and state that they were misnamed?

3. How did considerations of race, ethnicity, social class, gender, and sexuality affect the ways that authorities throughout history handled delinquency and dependency?

4. In what ways did the creation of juvenile courts shift mainstream perceptions about youth and delinquency at the turn of the 20th century? How did the due process cases of the 1960s and early 1970s later affect perceptions about youth and delinquency? Were these similar or dissimilar effects?

5. What can we learn from analyzing the various moral panics or scares about popular culture and delinquency? What are some current issues in popular culture that are garnering excessive attention for being alleged inspirations for delinquency?

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Key Terms Houses of refuge 38 Mens rea 36 Moral panic 44 Parens patriae 38 Rehabilitation 43 Social constructions of youth and delinquency 34

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. False 2. True 3. True 4. True 5. False 6. False 7. True

Student Study Site

edge.sagepub.com/bates2e

Sharpen your skills with SAGE edge!

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Chapter 3 Understanding Delinquency Data, Correlates, and Trends

©iStockphoto.com/olaser

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe what is needed to create a good statistic (gather good data) Explain the difference between quantitative and qualitative data Explain the correlates of delinquency Explain the strengths and weaknesses of each data source Explain the trends in delinquency (violence, property, and drug crimes) Analyze the race differences in trends in delinquency (violence, property, and drug crimes)

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Analyze the gender differences in trends in delinquency (violence, property, and drug crimes) Compare and contrast the type of data used in our understanding of the correlates and trends in delinquency

Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 90.

1. The best way to create a good statistic is to interview everyone you can about the topic.

2. Quantitative and qualitative data are equally good at describing trends over time.

3. The Uniform Crime Report data are a measure of both crimes known to police and arrests in the United States.

4. The National Crime Victimization Survey is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau.

5. Class is the strongest correlate of delinquency. 6. According to the arrest data, juveniles were less violent in 2014

than at any time since 1980. 7. According to the arrest data, juveniles were more likely to engage

in property crime in 2014 than in 1980. 8. Both the arrest trends and the self-report trends show that blacks

are more likely to engage in drug crimes than whites.

Our girls are becoming more violent. This was the unsolicited opinion of a stranger in the supermarket line I was standing in. I was surprised by the observation because, frankly, my young sons were creating good-natured havoc in between us, and I wondered how anyone could be focused on girls and delinquency during all of the commotion. The stranger pointed to People magazine and the story of a young American woman accused of murder in Italy. “It’s a sad story,” I said in reply, which opened the way for more opinion. “Girls didn’t used to go around killing people. But now, these days, they are as bad as boys. They fight, and steal, and kill their roommates. I don’t know what this world is coming to—it seems like young people are getting scarier and scarier. I expect it from boys,” the stranger said, looking down at my sons, “but never girls.” This opinion, shared in the traditional media and

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online,1 has fueled a debate about the changing nature of female delinquency. This discussion is often accompanied by stories of 8-year- old girls who beat others with bike handlebars, girls who fight with a singular focus, continuing even after adults have arrived to break up the fight.2 The opinion is spread from news shows, popular magazines, and online websites to average citizens who expect that the stories they hear and the statistics they read represent the “truth.”

But research tells us that television and the media tend to distort crime, telling us that there is more of it and that it is more violent than it really is. So, how do we know the “truth”? Should we be worried that there is a female crime spree upon us? Are girls “as bad as boys”? Examining data that chart the trends of delinquency, learning how to interpret those data, and understanding the social context of the times will help us answer these questions.

How to Lie With Statistics

There is a famous book by Darrell Huff called How to Lie With Statistics.3 In it, Huff discusses many ways that statistics have been improperly used. And it is true: The statistic is a misused and maligned creature. Individuals are often all too willing to quote numbers that cannot be verified, but they may be just as willing to dismiss numbers that legitimately tell a certain story. This is what this chapter is about. It is about helping you, the student, develop a “statistical literacy” about juvenile delinquency that better informs your understanding of the nature and extent of delinquency in the United States.4 In other words, it is going to help you ask certain questions about the statistics presented to you so that you can better determine which are statistics you might quote to your friends and which are “lies.”

What Goes Into a Good Statistic? We often rely on compelling stories or anecdotes to illustrate what we consider to be trends or “truths” about how the world works. However, while powerful, an anecdote rarely gives us the full understanding of a social fact or event and oftentimes is captivating because of its rarity. For this reason, in order to understand the social world, we need to understand how to best capture its commonalities. For this, we need an understanding

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of statistics.

Sampling

One of the most important things that goes into a good statistic (one we can reasonably assume is telling us how the world works) is a representative sample.5 In other words, we do not describe the social world (for example, whether girls are becoming more violent) by interviewing all girls or examining the behavior of all girls. Instead, we take a sample (or smaller group) of girls, examine their behaviors, and use this to make inferences about the larger social world. In order to have a representative sample, we must make sure that our sample has the same proportions on important characteristics as the group as a whole (for example, the sample must have the same proportionate gender and racial makeup as the group as a whole). In order to obtain a representative sample, we must engage in a random sample process, which means that each individual in the group (population) has the same chance of making it into the sample. In practice, however, it can be difficult to get equal access to all individuals in any population.

If we look back at the stranger who expressed so much worry about girls becoming more violent, we need to ask, what was her sample? In that particular instance, the sample was a single story about an American woman who was charged with murder in Italy. This particular woman was not even under the age of 18 but in her early 20s. In addition, she was not randomly selected from all girls—she was chosen because she was accused of engaging in a violent crime. So the sample in question was one woman who was not randomly chosen or representative of juvenile girls because she was over the age of 18.

But this “sample” is also a glaring example of a second important condition of a good representative sample: a sample size large enough to capture the complexity of the group being studied. The more homogeneous a group is (that is, the more group members have similar characteristics), the smaller the sample can be, but as a group gets more and more heterogeneous (that is, more diverse), the sample size should be expanded to capture this diversity in the correct proportions. For this reason, a single story or anecdote cannot tell us about the complexities of the social world, although it could very well spark our interest in asking deeper questions about the social world that statistics from properly collected data could

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answer.

Sample: A smaller group that is representative of the whole.

Random sample: When each individual in the group (population) has the same chances of making it into the sample as the next individual.

The Tyranny of Small Numbers

In addition to the importance of a proper sample, in order to be confident in the comparisons we make with our statistics we should understand the concept of “the tyranny of small numbers.”6 We often talk about increases and decreases in juvenile crime by comparing the number of youth who engage in crime one year to the number who engage in crime the following year. For example, if 100 youth are caught tagging school property one year and 200 youth are caught tagging the school the next year, we may be tempted to say that tagging has increased by 100% at that school in a single year, and statistically we would be right. But we must be careful when we start to make comparisons using such methods.

From the Classroom to the Community: The Children’s Defense Fund

The Children’s Defense Fund is a nonprofit organization that grew out of the civil rights movement. The goal of the organization is to improve the living conditions and experiences of children in the United States by focusing on improving related policies and programs. To this end, the organization utilizes research from many areas in criminology, sociology, political science, and feminist studies, among others, to identify the best ways to help children. As we saw in Chapter 1, the Children’s Defense Fund has identified factors that lead to the cradle- to-prison pipeline. The organization has also identified five key areas and many opportunities to destroy this pipeline:

Individuals: mentor a child, volunteer at school or in after-school programs, educate others about the pipeline (elected officials and neighbors and family), become involved in the foster care system Families: spend quality time with your family, attend school activities, consistently praise your child, create daily routines

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(homework, meals, quality time), do something fun with your sibling every day Communities: start a “Cradle Roll” in your faith-based or other community organization that links every child to a permanent adult mentor who can keep track of the child and help him or her if needed, start a support group for parents, create scholarships for children who need them, create community resource manuals so that parents and children in need know that help is available and how to get it Organizations: contribute to prevention and intervention programs, host community fairs that help children get assistance they might need (for example, a health fair to help children get enrolled in state and federal health care programs), encourage alternatives to incarceration that are focused on restorative justice and community involvement Government agencies: promote high-quality television programming, expand second-chance programs for youth, stop the criminalization of children, focus on prevention and intervention instead of suppression techniques, fund education

For more ideas, visit the Children’s Defense Fund, Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign: Take Action.7

Discussion Question 1. Using the suggestions from the Children’s Defense Fund

concerning ways to destroy the cradle-to-prison pipeline, give three real-world examples (from three of the five areas) of programs/policies that address this pipeline.

Source: Children’s Defense Fund, www.childrensdefense.org

What if in that first year 10 Latino and 90 white students, and then in the next year 30 Latino and 170 white students, were caught tagging. We might be tempted to say that the increase in Latinos caught tagging at the school was 200% while the increase for white students was about 89%, and we would be technically correct. But that discussion would miss an important point, that white students were 85% of those caught for tagging on campus the second year, and that in absolute numbers the increase in white students’ tagging was greater than the increase for Latino students for the year.

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http://www.childrensdefense.org

The tyranny of small numbers means that when dealing with small numbers—especially when comparing them to another group with larger numbers—an increase or decrease in the smaller group is going to cause a greater change than an increase or decrease in the larger group. Reporting that change is one way to craft the story, but we should be aware that it is influenced by the tyranny of those small numbers.

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Data Up until now we have been talking about our understanding of delinquency in a very quantitative fashion—and we will end the chapter in the same way when we explore the trends in delinquency over the past several decades. However, there is another way, known as qualitative analysis, to explore our understanding of delinquency, and it deserves special attention before we go any further.

Qualitative analyses are different from quantitative in several ways. First, data in quantitative research are in the form of numbers by either counting an event or representing a social fact. Data in qualitative research are represented through words, pictures, objects, songs, and films. Qualitative research often uses inductive reasoning—researchers keep an open mind and may go into their research with few preconceived notions of what they expect to find. The researchers have an interesting research question, but the data are going to guide them to the ultimate story. Quantitative research uses deductive reasoning. A researcher starts with a hypothesis (a relationship between two social facts) and then conducts the research to determine whether that initial hypothesis can be supported by the data. With quantitative research, the researcher often sacrifices contextual detail for generalizability. With qualitative research, the researcher often sacrifices generalizability for contextual detail. Many researchers have a preference for quantitative or qualitative research, arguing that one is better than the other at finding “the answers,” but we believe that the research question should dictate the method of gathering data and that neither qualitative nor quantitative research is inherently good or bad.

Quantitative research is good at giving us the general, broad picture of a social phenomenon, such as trends over time, or correlations between two social facts. Quantitative research is good at this because the sampling technique with quantitative work more often allows for generalizability, and quantitative work also allows for a large number of cases to be

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sampled. You will see us use quantitative data to discuss the trends in delinquency in the last half of this chapter.

But qualitative research gives us the rich texture and deep understanding of groups and social phenomena. We want to spend a bit of time here explaining the importance of qualitative research for our deeper understanding of juvenile delinquency. You will see examples of qualitative work throughout this book.

In the study of juvenile delinquency, two of the most often used forms of qualitative data collection are probably unstructured and semistructured interviews and ethnographic work that utilizes participant observation. The interview is a very popular technique; it allows the researcher to sit down with a participant one-on-one for an in-depth discussion. While the researcher may have some set questions in the form of a semistructured interview guide, it is often the case that researchers sit down for a discussion in which they know the topics they want to cover, but really allow the participant to guide the interview. These interviews typically last at least an hour but can go much longer, or can involve a series of interviews that cover a wide variety of topics. The interview is often recorded if the participant agrees. While a survey sample might consist of 100, 1,000, or 5,000 participants, a sample of qualitative interviews for a typical sociological study would include fewer participants (10 to 100). Yet, it is important to note that a single interview is full of data and can yield a transcript (typed-out interview) of tens to hundreds of pages.

Inductive reasoning: Reasoning that moves from specific observations (data) to broader generalizations (theory) based on those observations. Qualitative research often uses inductive reasoning.

Deductive reasoning: Reasoning from general ideas (theory) to more specific observations (data). Deductive reasoning is often used in quantitative research.

Hypothesis: A testable supposition or tentative explanation for a phenomenon.

Quantitative data: Data that are measured or identified on a numerical

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scale.

Qualitative data: Data that are descriptive in nature that can be observed rather than measured.

Participant observation: A qualitative method of data collection in which the researcher studies a group by sharing in its activities and daily life.

One of the ways to get the most in-depth information possible is to conduct one-on-one interviews.

iStockphoto.com/sturti

Researchers engaging in participant observation in the form of an ethnography work to become accepted members of the group they are studying so they can experience some of the same social phenomena or events as the participants. This method of research, like the use of interviews, allows for an in-depth look at the life of a group, or an individual who participates in delinquency, in ways that quantitative survey data cannot. Researchers can document participant interactions

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with others, nonverbal communications, group dynamics, and individual behavior because of their involvement in the research field over time. Typically, researchers engage in ethnographic research for at least a year before writing up and publishing their findings. Sometimes, participant observations and ethnographic methods are used together in order to find even more out about the acts or actors under investigation.

Qualitative work is especially useful when studying participants or behaviors in which people do not want to report their activities to survey researchers, or behaviors only represented in data gathered by law enforcement officials or other social control agents (these data do not always allow for a rich description of the factors related to an act of delinquency and do not allow for much understanding of the reasons why delinquency occurred). For example, a rich body of qualitative work on delinquency focuses upon gangs and/or youth of color and their interactions with law enforcement.8 We will explore many of these studies throughout this book as they offer a rich depiction of youth and their experiences with delinquency and social control.

In sum, qualitative research methods are strong tools for getting to know more about the behavior of youth and the ways in which they make sense out of their social worlds. Because of the small sample size of participants in the research, or people being observed and/or interacted with, qualitative methods do not allow us to make the generalizations we are able to make with quantitative methods. In ethnographies of delinquency and crime, they also involve ethical and moral dilemmas, as researchers must decide how involved to get with the group they are examining—if the group decides to use illegal drugs or commit an act of violence or delinquency, for example, each researcher needs to consider whether she or he will do so as well in order to find out more about the topic.9

Ethnography: A qualitative method that is the scientific description of the customs of a group.

How Do We Know What We Know? What Data Sources Do We Use to Map Trends? While qualitative research is excellent at helping us explore a topic in great

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detail and depth, and often is the best way to gather data on a hard-to- sample group (gang members) or behavior (heroin use), it is not useful at helping us determine correlates or trends in delinquency. Traditionally, three types of data can help us understand the correlates and trends of delinquency and victimization for juveniles: the Uniform Crime Report and National Incident-Based Reporting System, the National Crime Victimization Survey, and self-report data. Each has its strengths and weaknesses and is discussed below.

Data Sources for Correlates and Trends in Delinquency Data come from many sources. The most common sources for understanding crime and delinquency are the Uniform Crime Report, the National Incident-Based Reporting System, the National Crime Victimization Survey, and self-report surveys.

Uniform Crime Reports

The Uniform Crime Report (UCR) is one of the most widely cited sources of data for crime and delinquency trends. Since 1930, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been collecting data from local law enforcement and compiling a national database whose reports can be accessed by anyone with an Internet connection at www.fbi.gov/stats- services/crimestats, and whose data files can be requested online, too. More than 17,000 law enforcement agencies report every year, but this is not 100%—for the year 2006, it was estimated that 94.6% of eligible data was collected.10 Many cannot report in a given year for a variety of reasons: for example, computer problems, personnel changes, or a lack of resources dedicated to the gathering and dissemination of data—especially in extremely small agencies.

The UCR collects information at several levels, first on eight offenses commonly referred to as Index crimes or Part I offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson. The first four of these (murder to aggravated assault) are often referred to as “person” crimes, while the last four are called property crimes. At this level, the information is collected at the stage where offenses become known to the

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police and are referred to as “crimes known to police.” This means that very little is known about the offense at this stage, just that it happened and where it happened.

In addition to these Part I offenses, the UCR collects data on 21 additional offenses, referred to as Part II offenses, and amasses these data at the stage where an arrest is made for the crime. These data, referred to as the arrest statistics, include more information. At this stage, the UCR includes gender, age, and race/ethnicity demographics for the alleged offender. In addition, the UCR records the jurisdiction (place) in which the crime occurred. Both Part I and Part II offenses are tracked at the arrest stage. These data record the number of arrests law enforcement has made. For example, Table 3.1 reports 800 juvenile arrests for homicide and/or nonnegligent manslaughter in 2014. This means that 800 arrests were made, but if a single person was arrested more than once in this year for homicide (unlikely, given we are talking about homicide), that person would show up more than once in this statistic, and if more than one person were arrested for a single homicide, all the individuals arrested would show up in this number, too. So the number doesn’t tell us the number of homicides in a given year or even the number of people arrested; it merely tells us the number of arrests made in that category.

Uniform Crime Report (UCR): Official data in the form of crimes known to the police or arrests collected by the FBI.

Clearance rate: The rate at which a certain crime category is closed because of arrest or exceptional means.

Arrest rate: The number of arrests per 100,000 in the population.

Clearance Rates.

We can determine the clearance rate (the rate that a certain crime category is closed because of arrest or exceptional means) by knowing the arrest rate. The clearance rate tells us the proportion of crimes considered closed because an individual has been arrested for the crime, it can be fairly well documented that the offender is dead, or the victim will not participate in the prosecution of the case. A single arrest does not always

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close a single case, though. Often more than one arrest is made for a single crime (a single homicide in which four people are alleged to have participated, for example), or a single arrest closes a series of cases (an individual, for example, is arrested on a string of burglaries). It might surprise you as to how much crime is actually cleared in this country. The clearance rate for all homicides in the United States, in 2014, was 64.5% (meaning 64.5% of all homicides reported were closed—due to an arrest or exceptional means). The lowest clearance rate for 2014 was motor vehicle theft at 12.8%. Of the homicides that were cleared (in 2014), 4.3% were juvenile arrests.11

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Source: OJJDP. (2015). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/qa05101.asp?qaDate=2014

1 The new definition of rape went into effect in 2013. The revised definition expands rape to include both male and female victims, and reflects the various forms of sexual penetration understood to be rape, especially nonconsenting acts of sodomy, and sexual assaults with objects. The percent change in the number of rape arrests is not displayed since the new definition is not compatible with the prior definition.

* As of 2010, the FBI no longer reports arrests for running away.

Strengths.

The UCR data have been collected for more than 80 years (with several policy changes on how and what data were collected during this time). This still allows for quite a rich data set that allows for a longitudinal assessment of crimes known to police and arrest practices across the country. In addition, while there is never 100% reporting, it is quite impressive that so many agencies consistently report their crime statistics. Used properly, these data can be an excellent source and offer quite a bit of information, but that information is not necessarily about crime and delinquency behaviors so much as reporting behaviors and arrest practices.

Limitations.

Many of these are not weaknesses so much as cautionary notes about how UCR data should be used. As we have already discussed, the UCR collects data on crimes known to police and arrest practices. These two categories have several drawbacks. Crimes known to police are just that, crimes that have been reported to the police. We know, however, that crime is not systematically reported to the police. Crimes are more likely to be reported if they involve a serious injury or big economic loss.12 But there may also be other reasons that people do not report an offense. Forcible rape, for example, often goes systematically unreported. Why? Well, rape is often traumatic at a level that other crimes are not. Victims often believe that they are somehow responsible for the attack (they should not feel this way, but the depiction of rape in this country has often put at least partial blame on the victim). In addition to the extreme emotional trauma that rape

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creates, it is one of the harder crimes to voluntarily discuss with the police. While law enforcement has begun to acknowledge the intricacies of the reporting process by, for example, providing a female officer for a female victim to report to, there is still a long way to go to get accurate counts of rape. Finally, until 2012 male victims were not counted at all because the UCR has defined forcible rape as the “carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.”13

In addition to the issue of underreporting, the UCR is not a measure of behavior (crime or delinquency), but instead a measure of law enforcement practices. In other words, when examining trends created from UCR statistics, we should remember that these are trends in arrest practices, not crime and delinquency. Agency resources, training, political agendas, individual officer decision-making practices, and agency policies all have an effect on arrest practices and therefore the trends reported using UCR data.

What is the difference between simple and aggravated assault? It depends on the jurisdiction. In general, aggravated assault often includes a weapon and an intent to do bodily harm. In many instances, discretion plays a part in how a crime gets charged.

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A limitation that we believe is significant is the fact that the UCR does not collect data on Latinos (commonly referred to as Hispanics in crime and delinquency data and research). Because Latino is considered an ethnic category (based on cultural differences), not a racial category, Latinos are categorized in the racial group they most often identify with (for most Latinos this is either white or black, although Latinos can be of any race). This is a significant drawback given the discourse on race/ethnicity and delinquency in this country.

National Incident-Based Reporting System

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) was developed and approved in 1988 to address critiques of the UCR. As law enforcement agencies increased their capabilities to collect data, the summary system designed for the UCR was called into question. A thorough study was conducted to determine if a new system (and what type of system) might be needed. NIBRS is the result.14

National Incident-Based Reporting System: A reporting system that houses data on incidents, both crimes known to police and arrests.

In some ways, NIBRS is still similar to the UCR—both have the same jurisdictional rules for reporting their data—however, NIBRS differs from the UCR in several important ways.15 First, the number of offenses that NIBRS reports on is significantly larger than the number reported by the UCR (UCR reports 8 crimes known to police; NIBRS reports 46). Second, the UCR has no way to distinguish between a crime that was attempted and one that was completed, while NIBRS does distinguish between these two. Third, in the UCR, the “hierarchy rule” is enforced, meaning that in instances where more than one crime is committed at the same time (for example, robbery and homicide), only the highest offense is reported (the homicide). NIBRS allows for each incident to be reported whether or not other crimes were committed at the same time. Finally, while the UCR reports in the categories of Crimes Against Persons and Crimes Against Property, NIBRS reports in a third category as well, called Crimes Against Society (for example, drug crimes).

Strengths.

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NIBRS collects considerably more detailed information than the UCR, which is a significant strength of the new system. Details such as whether a crime was attempted or completed are important for truly understanding the extent of crime in the United States. In addition, cataloguing all the crimes committed (instead of just the most serious as is done in the UCR) also helps with our understanding of the extent of crime in the United States.

Limitations.

However, NIBRS still has many of the weaknesses discussed for the UCR. NIBRS still must rely on a crime being reported before it can be tallied. In other words, many crimes still go uncounted in NIBRS because they are not initially reported to the police. In addition, NIBRS is not a measure of crime and delinquency behavior (as many often assume it is); it is still a measure of law enforcement policies and practices—just as the UCR is. This makes these data very useful for many research questions concerning policing practices, but the data are not useful for answering questions about the nature and extent of delinquency in the United States. Finally, as of 2012, only 32 states had been certified to collect NIBRS data, which means that national trends concerning arrest practices and crimes known to police are still reported using UCR data because NIBRS does not cover as many states or as large a population as UCR does.16 This is obviously the biggest weakness of all, if we are interested in using these data to determine trends in delinquency arrests.

on the Media: Podcast: Improving Youth Programming: The Role of Research

Social media and research. We were stumped. How were we supposed to explain the use of media to discuss data? But it turns out we should not have feared the topic because there is quite a bit of discussion out there on podcasts, websites, and Twitter, emphasizing the importance of research in our understanding of the social world and juvenile delinquency and the juvenile justice system specifically. One of our favorites is a podcast interview about the importance of being aware of research and listening to research to understand what programs work to help juveniles. According to Angela Irvine of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency,

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Researchers always have a role in identifying which program should be invested in. So if researchers identify programs that effectively reduce recidivism or improve graduation rates, I think that the government, the federal government, state governments always justify their investment in programs based on research. I think that it’s really important to think about who the researchers [are who] should be doing this work. I think it’s really important that we try to recruit researchers of color who come from the neighborhoods where we are arresting most of the people, so that we can have a richer discussion about what the findings are, but also have a richer discussion about what the possible solutions are because in my experience, researchers who are more familiar with low-income communities of color come up with more realistic solutions in terms of effectively changing behavior.17

One of the challenges of researchers in many areas, but particularly those who study crime and delinquency, is getting their research into the social consciousness because, let’s face it, everyone already thinks they know what to do about crime and delinquency. One of the ways that researchers are getting the work out is through Twitter. Below are four organizations that regularly introduce research through Twitter:

The Equal Justice Initiative @EJI_org The Vera Institute @verainstitute The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange @JJIEnews The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice @CJCJmedia

Discussion Question 1. Follow one of the organizations on Twitter. How well do you

think they use social media to get their point across? Which recent story most caught your eye, and why?

Source: Adapted from Center for Court Innovation. (2012). Angela Irvine Interview: Improving Youth Programming: The Role of Research. Retrieved from http://www.courtinnovation.org/research/improving-youth- programming-role-research-0? url=research%2F9%2Fall&mode=9&type=all&page=4

National Crime Victimization Survey

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http://www.courtinnovation.org/research/improving-youth-programming-role-research-0?url=research%2F9%2Fall&mode=9&type=all&page=4

The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is a nationally representative survey designed to collect data on both household and personal victimization. Conducted since 1973 by the U.S. Census Bureau, the NCVS is administered every six months to approximately 49,000 households (consisting of more than 100,000 individuals 12 and older). The survey focuses on person and property crimes such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, assault (aggravated and simple), domestic violence, purse-snatching and/or pocket-picking, burglary, theft, motor vehicle theft, and vandalism. It, notably, does not focus on crimes in which the victim cannot take the survey (homicide), is not human (arson), or does not exist (drug crimes and prostitution, considered victimless crimes). In addition to the above victimization, the NCVS collects information on the victim, including age, race/ethnicity, gender, marital status, income, and level of education; on the offender, including approximate age, race/ethnicity, gender, and the relationship with the victim; and characteristics of the crime, including the time and place of the crime, whether a weapon was used, the nature of the injury, and economic consequences.18

National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS): The primary U.S. source of data on criminal victimization.

The NCVS was created to do four things: “(1) to develop detailed information about the victims and consequences of crime, (2) to estimate the number and types of crimes not reported to the police, (3) to provide uniform measures of selected types of crimes, and (4) to permit comparisons over time and types of areas.”19 It is used regularly to determine crime rates and often in comparison to the crime rates computed from the UCR.

Strengths.

The NCVS was redesigned between 1989 and 1993 to address critiques on the ability of the survey to accurately collect data on sexual assault and domestic violence. While we can never be quite sure of the true numbers of sexually based offenses, it is generally assumed that the NCVS collects more thorough information than the UCR. In other words, it is more likely that individuals will report their sexual victimization to the NCVS than to the police. In general, the NCVS more thoroughly reports on crime/victimization rates than the UCR because it does not rely on victims

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to proactively approach the police to report their victimization.

Limitations.

One of the limitations that students most often argue exists in the NCVS is the likelihood for survey respondents to “lie” or exaggerate about their level of victimization. And, certainly, it is a concern that victims might “overestimate” their victimization. Let’s face it—being a victim of crime is an emotional event and one that many individuals may significantly focus on. The NCVS is designed to address this estimation problem by creating “boundaries” for victimization. First, the NCVS is administered every six months because this means that individuals are then asked to only remember back over the last six months of their experiences.20 Second, the survey is a multistage cluster sample, which means that the survey is administered every six months for several years (three years) to a household before the household rotates out of the sample and a new household rotates in. This is also used to limit overestimation because it means that if individuals say that they have been victimized in the same way two surveys in a row, the survey administrator can specifically ask them if they have indeed been victimized twice or if they are remembering the same incident and reporting it two surveys in a row.

For the purposes of a book on delinquency there is a second limitation of the NCVS. These data are collected on victimization, not crime and delinquency behaviors. This means that, like the UCR and NIBRS, the data being collected are not specific to crime and delinquency behaviors. We can learn important information, but we must remember that this information should not be mistaken for giving us an accurate count of delinquent behavior. In fact, the NCVS does collect data on the offender, but they are estimated from the victim. While the victim might be fairly accurate when giving the gender of the offender, it is much more likely that victims are not accurate about the age of the offender (unless the victim and offender have a relationship). Finally, the NCVS does not ask about personal victimization for those under 12 in a household, so we cannot use these data to know anything about children under 12 and their level of victimization. A book on juvenile delinquency should also be interested in juvenile victimization, so the NCVS is important, but we must remember the data it does and does not collect!

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Self-Report Surveys

A self-report survey is much like the NCVS in that both are surveys that allow individuals to report on some aspect of their life. The NCVS focuses on the individuals’ experiences with criminal victimization. Other self- report surveys focus on the offending behaviors that individuals have engaged in themselves (frankly, self-report surveys can focus on just about anything, but for this book we will concentrate on those that allow individuals to report on their delinquent behavior). While self-report surveys can have limitations, which we will discuss shortly, most researchers acknowledge that for the purposes of discussing delinquency trends and delinquent behavior in general, self-report surveys are the most reliable data collection sources.21

Self-report survey: A data collection method in which respondents select the responses themselves, usually in questionnaire format.

Several nationally representative self-report surveys offer a comprehensive view of many forms of delinquency. Below we discuss two: Monitoring the Future and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

Monitoring the Future.

This study examines changes in beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors among juveniles. The survey was first administered in 1975, and has been administered yearly ever since. It is not a traditional longitudinal study because each year it surveys a new group of twelfth graders (in 1991, surveys of eighth graders and tenth graders were included). Approximately 16,000 twelfth graders, 17,000 tenth graders, and 18,000 eighth graders are interviewed each year.22

In addition to a variety of attitudinal questions, this study asks students about their illicit and over-the-counter drug, cigarette, and alcohol use, and includes six questions about violent behavior the respondents might have engaged in. The data collected by the survey are used for the White House National Drug Control Strategy.

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.

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This study began in 1997 and surveyed approximately 9,000 juveniles between the ages of 12 and 16 and one of each juvenile’s parents. The study focuses on school and labor market issues, but also asks a series of questions concerning the juvenile’s delinquent behavior. For this reason, the data have been used repeatedly to study the connection between work, school, and delinquent activities.23

Strengths.

One of the biggest strengths of self-report surveys is that they are focusing on the actual behaviors of youth, instead of the practices of law enforcement or the likelihood of individuals to report crime to the police. Self-reports were designed specifically to overcome the limitation of the UCR (or arrest statistics in general), getting a better sense of all the crime committed in the United States instead of just that reported to and then “solved” by law enforcement.

In addition to capturing a more extensive proportion of crime and delinquency, self-report surveys can collect a more extensive array of personal and institutional information. In other words, the survey is only limited by the creator’s imagination as to what topics might be explored. As you have seen, extensive national surveys focus on family relations, labor relations, and school relations in addition to delinquent behavior.

In the News: A Tyranny of Small Numbers, or Is YouTube the Start of the Next Australian Girls’ Violence Epidemic?

A massive spike in violent attacks by young Queensland girls has been blamed on the internet. Authorities say a 44 percent jump in assaults is being driven by the growing popularity of “girl fight sites.” Queensland police charged 441 girls aged 10 to 14 with assault last year—up from 307 the previous year. The surge coincided with an explosion in teenage girls filming fights on mobile phones and uploading them on to sites such as YouTube.

Police are still investigating a savage schoolgirl fight at Ipswich State High School posted on the internet in June. “The internet actually encourages this behaviour because kids from all over the world go on and rate the fights, so even when conflict doesn’t exist this particular medium may be encouraging violence.” A simple internet search revealed 73 million hits for girls’ fighting compared with 31 million for

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boys, and 24 million girl fight videos on YouTube—eight times more than those featuring boys. “Most people I’ve shown are shocked when they see them.” Queensland police investigated a string of school fights recorded on mobile phones last year, including three other girls bashing a 15-year-old Upper Coomera State College girl.

Violent offences account for about a third of all crimes committed by girls, compared with a quarter or a fifth of the offences committed by boys. Police acknowledged “emerging social networking trends” as a factor in juvenile offences but said statistics showed girls were still more likely to commit property offences than crimes against people. In 2008–09, more than 1700 girls aged 10 to 14 years were arrested for shoplifting. They were second only to girls aged 15 to 19 years, with 2447 shoplifting offences. “If there were no 15-year-old girls, you’d almost eliminate shoplifting completely,” a Child Protection Investigation Unit officer said.

Discussion Questions 1. What else might you want to know to help determine if this is an

example of a tyranny of small numbers or a true “violence epidemic”?

2. Critique the language of the article. How are all the numbers in the article used to make the case for a worrisome new trend in female violence?

Source: Ironside, R. (2010). Bad girls: Online fights blamed for frightening rise in violent young females. The Courier Mail (Australia), January 12, p. 1.

Limitations.

While self-report data are generally considered some of the best ways to find out about delinquency, there are some limitations. First, self-reported delinquency scales may not be equally valid or reliable across race, gender, or age.24 This means that self-report data may not tell us equally well how white and black youth, or Native American and Asian youth, engage in delinquency. Neither might they tell us equally well how young women and men engage in delinquency.

In addition, there is a worry about inaccuracy of reporting delinquent behavior. In other words, there is a worry that juveniles will under- or

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overreport their delinquency. Research tells us that there is a likelihood that juveniles will overreport their behavior, especially violent behavior that has occurred in the last year, but knowing this good surveys can compensate with sophisticated survey techniques that take into account the likelihood to overreport behavior.25

This means that none of the data we have discussed so far do an exceptionally good job of telling us about race, class, or gender relationships to delinquency—which is ironic, given how much focus there is on the correlations between delinquency and race, class, and gender.

Correlates of Delinquency Some of our strongest correlates of delinquency are demographic characteristics (for example, age or gender). But a correlate does not have to be a demographic characteristic of an individual. At its most basic, a correlate of delinquency is anything that shows itself to have a relationship to delinquency, which researchers may use to predict the likelihood of an increase or decrease of delinquency in individuals, groups, or communities or to predict the differential experience of an individual in the juvenile justice system or another such social institution as school or family.

The correlates we discuss below go to the heart of the premise of this book. We believe that individuals’ social location has an impact on their experiences in our society. In other words, in order to understand juvenile delinquency, we must understand how issues of age, gender, race, class, and sexual orientation, to name a few, affect juvenile experiences, juvenile behavior, and societal perceptions and expectations of juveniles. We start by briefly explaining what research tells us is the relationship between each correlate and juvenile delinquency. We spend the rest of the book exploring the reasons these correlations might exist.

Age Age is one of the strongest correlations to delinquency and crime. The age- delinquency correlation is curvilinear. In other words, as individuals get older, they are more likely to engage in delinquency; then, at a certain age, their likelihood to engage in delinquency decreases. Data from the UCR tell us that the likelihood to engage in property crime peaks at 16, while

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the likelihood to engage in violent crime peaks at 18.

There is a debate among researchers as to how strong this age-delinquency correlation is. One side of the debate argues that the relationship is almost constant. In other words, everyone gets older and ages out of crime. The other side of the debate, though, argues that some persistent offenders (career offenders) never age out of crime, continuing their criminal behavior well into their adult years. This side of the argument does not deny that age has a relationship to offending, but argues that those who start offending very early in life are more likely to continue to offend later in life (so making a different argument about the correlation between age and delinquency and crime). We will see more of this discussion in Chapter 4, when we discuss the life course and developmental theories of delinquency.

Gender Another very strong correlate to delinquency is gender. With very few exceptions, boys engage in more delinquency than girls. Arrest statistics show that boys, compared to girls, are four times as likely to engage in violent crime and twice as likely to engage in property crime. But even a relationship this strong (or perhaps because of a relationship this strong), there is quite a bit of disagreement as to the complexities of the gender delinquency relationship. We can see this with the opening vignette illustrating that many think that girls are becoming more delinquent and at a faster rate than boys (we will discuss this relationship in detail later in this chapter), while others argue that this relationship is a function of changing law enforcement and policy practices such as zero-tolerance policies in public schools. Even others argue that our patriarchal focus isn’t even necessarily asking the right questions when we examine the gender relationship to delinquent behavior. We should instead, they argue, be examining the gender relationship to social control, abuse, and the social construction of the expectations we place on juveniles (in other words, we often expect girls to act better than boys, and when they don’t our response to them can be much more harsh—out of a patriarchal sense that girls need more “protection” than boys). We discuss these various gendered issues throughout the book, from the ability of theory (in Chapters 5 and 6) to help explain gender differences in delinquency to the differential experiences of girls and boys from arrest to the juvenile justice system.

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Race and Ethnicity One of the most controversial relationships to delinquency may be race and ethnicity. A significant amount of research has been conducted on the nature of the relationship between race/ethnicity and delinquency. Official statistics, such as arrest data from the UCR, show a strong correlation between race and arrest. However, this relationship is not replicated in studies using self-report data. There appears to be very little relationship between race/ethnicity and delinquency for many behaviors, including drug use and petty crimes. However, youth of color (specifically black youth) do report engaging in some crimes more than white youth (e.g., using a weapon to steal).26

We believe two things make this relationship controversial. The first is the differences between the correlations that official statistics illustrate and those that self-report studies illustrate. Why might it be the case that arrest statistics show such a strong relationship, while self-report data show a moderate to nonexistent relationship (depending on the type of delinquency we are examining)? As we will discuss extensively below, some researchers focus on law enforcement practices as a way to explain the relationship between race and arrests. In other words, these researchers focus on law enforcement practices that single out youth of color, or communities of color, while more likely excluding white youth. Other researchers focus on the fact that arrest data are often capturing behavior that is more severe (for example, aggravated assault) than what self-report data are capturing (self-reports more often focus on drug use and less serious crimes including property crimes). These researchers argue that youth of color may be more likely than white youth to engage in more serious crimes while there is no race/ethnicity difference for less serious crimes. As you will see in our discussions throughout the book, the answer is complex and probably lies somewhere between these two explanations. The second is the media and public focus on youth of color as more delinquent when, clearly, the research points to a much more complex relationship between race/ethnicity and delinquency than the arrest statistics alone show. In other words, those who study delinquency are not in agreement as to the exact relationship between race and delinquency, or to the reasons for a relationship, yet youth of color are depicted by many in the public and the media as delinquent. It is our hope that after reading this book you will understand the complexity involved in exploring the relationship between race/ethnicity and delinquency.

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©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Futcher

Girls engage in less delinquency than boys overall, and a better understanding of the factors influencing their delinquency and how they

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are related to gender expectations and gendered experiences in contemporary society is needed.

©iStockphoto.com/yellowsarah

Class Like race and delinquency, social class and delinquency have a complicated relationship. As you will see in Chapters 4, 5, and 6, class has a robust history in theories of delinquency. At the macro level (when looking at neighborhoods or cities), there does appear to be a correlation between class and delinquency. Neighborhoods characterized by poverty or disorganization (see Chapter 5) are more likely to have high rates of delinquency than neighborhoods that are considered more organized or less impoverished. But just as with race, this relationship seems to hold up better when using UCR data (or other official data sources) and not as well once we begin to examine the relationship at the micro level (whether individuals who live in poverty are more likely to engage in delinquency).

One of the problems with this complication is that the public assumes that if impoverished neighborhoods have higher rates of delinquency, then this must mean people living in those neighborhoods have higher rates of delinquency, too. This is what is known as the ecological fallacy—the notion that we can apply what we know at the macro level (neighborhoods) to the micro level (individuals) and find the same correlations. We cannot.

Ecological fallacy: The mistake of making an inference about an individual based on aggregate data for the group.

When we explore the relationship at the micro level, we find no strong relationship between class and delinquency.27 In fact, while numerous studies were conducted between the 1950s and the 1990s on class and delinquency at the micro level, the number of studies conducted since the mid-1990s appears to have dropped off. Hagan and McCarthy argued that one of the reasons no relationship is found between class and individual- level delinquency may be that most studies measure class as a parental income measure (how much do your parents make?), and most self-report studies are conducted in middle or high schools.28 They argue that an

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income measure may not be measuring the class-related issues that another measure could (they conducted a study of youth living on the street) and that studies conducted in schools might miss a subsample of youth (e.g., those who have been expelled or dropped out) that may offer an example of class differences.

There is a stronger correlation between class and delinquency at the neighborhood level than the individual level. This means that we should be careful to not engage in the ecological fallacy of assuming that poor individuals engage in crime and delinquency because they live in a neighborhood with high crime rates.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images News/Getty Images

In any event, what we can say from the research to this date is that a relationship between class and delinquency is observed very strongly at the neighborhood level and, at the individual level, depending on the study, it is weak or nonexistent.

A Focus on Research: Sampson’s “Immigration and Homicide Trends”

Robert Sampson, in the magazine Contexts, shed light on the

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relationship between immigration and crime (see Figure 3.1).29 In the past decade, there has been an increasing, urgent, and misinformed focus on immigrants, both documented and undocumented, and their violent behavior. Fred Thompson (at the time a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination) was quoted as saying, “Twelve million illegal immigrants later, we are now living in a nation that is beset by people who are suicidal maniacs and want to kill countless innocent men, women, and children around the world.”30

While the discourse in many political circles and street corners has been about the “dangerous immigrant,” Sampson and other researchers such as Martinez and Valenzuela have found that neighborhoods with large immigrant populations are actually less violent than other neighborhoods.31 For example, New York has a large immigrant population and is also one of the safest cities in the United States, and San Diego is a border town, which also has a low crime rate.

Sampson argues that one of the reasons that violence may decrease with an influx of immigrants is that immigration changes the host city. In other words, immigration might change cultural mores that value violence—effectively assimilating the city into nonviolence.

Contrast these findings with the increasing focus in the popular media and many political discussions about the connection between immigrant groups (most specifically Mexican immigrants), youth gangs, the drug trade, and violence. Sampson’s findings that communities with large immigrant populations are actually less violent contradicts this popular image.

Discussion Question Using the Uniform Crime Reports and U.S. Census Bureau websites, find the violent crime and immigration rates for 10 cities. Is there a relationship? Can a relationship be documented over time for any of the cities?

The Nature of Delinquency as Measured by the UCR Table 3.1 (pp. 65–66) shows the number of arrests of juveniles in the

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United States in 2014. There were approximately 1.024 million arrests of juveniles in 2014 (remember, a juvenile can be arrested more than once in the same year). Of those 1.024 million arrests, only 800 were for homicide or non-negligent manslaughter. The largest single category for arrests was all other arrests, with 186,000 arrests, followed by larceny-theft with 178,000 arrests. This means that these two categories accounted for a little more than one third of all juvenile arrests for the year. This is important because often, when discussing the arrest trends, the media refer to the “violent crime rate” or “person crimes,” both aggregates of homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and sometimes even simple assault (also considered a “person crime”). If we look at the table, we see that by far the bulk of the violent crime index or person offenses is made up of robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. But when we refer to violent crime, most people think of homicide and rape. Given how small the numbers are for homicide and rape, the other categories can easily mask the trends of these two categories (so homicide and rape may decline or remain the same, but the violent crime index will be driven by the trends in robbery and aggravated assault). Why should we care? Aren’t robbery and aggravated assault really serious violent crimes, too? They certainly can be, but we will see in later discussions on changing enforcement practices (in Chapters 8 and 11–14) that these categories are not as cut and dried as we would expect. Often our discretion or lack of discretion can impact what we think of as delinquency, and you may be surprised at what “counts” as crime and delinquency sometimes.

Violent crime index: Measure of violent crime comprising four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, aggravated assault, and robbery.

General Trends in Delinquency Quick. Stop reading this book and text your best friend or sibling, or lean across the library table and ask the student across from you, what has been the trend in juvenile violence over the last 30 years? Is violence increasing, decreasing, or staying the same among juveniles? What about property crime trends? Drug trends? Now continue reading. Did anyone get it right?

Trends Measured by the UCR

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First of all, when considering trends, it is important to remember that trends reported from the UCR are arrest trends, not delinquent behavior trends. Figure 3.2 reports the juvenile arrest rate trend for violent crime (measured by the violent crime index, which is homicide, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) for the years between 1980 and 2014. The rate is measured as number of arrests per 100,000 youth between the ages of 10 and 17. This means that we are only seeing the trends for arrests of juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17, which captures nearly all violent arrests (it is rare for a child under 10 to be arrested).

Figure 3.2 shows us that the violent crime arrest rate decreased slightly in the early 1980s, was stable for the remainder of the 1980s, and then increased sharply until 1994. After 1994, the rate decreased to its lowest point since the early 1980s, in 2003 and 2004, before increasing slightly between 2004 and 2006. As of 2014, the juvenile violent arrest rate was lower than it was in 1980.

Because of the substantial increase (62%) in the late 1980s/early 1990s, there was a much publicized argument that the United States had a juvenile violent crime epidemic on its hands. Juveniles were characterized as out of control and “super-predators.”32 It was predicted that the United States was on the cusp of a violence outbreak of epic proportions. However, as we can see from the Figure 3.2 arrest statistics, this epidemic did not break out. So what might account for the increase in the violent arrests during the late 1980s/early 1990s? Some of it may be attributed to an increase in violent behavior, but given we are looking at arrest statistics another issue we cannot overlook is the likelihood that law enforcement practice may have had something to do with it. Zimring found evidence that minor juvenile offenses were being charged as more serious offenses between 1988 and 1992 because of an increased intolerance for juvenile misbehavior stemming from the worry over the initial increase.33 In other words, some of this increase may have been due to a crackdown on juveniles—once more juveniles were arrested and the public began to worry that juveniles were becoming more violent, more attention was paid to juveniles and more were arrested, even for behavior that may not have been considered violent five years prior.

Figure 3.1 Immigration Flows and Homicide Trends: U.S. Total, 1990– 2004 (Three-Year Averages)

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Source: Contexts, Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 28–33. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2008 American Sociological Association. All rights reserved. For permission to photocopy or reproduce see http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintinfo.asp. DOI:10.1525/ctx.2008.7.1.28.

Figure 3.3 shows the property crime index arrest trends for 1980 through 2014. The rate is measured as the number of property crime arrests per 100,000 juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17. Contrary to the juvenile violent crime arrest trends, the juvenile property crime arrest trends do not show a marked increase during the period of 1980 to 2008. The property crime index (which is a composite of the arrest rates for burglary, larceny- theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson) remained fairly stable between 1980 and 1994 before starting a dramatic decline between 1994 and 2005. Between 2005 and 2008 there was a slight increase, but the overall rate remained almost half of what it was at its highest in 1991. Between 2008 and 2014, the rate decreased again. In 2014, it was about one third of what it was in 1980. Given that the trend for the property crime index never increased the way that the trend for the violent crime index increased, the data suggest that violent crime may have had an increased focus from law enforcement that property crimes did not experience.34

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Property crime index: Measure of property crime comprising four offenses: arson, larceny, burglary, and motor vehicle theft.

Figure 3.2 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Violent Crime Index Offenses, 1980– 2014

Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Note: Rates are arrests of persons ages 10–17 per 100,000 persons ages 10–17 in the resident population. The violent crime index includes the offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault

The most popular trends reported from the UCR data are the trends from the violent crime and property crime index. Certainly the media focus most of their attention on the violent crime trends. Our next trend does not spend as much time in the limelight, although we argue given the level of resources and public hand-wringing that goes into drug abuse violations it is surprising that we do not discuss this trend more often.

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Not only do impressions about juvenile behavior fuel arrest practices, but arrest practices fuel how the public and police begin to think about juveniles. If we see increases in violent and property arrest rates for juveniles, we may believe that juveniles are becoming more delinquent. That is one interpretation, but it may be a change in police practices that are also impacting those trends.

©iStockphoto.com/Mike Cherim

Figure 3.4 shows the drug abuse violation arrest rates for 1980 through 2014. We included an examination of the arrest rate trend because self- report surveys often focus heavily on drug use when measuring delinquency. This trend measured with UCR data will be compared to self- report data later in this chapter.

The arrest rate is measured as the number of arrests per 100,000 juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17 in the population. The trend held steady (with slight variations) between 1980 and 1991 before increasing dramatically between 1991 and 1997. In this six-year time frame, the arrest rate more than doubled from 300 arrests per 100,000 juveniles to more than 700 arrests per 100,000 juveniles. Since 1997 the rate has been decreasing steadily and is now at the 1992 rate. More than any other trend

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measured by the UCR, this one may be the best example of the impact of a change in law enforcement practices or policies on the arrest rate. The startling increase in the drug abuse violation arrest rate in the 1990s corresponds with a similar increase in reported drug use (as measured by self-report data, to be discussed below), but this time period also corresponds directly with the middle of the “war on drugs,” implemented during the Reagan presidency and still in effect today.35 Given that drug use subsequently declined, yet we see the drug abuse violation trends remain high, it is expected that much of this trend is a product of a persistent focus on drug use and abuse by law enforcement.36

Figure 3.3 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Property Crime Index Offenses, 1980–2014

Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Note: Rates are arrests of persons ages 10–17 per 100,000 persons ages 10–17 in the resident population. The property crime index includes the offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson

Figure 3.4 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Drug Abuse Violations, 1980–2014

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Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Note: Rates are arrests of persons ages 10–17 per 100,000 persons ages 10–17 in the resident population

Trends Measured by the NCVS Violent crime trends, as measured by the National Crime Victimization Survey, offer a complementary story of violent crime in the United States. When examining trends using data from the NCVS, the most important consideration is exactly what about crime and delinquency is being measured. Figure 3.5 shows the trend between 1993 and 2014 of violent crime victimization. This figure shows that, similar to the trends from the UCR, violent crime victimization decreased significantly between 1993 and 2010. There was a slight increase in victimization between 2010 and 2013 before it decreased again in 2014. This increase can be attributed to the increase in simple assault at the same time (remember we said that assaults often drive our trends, more than rapes, robberies, or homicides). The most important difference between the trends measured with the UCR and those with the NCVS is that the NCVS is not measuring delinquency at all. This data set is measuring the likelihood to be victimized. So when examining Figure 3.5, we are looking at the rate of juvenile victims,

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compared to Figure 3.2 where we are looking at the rate of juvenile arrests. The NCVS can only collect the approximate age of offenders because this information is estimated by the victim. This makes the use of these data for estimating juvenile delinquency rather weak. However, data showing the trend in juvenile victimizations are still very important because they show us that juveniles are safer now (as measured by violent victimization) than they have been since prior to 1975.

Figure 3.5 Violent Crime Victimization Rate Trend for Juveniles, 1993– 2014

Source: Child trends calculations from U. S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2015). NCVS Victimization Analysis Tool (NVAT). Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nvat

Self-Report Data: Monitoring the Future Figure 3.6 shows the prevalence of illicit drug use by students in Grades 8, 10, and 12. This graph measures prevalence as the percentage of children who have reported trying an illicit drug in the past year, and it shows that at its highest, in 1979, more than 50% of twelfth graders reported trying an illicit drug (data on eighth and tenth grades were not collected until 1990).

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Examining the twelfth-grade trend line (because it represents about the same years as the UCR and NCVS data, 1975–2015), we see that drug use as measured by self-report data shows a different trend than the UCR data. This trend shows prevalence of illicit drug use increased between 1975 and 1979, then decreased significantly until 1992 before increasing again until 1997 (although this increase did not reach the previous levels of more than 50% of twelfth graders). Finally, between 1997 and 2015 the trend remains relatively stable, hovering just above or below 40%. Although data for tenth and eighth graders have only been collected since 1990, they show similar trends to the twelfth-grade data, although lower overall percentages of juveniles report the usage of illicit drugs at each stage.

How does this compare with the drug abuse violation arrest rate trends reported by the UCR? We see that the increase between 1992 and 1997 is mirrored in the UCR data, although the increase does not appear to be as steep in the self-report data. And, more important, while the UCR data were stable before this increase, the self-report data report a significant decrease in drug use prior to the 1990s. Comparing these trends is important because if we look solely at the UCR data, it appears that there is an epidemic of drug use that sweeps the nation in the 1990s and never really goes away. Looking at the self-report data, however, suggests that although drug use did increase, it was not in epidemic proportions and, in fact, was not as prevalent as in the 1970s and 1980s.

What do the three data sources as a whole tell us about crime, delinquency, and juveniles in the United States? They tell us that the story is more complicated than we may have originally suspected. First, contrary to the media discourse and public opinion, crime and delinquency (as measured by arrest rates or self-reported data) are down in the United States. In fact, by some measures they are at a 30-year low. Second, our measures are important for this understanding. Only if we are using self-report data are we actually getting a measure of delinquency; the UCR and NCVS, it can be argued, give us proxy measures (arrest and victimization).

Figure 3.6 Trends in Annual Prevalence of Illicit Drug Use for Grades 8, 10, and 12, 1975–2015

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Source: Johnston, L. D., Miech, R. A., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2015, December 16). Use of ecstasy, heroin, synthetic marijuana, alcohol, cigarettes declined among US teens in 2015. University of Michigan News Service. Retrieved from http://www.monitoringthefuture.org

Trends in Delinquency for Gender So what about the claim of the stranger in the supermarket? Are girls becoming more violent? Are they catching up with boys when it comes to violent, property, or drug crimes?

Official Trends From the UCR Figure 3.7 shows the juvenile arrest trends for the violent crime index for both males and females, and the answer appears mixed. When Huff cautioned against lying with statistics, he may have had this scenario in mind.37

A quick glance at Figure 3.7 shows that the trends appear relatively similar for both males and females. Throughout the 1980s, the trends appear stable; then in 1989 the trends begin to increase for both groups. The

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trends peak within a year of each other (boys in 1994, girls in 1995) before decreasing rapidly. Although here the trends appear to diverge a bit, the male arrest rate decreases more sharply than the female rate with the male rate falling to levels lower than any other time in the past 30 years. Female rates, on the other hand, also decline, but level off before reaching the levels achieved prior to 1990. In addition to the shape of the trend line, we must be aware of the actual arrest rate reported in each graph. In fact, at every stage on the graph boys are still more likely than girls to be arrested for violent crime, but that gap is shrinking. Between 1980 and 2004, female delinquency arrests (as measured by the violent crime index) went from representing 11% of all arrests to more than 30% of all arrests.38 Those following these trends worried this change was an indication that girls were becoming more violent.

Gender Trends in Illicit Drug Use From Self- Reports Illicit drug use trends are very similar for both males and females. Figure 3.8 measures this illicit drug use by reporting the prevalence that an individual has used any illicit drug in the past year. The numbers show that between 30% and 60% of boys over time reported that they had tried at least one illicit drug during the year. Between 25% and 50% of girls reported that they had tried at least one illicit drug during the year. Overall, girls were less likely to engage in illicit drug use than boys, but the trends follow the same increases and decreases over time. Both boys and girls reported an increase in drug use in the late 1970s before a significant decrease throughout the 1980s in use. Use steadily increased for both groups, for most of the 1990s, before leveling off and decreasing slightly. Overall, both boys and girls reported moderate use of illicit drugs (less than the high, but more than the lowest levels that we saw at the beginning of the 1990s).

Comparisons of Gender and Delinquency Between the UCR, the NCVS, and Self-Report Data: The Girls Study Group In 2004, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

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brought together its Girls Study Group, a group of researchers focused on examining issues of gender and delinquency.39 This was in response to the apparent increases in violence trends for girls during the 1990s and 2000s. While boys remained more violent overall, girls were edging up in proportion of arrests (but remember, violence was down overall in both groups during this time). The Girls Study Group compared trends from the UCR, the NCVS, and the Monitoring the Future study, to determine whether girls were, indeed, becoming more violent.40

The Girls Study Group found that while girls appeared to be becoming more violent (in relation to boys) in the UCR, this trend did not hold up when examining NCVS or self-report data. Both the NCVS and self-report data showed that the proportion of violent behavior between girls and boys had remained fairly steady during this time period. The Girls Study Group concluded that the proportional increase in arrests was probably not due to an increase in violent behavior in relation to boys, but to a change in arrest practices and policies for law enforcement during this time period.

An increase in mandatory and pro-arrest policies had a stronger effect on the likelihood girls would be arrested than boys (the policies meant it was more likely for both groups to be arrested, but girls more likely than boys). Specifically, it appears that girls are being arrested more often for simple assaults than they were in the past. This probably occurs because of mandatory domestic violence arrest policies and zero-tolerance policies in school (which we will discuss in much greater detail in Chapter 8). It is likely these policies formalize responses to behaviors that girls have been engaging in all along. For example, while it is known that many girls have had to put up with abuse at home and that many may fight back, with domestic violence mandatory arrest policies, now when the police are called they must arrest one or more individuals involved in the dispute. While many of these disputes may have been dealt with informally in the past, this is no longer the case.

Monitoring the Future study: A University of Michigan study that surveys around 50,000 youth about their drug use patterns in middle and high schools in Grades 8, 10, and 12 across the United States, and then one more time the year after they graduate.

Figure 3.7 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Violent Crime Index Offenses by

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Sex, 1980–2014

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Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Was our supermarket stranger right, then? Are girls more violent in general these days? Or more violent than boys? While it might be easy to

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look at some of these trends and worry that there is a kernel of truth there, the answer is no. The data do not support that girls are becoming more violent or that they are gaining on boys and their level of violence. The surge in the proportion of violence that can be linked to girls can be accounted for by the increase in simple assault arrests. And these arrests can be linked to changes in laws and law enforcement policies that increase the likelihood of arrest but not the likelihood of violent behavior. In other words, there is no “national crisis” of female violence.41

Figure 3.8 Annual Prevalence Rates of Illicit Drug Use for 12th-Grade Males and Females, 1974–2014

Source: Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Miech, R. A., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2015). Demographic subgroup trends among adolescents in the use of various licit and illicit drugs, 1975– 2014 (Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper No. 83). Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan. Retrieved from http://monitoringthefuture.org/pubs/occpapers/mtf- occ83.pdf

Trends in Delinquency for Race/Ethnicity Some of the biggest disparities in our understanding of trends comes when we examine trends in delinquency for race and ethnicity between official data and data from such sources as the NCVS and self-reports. In this section, pay special attention to drug trends.

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Official Trends From the UCR Looking at the official statistics for juvenile arrest rates for violent crime by race (Figure 3.9) leaves quite an impression. According to this graph, blacks are significantly more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than whites. In fact, the top graph in Figure 3.9 shows that for 2014, blacks were 5 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes than whites. But we must take a harder look at this table to see important details that might initially be missed. Looking at just the black trends, we see that between 1980 and 1989, the arrest rate was relatively stable (with a small decrease and subsequent increase that left the rate at the beginning and end of the decade almost the same). Then in the beginning of the 1990s the rate increased by more than 33%. However, in 1995 the trends began to decrease, and from its highest to lowest point (in 2014) it decreased by more than 50% to its lowest point since before the 1980s.

If we looked at the trend line for whites in the same graph, it would appear that whites have remained almost stable over the same period. However, a further examination of white trends in Figure 3.9 tells a slightly different story. The white, Asian, and American Indian trends for violent crime arrests mirror the black trends, just on a smaller scale. In fact, white arrest rates actually increased by 50% from their lowest point in 1983 to their highest point in 1993. And while white rates also decreased significantly in the 1990s, they did not decrease at the same rate as black rates, until very recently (they finally fell below their 1980s rates in 2009). American Indians have a very similar trend line to whites, while Asians have a lower rate at all points on the graph but a trend line that looks similar to that of both American Indians and whites.

Figure 3.9 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Violent Crime Index Offenses by Race, 1980–2014

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Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Note: Rates are arrests of persons ages 10–17 per 100,000 persons ages 10–17 in the resident population. Persons of Hispanic ethnicity may be of any race (i.e., white, black, American Indian, or Asian). Arrests of Hispanics are not reported separately. The violent crime index includes the offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

Figure 3.10 tells a strikingly different story for black, white, American Indian, and Asian arrest rates for drug abuse violations. We can see that in 1980, the black and white rate for drug abuse violations was almost the same, but diverged quickly after this. The black rate increased quickly, more than tripling between 1980 and 1989, and then dropped for a single year before increasing again to its high in 1995 of more than 1,600 arrests per 100,000 black juveniles between the ages of 10 and 17. The rate then decreased by almost 50% in a six-year period between 1996 and 2002, with a moderate increase again in the mid-2000s. In 2014, the rate was down from its highs in the 1990s and was almost to the level of the early 1980s.

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Whites, American Indians, and Asians, again, have similar-looking trends, although whites had the highest rates of arrest for the three groups across the entire time period. White arrests decreased almost 50% between 1980 and 1991 (while black rates were skyrocketing). Then between 1991 and 1996, white rates almost tripled (American Indian rates quadrupled but remained below white rates, and Asian rates also tripled but remained lower than rates for any other racial group). For the last half of the 1990s and the 2000s, the rates for all three groups remained relatively stable, with slight decreases for each.

Figure 3.10 Juvenile Arrest Rates for Drug Abuse Violations by Race, 1980–2014

Source: OJJDP. (2015, December 13). Statistical Briefing Book. Retrieved from http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/JAR_Display.asp?ID=qa05201

Race and Ethnicity Trends in Illicit Drug Use

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From Self-Reports In contrast to official records of drug abuse violations, self-report data tell a very different story about racial differences in drug use. The data in Figure 3.11, taken from the Monitoring the Future study, track illicit drug use of white, black, and Latino youth in the 12th grade. For this reason, it is not directly comparable to the official data, because we are not tracking the same racial/ethnic groups (we are not tracking Native American and Asian youth in this table, but we are tracking Latino youth). The overall trends for all three groups moderately mirror the official statistical trends of whites, Native Americans, and Asians in Figure 3.10. Illicit drug use decreased throughout the 1980s for all three groups, before increasing for all three groups in the early 1990s. The trends diverged a bit at this stage because black use leveled off sooner than white or Latino use. Latino use then decreased again sharply in the 2000s, while white and black use remained fairly stable. Use in 2010, for all three groups, was lower than the levels measured in the early 1980s.

What is most striking about this figure, though, is that the self-report data show higher rates of illicit drug use for whites (compared to blacks and Latinos) every year between 1977 and 2013 (except for 2000, 2012, and 2013, when Latinos report higher use). This is a very different story than the official statistics on drug abuse violations tell.

Figure 3.11 Annual Prevalence of Illicit Drug Use by Race, 1974–2014

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Comparisons of Race/Ethnicity and Delinquency Between Official and Self-Report Data When looking at Figures 3.9, 3.10, and 3.11, the most pressing question is what contributes to the black arrest rate being so much higher than the arrest rate for other races? Or, put another way, are black juveniles really that much more delinquent than white, Asian, or Native American juveniles? Given that arrest data measure law enforcement practices and not delinquent behavior specifically, we cannot answer that question examining just the arrest trends from the UCR. In order to provide an answer, we need to also know what self-report data tell us about delinquent behavior.

Morenoff examined the differences between official statistics and self- report data.42 He reported that the Monitoring the Future data do show slight differences between black and white juveniles and both violent and property crimes. But these differences are nowhere near as extreme as we see in the official statistics. Blacks are slightly more likely to engage in violent crimes, while whites are slightly more likely to engage in property crimes. And we have already seen, from Figure 3.11, that whites are more likely than either blacks or Latinos to report illicit drug use.

So which data are “telling the truth”? Frankly, neither. We know that official statistics are measuring more than just delinquent behavior, that institutional racist, sexist, and classist practices make it likely that the racial differences are not due solely to behavior, and we know that clearance rates are so low that we are only getting information on a mere fraction of offenders.43 But we also know that early self-report data did not capture the complexities of delinquency (i.e., did not measure a full range of delinquency, leaving out more serious forms of delinquency) and

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might have had sampling biases that affected one race more than others (e.g., conducting data collection at school, not accounting for juveniles who were truant or dropped out).44 Researchers have spent years improving their self-report measures, but enough questions still remain that we cannot accept the findings from one type of data over another.45

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Increases in mandatory arrest policies mean that more girls are getting arrested for behaviors that were treated informally in the past. Should it be the case that all physical encounters are treated as assaults, or should some behaviors be treated informally? How would you treat these two girls? Why?

©iStockphoto.com/Shane Hansen

Summary

We started this chapter with a section on how to lie with statistics. One of the best ways is to mischaracterize the relationships and trends that we see. To misquote a famous saying, when it comes to delinquency trends, eventually “what comes down, must go up.” Most delinquency trends are decreasing or stable at levels that are lower than we have seen in 30 or 40 years. Eventually it is likely that these trends will tick up. The question is, when they do, how will we characterize this change?

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This chapter fosters in you, the student, a “statistical literacy” that can help you understand the many statistics we are presented with in the social world. In order to best understand the data and trends we are presented with, we must be aware of several things. The first is that we must know the data. When trends and relationships about the social world are presented to us, we must ask, where did those data come from, how were they collected, and how do they measure our variables of interest? Second, we must know the strengths and weaknesses of the method used to collect the data. Was the best method used for the research question being asked? Once we have acquainted ourselves with the data, we can be more assured about the trends and relationships we are examining.

We have spent a good deal of this chapter discussing the strengths and weaknesses of data and what we can really know from the trends presented. These critiques are not meant to dismiss the trends that we have examined, and we do know a lot about crime and delinquency based on the data we collect from the UCR, the NCVS, and self-report surveys. Especially when these trends are similar across two or three data sources, we can be confident that our data are telling us something important about the social world. The critiques do suggest, though, that our job as criminologists, researchers, and statisticians is not done. We must continue to strive to improve our data collection techniques and to know more and more about the data we use to explain juvenile delinquency.

Eye on Diversity Exercise: Juvenile Violent Crime Trend in City

Research the juvenile violent crime trend in your city. Then create a table charting the general trend for your city over the past 10 years. Create a second table, charting the trend broken down by race and then gender. When creating these tables, make sure you label all the parts appropriately and explain where your data came from.

Once the tables are finished, compare the trends for either race or gender. Make a comparison that illustrates the “tyranny of small numbers” and explain why your example illustrates this phenomenon.

What might be the reason for the trend(s) that you have charted?

Discussion Questions

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1. Compare the trends in drug-related delinquency according to the UCR and self-report surveys. What events or behaviors is each measuring? Are the race and gender differences in these trends the same for the UCR and self-report data?

2. You are interested in finding out whether living on the East or West Coast has an impact on gender differences in delinquency. Which type of data might best answer this question? Why?

3. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UCR, the NCVS, and self- report data.

4. While on the bus, you overhear a conversation in which one person is lamenting how much more delinquent juveniles are today than they were 30 years ago. What would you say to this person?

Key Terms Arrest rate 64 Clearance rate 64 Deductive reasoning 62 Ecological fallacy 74 Ethnography 63 Hypothesis 62 Inductive reasoning 62 Monitoring the Future study 82 National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) 69 National Incident-Based Reporting System 67 Participant observation 62 Property crime index 77 Qualitative data 62 Quantitative data 62 Random sample 60 Sample 60 Self-report survey 70 Uniform Crime Report (UCR) 64 Violent crime index 75

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. False 2. False

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3. True 4. True 5. False 6. True 7. False 8. False

Student Study Site

edge.sagepub.com/bates2e

Sharpen your skills with SAGE edge!

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http://edge.sagepub.com/bates2e

Part 2: Theories of Juvenile Delinquency

©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Futcher; ©iStockphoto.com/robynmac; ©iStockphoto.com/Chao Chen Tsun Mei

Chapter 4: Micro-Level Theories 92 Chapter 5: Macro-Level Theories 124 Chapter 6: Critical Theories 152

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Chapter 4 Micro-Level Theories

©iStockphoto.com/Christopher Futcher

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe the process of differential association Describe the difference between differential association and social learning theories Explain the social bonds in social control/social bonding theory Explain the processes in life course theory Analyze the three types of strain in general strain theory Analyze the coping strategies in general strain theory and the place of delinquency in those coping strategies Compare and contrast differential association, social control, and general strain theories Compare and contrast the merits of the theories for explaining these race, class, and gender differences

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Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 122.

1. The social contract is the agreement that citizens will follow the rules and laws of society in exchange for protection from harm.

2. According to Beccaria, in order for punishment to work it must be certain, swift, and fair in its severity.

3. The earliest biological theories of crime and delinquency focused on the size and shape of the head to predict bad behavior.

4. Excessive toxins, such as lead, have been linked to delinquency. 5. Poor children and children of color are more likely to be exposed

to toxins such as lead. 6. According to differential association theory, it is most likely a

juvenile will learn delinquent behavior from a friend. 7. Social bonds keep juveniles from engaging in delinquency. 8. According to Agnew, a coping mechanism for strain may be

delinquency. 9. According to Broidy and Agnew, boys and girls may have

different issues that trigger strain.

In Pennsylvania, a rumor was started about a high school junior. Another student from the school made the comment that “he is the type to bring a gun to school,” and soon the rumor that this young man had, indeed, made a threat and was planning to bring a gun to school on Monday was flying around on social media sites. During this same time, hateful messages were posted to both the boy’s and his sister’s Facebook walls. In addition, parents of other students posted to social media sites calling the parenting skills of the boy’s parents into question.

In fact, the day of the supposed threat of violence was actually going to be the last day at this school for this young man. He had been continually bullied because of his red hair and medical condition, he was considered an outcast by classmates, and he routinely asked to stay home from school. His parents had decided he might be better served by an alternative school that would take into consideration his medical

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condition and learning disability.

The police became aware of this rumor and on Sunday afternoon went to the boy’s home to interview him and search for weapons. After interviewing the boy and the boy’s parents, and searching the family home, the police concluded that the boy did not own a gun, have access to a gun, or have access to any materials that may create a weapon. It was determined that the boy had not made the threat, was not planning to engage in school violence, and instead was the victim of a rumor.

In many ways, this boy might fit the “profile” of a student who would shoot his classmates. He is considered an outcast, and is often bullied by his fellow classmates. His parents may or may not have good parenting skills, and he may or may not have close friends. The bullying he endures may or may not cause him to “snap” and kill classmates.

What we are more sure of is that a rumor got wildly out of hand on a social media site—so out of hand that both parents and students felt they were allowed to post hateful comments to the boy and family in question, and the police showed up at the family home to search for weapons based on nothing more than a rumor.

Throughout this story there are competing assumptions about the reasons for school violence: poor parenting, a lack of friends or not fitting in, and the stress that bullying can add to the bullied child’s life. All of these assumptions or “theories” about the causes of school violence are focused upon the individual level. In other words, these explanations for engaging in delinquent acts are focused on the circumstances of the individual’s life or personal characteristics of the individual.

Source: Adapted from Leitsinger, M. (2012). When rumor, the Internet and school violence fears collide. U.S. News on NBCNEWS.com, March 8. Retrieved from http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/08/10604539-when- rumor-the-internet-and-school-violence-fears-collide

While the theories in the next chapter focus on institutional and community characteristics, and social, cultural, or political processes to explain rates in delinquency, the theories in this chapter are micro-level theories that will focus on the characteristics of the individual, or social processes that have an effect on individual-level behavior. The theories in this chapter can all be considered normative theories, too. A normative theory assumes that there is a standard or agreed-upon set of societal

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norms that everyone knows and can, therefore, live by. These theories do not question whether a delinquent act should be a delinquent act, who might be defining the delinquency or the delinquent, or what role society or individuals in society play in these definitions (a discussion of those theories will be found in the next chapter). Instead, the theories in this chapter assume that we can all define an act as delinquent when we see it and that we know the difference between right and wrong.

One of the broad critiques of most of the theories and perspectives found in this chapter is that they are “general” in nature, meaning they propose that they can explain delinquency generally. As we saw in Chapter 3, there is a lot of variation in both the societal perceptions and reactions to delinquency, and the nature and extent of that delinquency when examining race, gender, or class, for example. The critique of the theories in this chapter is that they were often created and first tested on boys only (girls were not even in the studies), and in many instances white boys only (although race was included much earlier than gender in eventual studies). Those who critique these theories, then, argue that they can hardly take into consideration the variety of experiences of juveniles based on their race, class, gender, or sexual orientation if none of these characteristics were even taken into consideration when the theories were developed. To some extent, these critiques are valid, but fortunately, in many instances, later researchers have adapted the classic theories to address such limitations. This chapter will examine some of the micro-level theories, such as biological theories, differential association theory, rational choice theory, social control theory, and general strain theory that were designed to explain individual-level juvenile delinquency, and then explore some of the instances in which these theories have been applied or extended to include the diverse experiences of juveniles based on race, gender, and class.

Micro-level theories: Theories of delinquency that focus on the individual.

Normative theory: Assumes that consensus is a basic fact of organized social life, therefore delinquency is a violation of norms, rules, or the law, caused by any number of individual or societal factors.

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Pre-Classical Ideas There is little literature that focuses on the behavior and punishment of juveniles (as opposed to adults) during the Middle Ages.1 We know more about general punishments and what society felt were the reasons for bad behavior. We are going to offer a brief overview of these pre-Classical ideas, acknowledging that it is probably the case that juveniles were not often thought of as different or separate from adults.

During the Middle Ages, behavior that was considered wrong was usually attributed to supernatural or religious factors (e.g., the devil made him do it, or she was a witch). This meant that “punishments” were focused on driving the evil from the individual. Exorcisms were one of the more common policies to stop behavior that was considered harmful or criminal. But, in addition to exorcisms, punishments included torturing, beheading, burning at the stake, drowning, stoning, and quartering.2

In addition to evil, such “natural” causes as the cycle of the moon were blamed for bad behavior. Interestingly, we can see many of these beliefs today in our horror stories of vampires, werewolves, and possessions, and most of our understanding of how to deal with that is as violent and brutal as it was in the Middle Ages.

Responding to these beliefs in the supernatural and brutal ways of dealing with those believed to be evil or possessed was Thomas Hobbes, a philosopher with two radical ideas for the time period: (1) individuals are rational beings, and (2) individuals will not give respect or buy into a system of government or a justice system that does not offer a certain degree of respect. In other words, Hobbes was one of the first to formally suggest that harmful behavior was not the product of lunar cycles or satanic possession but was, instead, the product of a choice an individual made, and punishments that were brutally harsh did more harm than good because they delegitimated the entire system.

These two ideas led to Hobbes’s claim that citizens would agree to follow the rules or laws set forth by society in return for protection from harm. This exchange is known as the social contract. In addition to this social contract, Hobbes argued that individuals should have a say in the government, especially the justice system. He believed that individuals should be able to help determine who was guilty, as well as determine

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appropriate punishments for guilty behavior.3

These new ideas ushered in the Enlightenment Era and a new way of thinking about crime and punishment.

Classical Theories During the Enlightenment, with a move toward a reliance on human “rational” thought, some of the first theories about human behavior focused on man’s (because, at this stage, women were almost never included in discussions) capacity as a rational actor. These theories eventually focused on crime and became the first attempts to explain criminal behavior. Focusing on free will, Beccaria and Bentham argued that individuals weigh the costs and benefits of all their actions and act when the benefits outweigh the costs. They then explained those who engaged in crime as acting on their free will to satisfy such desires as greed, revenge, or survival.4

These early Enlightenment philosophers, such as Beccaria, also did not focus specifically on juveniles and their behavior. But many of his ideas are important because they are the framework for the adult justice system and, increasingly, the juvenile justice system. In addition, the expectations in U.S. society of individualism and rationality in which we raise our children stem from many of these ideas.

One of the most important ideas for dealing with juvenile delinquent behavior and juvenile justice is Beccaria’s concept of deterrence. Beccaria believed that people freely choose their destinies, which meant that they freely choose whether or not to engage in bad behavior. Beccaria, then, believed that individuals could be deterred from bad behavior through thoughtful punishments (as opposed to the brutal and unpredictable punishments of the Middle Ages). But according to Beccaria, for punishment to be most useful, it needed to adhere to three elements: certainty, celerity (swiftness), and severity.

Social contract: Citizens agree to follow the rules or laws set forth by society in return for protection from harm.

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Certainty of Punishment.

Beccaria considered this the most important of the three elements of deterrence. The more certain an individual is that he will be caught and punished for an action, the more likely he will not engage in that action. Which brings us back to Chapter 3 and our discussion of clearance rates. Remember that in the United States our highest clearance rate in 2014 was 64.5% for homicide (meaning 35.5% of homicides were not solved). Another way of saying this is that about one third of those who kill someone get away with it. So the crime we can say has the most certainty of being punished still goes unpunished one third of the time. And these are the crimes known to police (of which homicide is reported most often). Think about all the crimes that go unreported, which all go unsolved. All of this factors into the certainty of punishment, which is very low in U.S. society.

Celerity of Punishment.

Beccaria thought celerity of punishment was important for two reasons. One reason was he lived in the 18th century, when individuals could often be imprisoned for years waiting for a trial. Often individuals were imprisoned longer waiting for their trial than their punishment would have been for the crime. The second reason was Beccaria believed that individuals were more likely to link the pain of punishment to their actions if the punishment came swiftly after their act. The farther away a punishment was from the individual’s behavior the less likely the individual would link the two and the less likely they would think twice before engaging in the behavior again.

Severity of Punishment.

The most complex of the three elements of deterrence is severity of punishment. Beccaria believed that punishments had to be harsh enough so that they outweighed the benefit of committing the crime, but at the same time, Beccaria thought that punishments that were too harsh caused people to believe the system was illegitimate. So he believed that punishments should be equal to, or slightly outweigh, the benefits: “For the punishment to attain its end, the evil which it inflicts has only to exceed the advantage derivable from the crime.”5

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These choice arguments are the early versions of classical criminology and lay the groundwork for rational choice theory.6 As an extension of these first choice theories, rational choice theory focuses on the rational component of crimes. According to this theory, offenders act deliberately and to maximize their self-interests. However, Cornish and Clarke point out that no one is a completely rational actor. No actor has full or completely accurate information all the time.7 In addition, they acknowledge that individuals do not have the reasoning skills to be perfectly rational. This is an especially important point (see the prefrontal cortex discussion below) for juveniles who sometimes seem even less capable of truly rational thought. For this reason, this theory has been used to explain adult behavior much more often than juvenile behavior in the research, although elected officials, general citizens, and public policy have all made the argument that juveniles are rational actors and are using a choice argument when they do so.8

Certainty of punishment: The most important element of deterrence. The assumption that if individuals perceive a high likelihood of being caught and punished for a crime, they will not engage in it.

Celerity of punishment: The element of deterrence that assumes that the faster a punishment occurs, the more likely an individual will not engage in that behavior in the future.

Severity of punishment: The assumption that punishment must be harsh enough to outweigh the benefits of the crime, but not so harsh that it is perceived to be unfair.

Biological, Psychological, and Biosocial Theories Although the Classical school and deterrence theory dominated the discussion of crime and the justice system for many years, criticisms emerged of the theory because it did not predict certain types of crimes or the type of individual who may commit those crimes. Instead theorists started to look at biological factors to predict the likelihood to engage in

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crime. The view that biology is responsible for criminal behavior is known as biological determinism. Over time these theories were replaced with more sociological (and in some instances psychological) theories of criminal and delinquent behavior. When this view was replaced by one focusing on more environmental (sociological) causes of crime and delinquency, it became known as environmental determinism. Recently, there has been a resurgence in some of these ideas in what are known as biosocial theories (an integration of some of the biological and sociological concepts).

Early Biological Theories Very early theorists who focused on biology believed that individuals or groups that offended more than others were somehow biologically inferior to general society. This led to the belief that these individuals or groups should be at the very least controlled, if not eliminated. This early work fit within the larger framework of eugenics, which was the general movement to improve the human race through selective reproduction. Eugenics did not focus specifically on crime, but those who focused on inferior biology as a predictor of crime fit within the eugenics movement. These first theorists emphasized such areas as craniometry, the belief that the size of the skull or brain predicts criminality (the smaller the skull or brain the more inferior the individual) and phrenology, the study of the bumps on the skull as an indicator of the shape of the brain.9 Bumpy skulls were considered to be an indication of an abnormal brain and an indication of someone who may be more likely to engage in crime.10 The biggest critique of these early works, other than the fact there was little evidence to support them, is that the authors did not create systematic research designs in order to test them. For the most part, the theorists knew ahead of time who was considered a criminal and who was considered “normal” when evaluating the characteristics of the skull and brain (often because these studies were conducted on skulls of criminals who had died). Interestingly, evaluations conducted on the leading theorists in these areas found that the theorists had “abnormal” brains and skulls and might have been considered likely to engage in crime by their own standards.11 These earliest theories were especially troubling because there was often a racial and class bias that influenced who represented normal and who represented abnormal.

Cesare Lombroso, often referred to as the father of modern criminology,

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was the first to offer and then systematically collect data to evaluate a biological theory of crime.12 At its most basic, Lombroso’s theory was that criminals were physically different from noncriminals. He believed that it was more likely that criminals were atavistic, or had characteristics that were a throwback to earlier developmental stages in evolution. Basing much of his early work on Darwin’s theories, Lombroso argued that criminals were not as evolved as noncriminals and that this primitive stage manifested itself in physical characteristics that he called criminal stigmata: asymmetry of the face, large jaws and cheekbones, unusually large or small ears that stand out from the head, fleshy lips, abnormal teeth, flattened nose, angular form of the skull, scanty beard but a general hairiness of the body, and excessively long arms.13

Lombroso did not believe that these physical characteristics caused criminality; he believed merely that they helped identify those individuals who were not as evolved as noncriminals (these physical characteristics could be seen as markers of primitive individuals). At the heart of Lombroso’s theory was that individuals were born into their crime and delinquency (it was part of their biology). Later iterations of the theory acknowledged the importance of other factors that might interact with or affect this biology.

Sheldon also believed that physical appearance could predict delinquent behavior. He focused on body type to predict an individual’s likelihood to engage in crime.14 Sheldon argued that there were three primary body types (somatotypes) that were linked to temperament of the individual. The endomorphic body type is soft and round with small bones, short limbs, and soft smooth skin. Those with an endomorphic body, Sheldon believed, were vis

Biological determinism: The view that biology is responsible for criminal behavior.

Environmental determinism: The view that one’s environment or experiences are responsible for criminal behavior.

Eugenics: The movement to improve the human race through selective reproduction.

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Craniometry: The belief that the size of the skull or brain predicts criminality.

Phrenology: The belief that the shape of the skull and brain (how bumpy the skull was) could predict criminality.

Atavistic: The belief that individuals may have certain characteristics that are throwbacks to earlier developmental stages of evolution.

Stigmata: The physical signs of atavism, such as asymmetry of the face, large jaw or cheekbones, unusually large or small ears, fleshy lips, abnormal teeth.

(left) ©iStockphoto.com/Eldad Carin

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(center) ©iStockphoto.com/Nicholas Monu

One of the earliest theories of criminal behavior said that we could predict crime based on body type. Does one of these body types seem more likely to engage in criminal behavior than another?

(right) ©iStockphoto.com/rrocio

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Psychological Theories One of the most well-known early psychological theories to be adapted to crime and delinquent behavior was psychoanalysis, made popular by Freud.16 Psychoanalysis is an entire field of psychology that goes well beyond issues of crime and delinquency, but several of Freud’s concepts were used by later theorists to explore delinquent behavior specifically. Freud argued that behavior was based on three elements in an individual’s personality: the id, ego, and superego. The id (also called the “it”) is the instinctual component of the personality, existing from birth. It is considered impulsive and lives completely within the individual’s unconscious. This is where passion, pleasure, and aggression reside. The ego (also called the “I”) is considered the decision-making element of personality that develops to negotiate the impulsive desires of the id in reality. Theoretically, ego is the rational part of one’s personality. The superego (also called “above I”) is where an individual’s conscience resides. The values learned from society are developed and stored in the superego. The superego can be thought of as an individual’s conscience or ideal self. The superego, then, helps the ego be more than just a rational component but instead an ideal, moral self.

August Aichhorn used Freud’s ideas to try to explain the unconscious motives of juveniles engaging in delinquency.17 He believed that there was a difference between manifest and latent delinquency. Manifest delinquency was delinquency that had been acted out (become an action), while latent delinquency had not been performed yet but was still in the mind or unconscious. He was critical of policies that focused on punishment and suppression because he believed these did not help uncover the latent delinquency that could become manifest if not addressed.18

Endomorphic: A body type that is soft and round with small bones, short limbs, and soft smooth skin.

Ectomorphic: A body type that is fragile, thin, and delicate, with poor muscles and weak bones.

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Mesomorphic: A body type that is muscled and strong, with an upright, hard, sturdy physique.cerotonic in temperament: relaxed and outgoing, with a desire for comfort, food, and affection. The ectomorphic body type is fragile, thin, and delicate, with poor muscles and weak bones. These individuals’ temperament is cerebrotonic: introverted, shy, restrained, and inhibited. Finally, the mesomorphic body type is muscled and strong, with an upright, hard, sturdy physique. Individuals with this temperament are somatotonic: assertive, aggressive, motivated, and insensitive. Glueck and Glueck believed that a majority of delinquents were mesomorphic.15

on the Media: The Viral Blog Post: I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother

On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 students and 6 staff members after killing his mother that morning at home. This textbox is not about him. It is about the blog post that another mother, Liza Long, wrote and posted to her webpage the day of the shooting. There it was called “Thinking the Unthinkable,” but it was soon picked up by several websites and retitled “I am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” In the post, this mother describes the love and fear she has for her 13-year-old son whose behavior is sometimes so uncontrollable she worries that he will one day be another Adam Lanza. She describes how scared she is of him sometimes, the emergency plan her 7- and 9-year-old can automatically implement to get to the car and lock themselves in so her 13-year-old can’t hurt them, her frustration that there seems to be no ready help for him. She has been told the only way to get him help is to set up a paper trail by having him arrested, but she wonders if that is the right type of help for a 13-year-old who threatens to kill himself, who threatens to kill her, who one minute can be happy and remorseful and the next angry and out of control.

The blog post set off a national discussion on the resources available for the kids who may be mentally ill. In U.S. society, there is no systematic or institutionalized response to kids with behavioral problems. Often the school is expected to respond, or parents are expected to get the answers to help their kids on their own. Sometimes, if parents are lucky, their insurance covers psychological help; sometimes insurance does not.

Although her blog post was read by millions of people and she got a lot of positive responses to it, she also received a lot of criticism. Some

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people posted that she was responsible for her son’s behavior and that she had violated his rights by talking about it.

“Mother-blaming is as old as Eve though, right, it’s really easy for us to blame mothers, and that was exactly the point I was trying to make,” Long says. “Families are suffering in shame and silence; I was suffering in shame and silence. So is my child. But when we don’t share our stories, there’s no chance that we’re going to make change.”19

The good news for this family is that the post also led them to some answers. One persistent reader kept e-mailing to say she thought she knew someone who could help them. Turns out it was a doctor who helped diagnose her son with bipolar disorder and get him on medication that helps him control his rages.

“When I wrote that blog post, I was really concerned that my son’s fate was prison or worse, and now we are talking every day about college, about what he’d like to major in,” Liza Long says. “I don’t think there are any right or wrong answers for Eric. There are just a lot of great opportunities for Eric.”20

Discussion Question 1. Analyze how this mother reached out to talk about her concerns

about her son. How did social media help her (and others)? How might it have hurt her (or others)? What does it say about contemporary society that this was the venue she had readily available for her concerns?

Sources: Adapted from Long, L. (2012, December 14). Thinking the Unthinkable. The Anarchist Soccer Mom. Retrieved from http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com; NPR. (2016, April 24). How Talking Openly Against Stigma Helped a Mother and Son Cope with Bipolar Disorder. Weekend Edition Sunday. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/24/475461959

Biosocial Theories Contemporary biological theories on crime are considered biosocial theories because they integrate biological, psychological, and social causes.21 These theories have come a long way from some of the early classical and biological theories, offering a more nuanced approach to the

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http://anarchistsoccermom.blogspot.com

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/04/24/475461959

effects of biology, psychology, and environment on juvenile behavior. A variety of theories focus on this integration. For example, some researchers focus on neurological deficits such as natural developmental delays in the prefrontal cortex, given that the frontal lobes do not fully develop until late adolescence. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for planning and reflecting on one’s actions. This research suggests that one of the reasons for the impulsivity of children is that their brains are not fully developed. These natural developmental delays have an effect on intelligence, verbal development, and attentiveness and focus. Research has linked these delays to poor self-regulation of emotions and behaviors, including delinquency.22 Given these developmental delays, Andrews and Bonta ask, “If brain capacity and function is still developing, with frontal lobes developing last, can we hold adolescents responsible for uninhibited, anti- social behavior?”23

Another area of research has examined the effect of diet on the likelihood of delinquency.24 This research has found an effect on several areas in a child’s life depending on the type of diet he or she has. Most of this research suggests that diet has an indirect effect on delinquency. In other words, diet affects such things as depression, hyperactivity, or cognitive problems that then might impact the likelihood to engage in delinquency. Diets that are healthy in polyunsaturated fatty acids, minerals such as zinc and iron, and vitamins such as folate, B vitamins, and antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, are linked to lower levels of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, schizophrenia, and dementia.

There has also been research on the effect of hormones, specifically testosterone, on delinquent behavior. Testosterone is secreted by both males and females, but in much larger doses by males. Some believe that testosterone is the reason why males are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior than females. It is assumed to be partly responsible for a greater likelihood of aggressive and delinquent behavior in males.25 However, while testosterone has been linked to aggressive behavior in animals, the research conducted on humans is much less conclusive.26 Research examining the effect of social factors on the effect of testosterone on aggressive or delinquent behavior has found that social class and environmental conditions may be mediating factors.27

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Finally, of particular interest recently is the research that links toxins such as lead and manganese to the likelihood of delinquency and crime (see the In the News textbox). This research has found that exposure to high levels of lead is linked to a greater chance of delinquent and criminal behavior. This is especially important for our discussions for two reasons. First, children are much more vulnerable to excessive toxins because they cannot physically fight the exposure as well as adults, and it is likely that they are more exposed (e.g., if there is lead in household paint, kids are more exposed because they rub up against walls and are more likely to come into contact with paint chips). Second, it is more likely that children of color and poor children will be exposed to such toxins because they are more likely to be exposed to a crumbling infrastructure or homes that have not been renovated.28

Differential Association Theory Sutherland offered his theory of differential association as a sociological explanation of behavior that crossed social dimensions (e.g., class, race, and gender). While Sutherland focused on white-collar crime, the theory of differential association can be especially useful when explaining delinquency given the fact that such a significant proportion of delinquency happens with friends and acquaintances and across social dimensions (see Chapter 9).

Differential association: The learning of behaviors and norms from the groups with which we have contact.

Sutherland offered his full-fledged model of differential association in his text Principles of Criminology.29 This model included nine propositions:30

1. Criminal behavior is learned. 2. Criminal behavior is learned in interaction with other persons in a

process of communication. 3. The principal part of the learning of criminal behavior occurs within

intimate personal groups. 4. When criminal behavior is learned, the learning includes (a)

techniques of committing the crime, which are sometimes very complicated and sometimes very simple, and (b) the specific direction

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of motives, drives, rationalizations, and attitudes. 5. The specific direction of motives and drives is learned from

definitions of the legal code as favorable or unfavorable. 6. A person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions

favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of the law.

7. Differential associations may vary in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.

8. The process of learning criminal behavior by association with criminal and anticriminal patterns involves all of the mechanisms that are involved in any other learning.

9. Although criminal behavior is an expression of general needs and values, it is not explained by those general needs and values because noncriminal behavior is an expression of the same needs and values.

While Sutherland referred to crime (not delinquency) in his propositions and initially applied them to the concept of white-collar crime, it is easy to see how these propositions can be applied to juvenile behavior and the learning of delinquency.

In order to analyze our example of delinquency that we presented at the beginning of the chapter, we will focus on the first seven propositions of differential association, as the last two were discounted in later formulations of the theory.31 While most people might think to try to explain the likelihood of the young man bringing a gun to school and killing his classmates, we would like to start by focusing on the behavior of the rumormongers. Why is it that a rumor such as this one would become such a sensation on social media sites? Why would so many students (and parents) feel free to spread the rumor with no actual knowledge of the events themselves? Sutherland’s theory of differential association and his first seven propositions will help explain these events.

The first proposition suggests that delinquent behavior is learned instead of inherited or the result of some biological trait. Today even those interested in biological predictors of crime and delinquency do not argue that behavior is inherited; rather, there may be predispositions that make some folks more likely to engage in behavior.32 In fact, Sutherland was responding to the early biological and psychological traditions that were fairly deterministic in nature (i.e., individuals were born with some trait or characteristic that made them “bad”—for example, a mesomorphic body

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type instead of an ectomorphic or endomorphic one).33 And even today we speak of “crack babies” as if they are destined to a life of drug use, when studies are starting to tell us that those “crack babies” have few lasting effects from their exposure.34 By focusing on learning acts of delinquency, Sutherland was moving toward a more sociological explanation of delinquent behavior.

Are you more likely to engage in delinquent behavior yourself if you are around others who engage in delinquency? Would it matter if the others engaging in delinquency were your friends or strangers?

©iStockphoto.com/VBStock

From the second and third proposition we can conclude that Sutherland considered learning to be a social process that was most likely to happen with one’s friends and family. While current researchers have taken into account new modes of communication such as social media, Sutherland focused more specifically on traditional, direct modes of communication and learning. These two propositions are very useful to our understanding of bullying and the use of social media to spread rumors. The spreading of rumors is, by nature, a communicative act that is done among one’s peers. We see our peers telling a story, then see and experience the impact of that story ourselves, and pass the same information on to others. But even

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bullying is often found to be a social act in which more than one person engages in the bullying of an individual.35

The fourth proposition suggests two distinct issues are needed to learn delinquency and continue to engage in delinquent behavior. First, an individual must be taught how to engage in the delinquent act, no matter how simple or complex that act is. For example, we must learn how to use technology before we can use it to spread rumors. Second, we need to know why people would want to engage in the behavior in the first place. Sutherland believed that people change their attitudes to be accepting of the deviant or delinquent behavior in order to initially engage in and then to continue with the behavior. For example, it is likely that most of the kids spreading rumors about the bullied youth had been taught to not talk negatively about others, and it certainly can be expected that the adults understood that spreading rumors is wrong. So why engage in the behavior? Sutherland argues that individuals must change their attitude about the behavior, to decide either that it is not as bad as they were initially taught, or that it is OK to do to the individual in question. In the fifth proposition, Sutherland offers how it might be that individuals listen to these new messages (e.g., it is OK to spread rumors online), rather than the old message (e.g., do not talk negatively about others). He believes that if an individual sees the legal code of a behavior as favorable or unfavorable, then that individual will be more or less likely to engage in the behavior. For example, while spreading rumors is harmful and may be punishable legally, depending on the harm that it causes, if spreading a rumor is seen as the “right” thing to do (in this case, it may stop violence at school), then it is easier to engage in that act.

The sixth proposition is the most important proposition to differential association theory, and it states that an excess of definitions favorable to delinquent behavior over definitions unfavorable to delinquent behavior increases the likelihood of committing delinquent acts. Sutherland believed that if one message is more prevalent or more dominant than the other, then it is likely to be the one that individuals listen to. In this instance, it might be that if an individual is exposed to the rumor enough, he or she will begin to believe that it is OK to pass it on, too. Social media, then, becomes an easy way for rumors to spread because they can blossom so quickly and each time the rumors are passed on they are seen as more legitimate.

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The seventh proposition specifies this further and states that differential associations vary in terms of frequency (how often exposed), duration (how long exposed), priority (how early in life one is exposed), and intensity (the respect or admiration one holds for the person providing the definitions). Again, one can see that even in a society that rebukes bullying (we generally at least try to teach our children to be nice to others in theory), some people are exposed to definitions favorable to bullying— frequently, for long durations of time, from an early age where youth are impressionable, and from people they are expected to respect (e.g., parents, an older sibling, or media figures)—which makes them more likely to engage in the behavior themselves. It is important to note that Sutherland emphasized not differential association with persons, but rather differential exposure to definitions, and that sometimes these messages are contradictory. Although the two variables may be related, they are clearly not the same thing. For example, parents can tell their children to be nice to each other but, at the same time, treat their children harshly themselves; they may also reward behavior, such as “sticking up for oneself or what one believes in,” in ways that really seem to condone bullying rather than standing one’s ground on principle. In other words, the message itself is important, and in many instances, such as bullying behavior, the message juveniles receive might be mixed (see Figure 4.1 for the general process of differential association).

Sutherland’s theory of differential association is perhaps the most long- standing and most popular theory of delinquency in terms of empirical evaluation, and it has made important inroads to policy and programs. It has been instrumental in studying a wide array of criminal and noncriminal delinquent behaviors and has found much support. The theory has also been sharply criticized and challenged on a number of grounds.36 However, it is still cited widely in the social sciences and has been modified and expanded by Ronald Akers and his colleagues.

Akers introduced the behavioral concepts of operant conditioning, punishment, and reinforcement into Sutherland’s differential association theory.37 Akers argued that learning, at its most basic, did not have to come from social interaction (a major assumption of Sutherland), but could come from rewards and punishments that evolved from the individual behavior itself.38 According to Akers, behavior is shaped by what follows it (the reaction—the reward or punishment for that behavior). These rewards and punishments are broken into four categories: positive

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reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. Behavior is strengthened because of reinforcement. A positive reinforcement is a reward for that behavior, for example the pleasurable feeling that some might claim they get from doing drugs. A bit harder to understand is negative reinforcement, which is an event that strengthens behavior because the behavior stops a negative event that an individual wants to stop. For example, a juvenile is getting bullied, and because of the bullying he or she starts to skip school. If skipping school relieves the negative feelings that arise from the bullying, then the juvenile will probably continue to skip school. Given that a reinforcement is likely to increase or strengthen a behavior, a punishment is designed to decrease behavior. A positive punishment is a punishment that is introduced or added in order to decrease a behavior. For example, if youth are caught bullying, they may be told to stay after school for detention. In contrast, a negative punishment is something that is taken away, instead of introduced, as a punishment. In this instance, if juveniles are caught bullying, they may be expelled from school, or might be told they can no longer participate in football, cheerleading, or marching band. In Akers’s version of differential association theory, social learning theory, he suggests that whether delinquent behavior will develop and persist for individuals will depend on the differential reinforcement—the level of rewards and punishments that exist in the juvenile’s life for that delinquent behavior. But unlike Sutherland’s differential association theory, these differential reinforcements (associations) do not just have to be with delinquent or nondelinquent peers. School, family, and religion could all add to the differential reinforcements.

Figure 4.1 The Process of Differential Association

Positive reinforcement: A reward for behavior, for example the pleasurable feeling that people might feel they get from doing drugs.

Negative reinforcement: An event that strengthens behavior because the behavior stops a negative event that an individual wants to stop.

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Positive punishment: A punishment that is introduced or added to decrease a behavior.

Negative punishment: Something that is taken away, instead of introduced, as a punishment.

Differential Association Theory and Class, Gender, and Race Differential association theorists have most often focused on the social learning aspects of the theory and have not focused much attention on how differential association may explain the relationship between class, gender, race, and juvenile delinquency. We offer several specific examples of research that has incorporated class, gender, or race into the explanation, but it is clear that theorists should explore these avenues in more detail.

Class

While the use of differential association theory has most often focused on the association and social learning aspects of the theory, Sutherland and Cressey argued that these differences in association might likely be determined by “differential social organization.”39 Or, put another way, some areas might be more likely to create opportunities for delinquency and crime, and in these areas one would be more likely, then, to associate with individuals who would engage in delinquency and teach that delinquency to others. Like social disorganization theory (Chapter 5), much of the focus was on class-based differences in areas. However, Reinarman and Fagan tested the notion that differential association and/or delinquency might vary by area (focusing on areas differentiated by class), and they found that different socioeconomic areas did not predict individual-level delinquency, nor did these areas have varying levels of differential association.40

Gender

While some theorists call for gender-specific theories of delinquency (see

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Chapter 6), others (who use more general theories such as those found in this chapter) explain that gender differences in delinquency focus on the idea that boys and girls are either differently exposed or differently affected by the same conditions. (In other words, the first perspective might say that in a patriarchal system that devalues girls and overlooks much of the oppression that girls experience, one of their reactions to this oppression might be delinquency. The second perspective would say that while both girls and boys are oppressed as young people in our society, they deal with that oppression in different ways.) Those who use differential association theory to explain gender differences usually focus on the fact either that boys are more likely to be around delinquent peers than girls or that delinquent peers have a different impact on boys than they do on girls.41 Mears et al. used differential association theory to explain the gender differences in delinquency and found that boys are, indeed, more likely than girls to have delinquent friends.42 But even more important than the number of delinquent friends, girls seem sheltered from their delinquent associations (friends) by their moral values (the socialization of girls that strongly emphasizes not harming others). In other words, the emphasis on not harming or hurting others to whom girls are exposed may counteract associations with delinquent friends.

Race

Very little research has examined racial differences in delinquency using the differential association or social learning theory.43 One study that did examine these differences focused on research that suggests that there may be race differences in how juveniles experience “broken homes.”44 While some studies have found no racial differences in the effect of single- headed households on white juveniles or juveniles of color, others have found a difference, and at least in a study completed by Matsueda and Heimer, these differences can be explained by differential association theory.45 Matsueda and Heimer found that black youth from “broken homes” were more likely to be exposed to and learn definitions favorable to delinquency than white youth—although they also found that the learning of these definitions favorable to delinquency explained both black and white delinquency, overall. They also found that differential association theory explained delinquency among these juveniles better than social control theory, the next theory we will explore.

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Social Control Theory/Social Bonding Theory Social control theories of delinquency got their start from the early classical theories usually associated with Beccaria. Both the classical school and the neoclassical school have, as a basis, a belief in the free will and rationalistic hedonism of the individual.46 Beccaria, writing in the 18th century, viewed the individual as a rational actor (the popular belief of the time) and sought under this belief system to reform the system of punishment.47 Most important for modern control theories is Beccaria’s overall support for the notion that, being free actors, individuals need control in their lives to keep them from hedonistic action (if that action is harmful to society).

Control theorists assert that human beings are basically antisocial, assuming that delinquency is part of the natural order in society; individuals are attracted to the idea of norm violation and thus motivated to deviate. This leads control theorists to assert that concern for delinquent motivation alone does not account for the forces leading people to deviate —all people are capable of feeling a certain motivation to deviate. “The important question is not ‘why do men not obey the rules of society’, but rather ‘why do men obey the rules of society.’”48

Classical Social Control Theory Theorists of the classical social control theory formulate many of the assumptions of the classical school and early psychological theories into a sociological theory of delinquency and social control. Nye was one of the first theorists to articulate a distinction between internal and external social control.49 While later theorists do not always explicate their theories in the same dichotomy of internal and external control, most accept the notion of internal social control (i.e., through thoughtful introspection or a conversation with oneself one decides not to engage in delinquency) and external control (i.e., formal controls placed upon the individual by society in order to keep him or her from engaging in crime).

Travis Hirschi

The person most associated with control theories is Travis Hirschi.

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Hirschi’s version of social control theory is often referred to as social bonds.50 This theory concentrates on indirect controls of behavior. Hirschi’s social control theory suggests that delinquency is not a response to learned behavior or stimuli or the strains surrounding an individual (as differential association theory and strain theory suggest). Instead, social control theory assumes that delinquent activity is a given, and it is the absence of delinquency that needs to be explained. In fact, not only are we capable, but we are willing creators and participants in delinquency. The reason we do not engage in delinquency or crime is because we have social bonds to conformity that keep us from engaging in socially unacceptable activities. This social bond comprises four parts— attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Social bonds: Bonds to conformity that keep us from engaging in socially unacceptable activities.

In the News: The Flint Water Crisis

Lagretta Hinton (C) gets her blood tested for lead poison levels by Lashae Campbell as she holds her grandson Shawn Bozier at a clinic set up to help screen for the effects of the crisis when the city’s drinking water became contaminated with dangerously high levels of lead in Flint, Michigan, March 6, 2016.

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REUTERS/Jim Young

Flint, Michigan is in the middle of a public health crisis that is predicted to last for decades. The city, a majority black town with 40% of its population living in poverty, is at the center of what most consider to be, at the very least, an example of inept government and, at the most, an example of government crime. But for this chapter, we will focus on the actual public health crisis: heavy levels of lead in the water. How did it come about?

Between June of 2012 and April of 2013, Flint officials explored saving money by switching water providers from the Detroit Water and Sewage Department (DWSD) to the Karegnondi Water Authority (KWA). It was projected that the city would save $200 million over 25 years. In order to make this switch, Flint needed to build a pipeline to connect to the KWA. The DWSD was informed that Flint had decided to join the KWA, and DWSD decided to terminate service to Flint as of April 2014.

The pipeline was not operational by April 2014, though, so the city had to find an alternative source of water, and it decided to use the Flint River as its water source until the pipeline was operational. Flint River was the water source for the city in the 1960s. On April 25, 2014, Flint River water became the water source for the city. City officials decided not to treat the water to ensure that it would not corrode the pipes, instead waiting to see whether problems presented themselves. In May of 2014, the issues with this decision started to materialize (see Figure 4.2).

The continuing problem is that the pipes carrying water to Flint are damaged. The state claims they can be fixed by running treated water through them, but the residents are not using their water (1) because it is poisoned and (2) because they will be charged for water they cannot use. This means the water is not flowing through the pipes. The pipes will need to be fixed before the residents of Flint can use the water again. The question is when and how they will be fixed. As of June 2016, residents were still relying on bottled water.

For a book on juvenile delinquency in a diverse society, there are two issues of importance in this story: the first is the number of children who were exposed to critically high levels of lead in their water, and the second is the disproportionate number of poor children of color who were affected. We have already read that toxins such as lead are strongly correlated to behavioral problems in children, and we will also learn later in the book that children of color are more likely to be held

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accountable for their behavior by being arrested and formally charged in the juvenile justice system.

What does the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, mean for the children of Flint, then?

Discussion Question 1. If there are increased rates of delinquency in Flint in 10 years,

should these children be held accountable for their behavior, or should it be understood that the water crisis is the real offender? Why or why not?

Source: Adapted from Kennedy, M. (2016, April 20). Lead-Laced Water in Flint: A Step-by Step Look at the Making of a Crisis. The Two-Way: Breaking news from NPR. Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378

Figure 4.2 Timeline of the Flint Water Crisis

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http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/04/20/465545378

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Extracurricular activities such as band or sports often prevent juveniles from engaging in delinquency. Extracurricular activities are an example of which bond(s)?

©iStockphoto.com/monkeybusinessimages

Attachment is the emotional component of the bond. This component suggests that we do not engage in delinquency because we care about what conforming others think about us. Hirschi argued that if we are strongly attached to others we will contemplate their reaction to our behavior before we engage in it. In other words, we will not engage in delinquency if we think those we are attached to will be disappointed in us. This is the element of the social bond that may have us saying “What would Mom think?” or “Mom would be mad if she found out.” Hirschi believed that our most important attachment was probably to our parents (and by extension other family members), but he also thought that attachments to friends (even if they were not always conforming themselves) and teachers would keep us from deviating.

Commitment is the rational component of the bond. This component suggests that individuals will be less likely to engage in delinquency when they have a strong commitment to conventional society. This strong

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commitment to conventional society will cause them to weigh the costs and benefits of delinquent behavior. Those who have more to lose will not misbehave. Hirschi believed that conventional activities were most likely one’s education and other school activities for juveniles and for those who had successfully completed high school, work, and occupational attainment. Hirschi actually believed that juveniles who entered adulthood too soon (e.g., who became young parents or worked while in high school) were more likely to become delinquent, not less likely.51

Involvement is the component of the bond that suggests the more time one spends engaged in conforming activities, the less time one has available to deviate. Hirschi characterized this bond as “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”52 In other words, Hirschi argued that juveniles who spent their time in conventional activities, such as sports, homework, or band practice, have, literally, less time for delinquent activities. The difference between commitment and involvement (since we have mentioned school and after- school activities in both) is that commitment is the bond that focuses on not wanting to lose the benefits of the conventional activity one is engaging in (e.g., you don’t want to be benched on the football team because you were caught drinking), while involvement refers specifically to the time you engage in a conventional activity (e.g., if you are at football practice, you cannot be shoplifting at the same time).

Finally, belief is the component of the bond that suggests the stronger one’s awareness, understanding, and agreement with the rules and norms of society, the less likely one will be to deviate. Given that social control is a normative theory (it assumes societal agreement and understanding about the norms and rules of society), an individual with weakened norms is not thought to be completely unaware of the norms and rules; however, such an individual is less accepting of the “moral validity of the law.”53

Attachment: The “emotional” component of the social bond that signifies that individuals care about what others think.

Commitment: The “rational” component of the social bond that signifies that individuals weigh the costs and benefits of their behavior.

Involvement: The component of the social bond that suggests the more

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time one spends engaged in conforming activities, the less time one has available to deviate.

Belief: The component of the social bond that suggests the stronger one’s awareness of, understanding of, and agreement with the rules and norms of society, the less likely one will be to deviate.

Life Course and Developmental Theories While traditional social control or social bonding theory focuses attention on the social bonds that juveniles and young adults maintain—attachment to parents and teachers, commitment to school, involvement in activities such as sports or band—life course theory extends this examination of social bonds from adolescents to adulthood.54 The developmental perspective argues that “the development of problem behaviors tends to occur in an ‘orderly, progressive fashion’ that is highly age-determined. Developmental criminologists examine this age-linked development of problem behaviors and the causal factors that influence their development.”55 Hirschi argued that bonds may be weak or broken (or may vary over time), but he never really explored the nature of that variance, while Gottfredson and Hirschi claimed that life events (as they are related to social bonding) do not have an effect on delinquent behavior because levels of self-control are set at an early age.56 Sampson and Laub posit that over the course of one’s life, individuals are likely to go through stages that present them with social bonding opportunities and that while we may be able to see trajectories toward crime throughout the life course, these trajectories can change with changes in life events.57

According to Sampson and Laub, a trajectory is a “pathway or line of development over a life span . . . [that] refer[s] to long-term patterns of behavior and [is] marked by a sequence of transitions.”58 A transition, then, is a shorter or specific life event embedded in a trajectory. For example, your life could be said to be on a working-class trajectory—you are born in a working-poor neighborhood to parents who have stable but low-paying employment, you receive no schooling past high school, and you end up working in the service sector. Then you marry and get an entry-level position in your in-laws’ furniture business (same pay as your other job, but significant room for advancement). You could be said to be

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on a trajectory for a working-poor lifestyle, barely making ends meet, most likely always working in the service sector, always worrying about the likelihood you might lose your job; your marriage (the transition) offers a sudden change from that earlier trajectory.

Sampson and Laub focus on an age-graded theory of informal social control.59 They argue that there are social bonds between (1) members of society and (2) wider social institutions, such as family, school, and work. As an age-graded theory, they argue that life events may have an effect on the likelihood to persist or desist with delinquency (although the quality of these life events, not just their existence, is important). They offer three components to their theory. The first is that during childhood and adolescence, social bonds to family and school are important for explaining the likelihood to engage in delinquency. Those who hold strong bonds to family and school are less likely to engage in delinquency than those with weak or broken bonds. The second component is the argument that there is a certain level of stability to the likelihood to engage in delinquency. In other words, those who don’t engage in delinquency as adolescents are more likely to not engage in delinquency as adults, and those who do engage in delinquency as adolescents are more likely to engage in delinquency as adults. Sampson and Laub argue this for two reasons: First, there are stable individual differences in the likelihood to engage in delinquency (some people are just more likely to engage in delinquency); but, second, there is also a dynamic process by which adolescent delinquent behavior has an effect on later adolescent and adult social bonds (for example, an individual who has been incarcerated or labeled a delinquent may have less prosperous job prospects).

Finally, the third component, which is where Sampson and Laub spend a significant amount of explanatory time, is that there are important life events in adulthood that have the likelihood of changing a trajectory. “In other words, we contend that trajectories of crime are subject to modification by key institutions of social control in the transition to adulthood.”60 These are likely to be such transitions as attachment to labor force participation or a particularly cohesive marriage. Sampson and Laub argue that it is not enough for these transitions to just happen; they must be quality transitions (in other words, just getting married or committing to a partner is not enough; it must be a cohesive commitment).

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Life course theory: A theoretical perspective that considers the entire course of human life (from childhood, adolescence, and adulthood to old age) as social constructions that reflect the broader structural conditions of society.

Trajectory: Classification of individuals according to their pattern of offending over time.

Transition: Short-term changes in social roles within long-term trajectories, such as dropping out of school, divorce, and desistance from delinquency.

Moffitt makes an extended life course argument saying that there are two offender groups.61 The first is considered a life course–persistent group whose delinquency stems from neurodevelopmental processes—these individuals are predicted to be fairly consistent in their delinquent behavior. In other words, over their life they are more likely to engage in crime. Moffitt considers this to be a fairly small group. The second is called adolescence-limited. This group is much larger, its members’ delinquency stems from social processes, and over time it is likely that most will stop engaging in delinquent behavior.62

These variations on the life course theory are often used to explain the age- crime curve. The relationship between age and crime is so strong at the aggregate level that many believe it is invariant (meaning that it does not change over era or type of crime, for example), and while this is probably not the case, it is a very strong relationship—we see, in general, that the likelihood for crime rises sharply as one ages into the teenage and late teenage/early adult years and then not quite as swiftly drops off (see Figure 4.3).63 Steffensmeier, Allan, Harer, and Streifel found that the age-crime relationship was extremely strong, but varied for type of crime (for example, while the relationship between age and property crimes peaks at about 17, the relationship between age and violent crime peaks a bit later).64

Theorists who use the life course theory argue that this age-crime relationship exists because as people age they go through stages that allow

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them to be more or less delinquent. For example, as adolescents become teenagers, they are more likely to pull away from their parents’ control, perhaps becoming less attached to their parents and more attached to their peers. Then as individuals become even older, they enter new stages of their life in which delinquent behavior may be less rewarding or available, and thus they begin to engage in less and less delinquency and more and more conformity—we call this “aging out of crime and delinquency.”

Figure 4.3 Age-Crime Curve

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2012). Arrests in the United States, 1990–2010. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/aus9010.pdf

Note: Most recent data available.

From the Classroom to the Community: Helping Kids Make Better Choices: Mujeres Organization

To help youth succeed in school and stay out of trouble, teachers often use strategies related to the main insights of the social process theories covered in this chapter. See if you can identify insights related to differential association theory, social bonding theory, and life course theory in the set of events described in the following newspaper article.

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Castro Valley High School senior Bianca Arias plans on becoming a nurse, and she has applied to several universities to achieve her goal. She gives much of the credit for her academic success to the “strong support system” she receives from belonging to Mujeres, a group that meets regularly with school counselor Connie Iglesias.

Many prevention programs focus on boys, instead of girls, which means girls in need of support and guidance fall through the cracks. Mujeres is an example of a program designed to focus on supporting the success of girls.

©iStockphoto.com/Aldo Murillo

“Instead of thinking short-term, I’m thinking long-term,” says Arias, who is the club’s president.

Iglesias founded the club because she saw some female students getting into fights, not succeeding at school, and even dropping out. She worried that they were making choices that might lead to a “rougher life” in adulthood—affecting their future relationships, career choices and overall well-being.

The Castro Valley Teachers Association member wanted to put these girls, mostly Latina, on a better path, and asked some of them to join a group called Mujeres, which is Spanish for “women.” Programs reaching out to minority youth, she observes, often focus on boys rather than girls, who may fall through the cracks.

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“Traditionally, these kinds of girls don’t talk to adults and might be failing in class,” she says. “I can be that caring adult who wants them to succeed. I know what it’s like. I am a Latina, and some of my family members did not graduate from high school. I call their parents. I do a lot of hand-holding.”

Founded three years ago, Mujeres meets weekly for lunch to discuss life, coping skills, and how to be successful in school. During meetings, Iglesias shares advice for taking the PSAT and SAT tests, keeping up with schoolwork, and applying to colleges. There are also meetings to discuss issues such as self-esteem, family, friendships, peer pressure, romantic relationships and gangs.

“I try to connect them with school culture,” says Iglesias, who came up with the idea for Mujeres while earning her counseling degree in graduate school. “Sometimes the Latino population has trouble feeling that connection when they are in a big school setting, which is why they have the highest dropout rate. I tell my girls that they need to change the stereotype people have of Latinos by working hard, not fighting, and doing well in school.”

While the group is geared toward helping Latinas, it is also open to any female students who wish to join. The goal is to help members close the achievement gap, feel more confident, and make good choices for the future.

Stacey Aguilar, 16, says the club opens both “eyes” and “doors” for its members. Her older sister didn’t even know what a UC [University of California] campus was until Iglesias explained to her that “college” could be different from a community college. Today her sister is a freshman at UC Santa Cruz.

“I also want to get into a good school so I can have a good job,” says Aguilar, the club’s vice president. “This club makes me more serious about my grades, staying motivated and serving as a good example for freshman students.”

Iglesias is proud to see the progress and personal growth of her students.

“I love these kids so much, and it’s great to see them take up a leadership role within Mujeres,” says Iglesias. “If they have a plan— whether it’s college or vocational school—they will learn how to take care of themselves, reach their goals, and eventually become role models for others.”

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Discussion Question 1. Which theory is best represented in this article? Use examples

from the article to illustrate.

Source: Posnick-Goodwin, S. (2012). Helping girls make better choices. California Teachers Association, 16(6). Retrieved from http://www.cta.org/en/Professional- Development/Publications/2012/03/March-Educator-2012/Helping- girls.aspx Reprinted by permission of the California Teachers Association.

Social Control and Gender: The Example of Power-Control Theory The control theories presented up to this point have been generalist in nature. In other words, the assumption is that they can predict the likelihood of delinquency across diverse populations. While our examples of the application of differential association theory to race, class, and gender differences in delinquency illustrated the use of general theory, our example here is one in which the ideas of control theory are merged with another perspective (conflict theory, discussed in Chapter 6) to form a new variation on the theory to help explain gender differences in delinquency. John Hagan, A. R. Gillis, and John Simpson developed one of the best known control/neo-Marxist theories of delinquency, known as power- control theory.65 In their article “Class in the Household: A Power-Control Theory of Gender and Delinquency,” Hagan, Simpson et al. claimed that previous theories of delinquency did not pay enough attention to social class and gender, and their theory was an attempt to remedy that problem by blending Marxist or “power” theories that look at the big picture—the macro level—with “control” theories that look at the microstructural level —the day-to-day interactions between individuals.66 They explained how both types of theory, when used together, can help us better understand different types of dominance and how they relate to the creation of delinquency among boys and girls respectively:

Hagan, Simpson et al. theorized that the more freedom people have to act and the less social control upon them, the more likely they will break norms and commit common acts of delinquency (e.g., petty theft, auto

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http://www.cta.org/en/Professional-Development/Publications/2012/03/March-Educator-2012/Helping-girls.aspx

theft, grand larceny, battery, vandalism). These authors stated that boys have more freedom than girls to act as they wish in society, and both boys and girls in the highest socioeconomic classes have the most freedom to do what they please. Ultimately, Hagan, Simpson et al. stated that we should expect that boys from the highest social classes have the most ability of youth as a whole to deviate from societal norms, and forwarded a few reasons why they thought this would be the case. First, they stated that youth who are under strict parental control are less likely to acquire a taste for risk taking and more likely to perceive that they will get in trouble if they commit an act of delinquency. Second, the authors hypothesized that girls are more likely than boys to be taught in the home not to break the rules and to be scared of punishment.

Their empirical study of self-reported delinquency as it related to the variables outlined above found that boys in all social classes committed more acts of delinquency than girls. But in the case of the youth coming from homes in which their parents were unemployed or underemployed, there was no difference in delinquency among girls and boys after parental control was taken into account. Overall, youth who were children of business owners were more likely as a whole than youth from other classes to engage in common delinquency. Hagan, Simpson et al. also found that boys from homes whose parents were business owners were less likely to be subjected to parental controls than those in middle-class and working- class homes, which led upper-class boys to engage in more common delinquency. Unlike middle- and working-class boys, upper-class boys did not even need to develop a taste for risk taking—they simply acted out in more delinquency because they could and did not worry about getting in trouble. Hagan, Simpson, et al. noted that their study results, on the whole, supported what early Marxist criminologist Bonger theorized long ago: that the greatest effect of gender on delinquency would be found in the upper social classes of society.67

Hagan and his colleagues expanded their theory in subsequent years to consider the degree of power parents had in their jobs outside of the home and how that translated into power and control within the family.68 Power- control theory was later reconsidered again as a means of addressing feminist critiques that stated it was off the mark by ignoring the role that patriarchal families played in generating girls’ delinquency through acts of violence and abuse.69 Patriarchal families, according to the critique, cannot just be theorized as positive forces that prevent children, especially

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girls, from committing acts of delinquency. McCarthy, Hagan, and Woodward looked into the effect that women’s increasing power and freedom in nonpatriarchal families had on their children as an extension of the power-control theory.70 One of their primary findings was that in families where mothers had more power in the home, boys were less apt to develop mainstream ideas about gender and risk taking. Thus they were less likely to act out delinquently. The lessening of social control of girls in nonpatriarchal households was met by increased control of boys in such households and a gender egalitarian socialization.

Techniques of Neutralization Model One of the many questions that stem from such normative theories as differential association and social control/social bonding theory is how individuals can engage in bad behavior when they are aware it is wrong. Sykes and Matza offered an explanation for why individuals might engage in delinquency even though they understand it is wrong.71 Asking the question “Why would we violate the norms and laws in which we believe?” they suggest that we employ techniques of neutralization in order to rationalize away our understanding of the rules. They argue that society is organized for these sorts of rationalizations because much of our understanding of the rules comes with a certain flexibility already. In other words, they point out, while we understand the normative system, we also understand that under certain circumstances those norms do not apply. For example, while killing someone is generally wrong, we know during times of war or in self-defense it is not. As Sykes and Matza pointed out, there are ways that people neutralize or rationalize their wrongdoing at times, even in the face of such a label. They noted five primary psychosocial techniques for doing so:

Techniques of neutralization: Rationalizations used by individuals in order to engage in delinquency.

1. Denial of responsibility. Sykes and Matza stated that this is when a person refuses to claim responsibility for a given act. A person takes on a “billiard ball conception of himself in which he sees himself as helplessly propelled into new situations.”72 The belief that outside forces compel a person’s behavior allows him or her to ignore any

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disapproval from others when breaking norms and also allows the person to avoid feeling bad about any behavior that might be considered wrongdoing.

2. Denial of injury. In this technique of neutralization, “the link between acts and their consequences [may] be broken.”73 In other words, the person denies that anyone has been harmed by her or his actions. Sykes and Matza provided examples in which youth may redefine their delinquent acts in terms that are less harmless, such as labeling them as “mischief” in the case of vandalism and “borrowing” in the case of theft. This allows the youth to challenge the legitimacy of social control efforts and, once again, to avoid internalizing a delinquent label.

3. Denial of the victim. According to Sykes and Matza, denial of the victim occurs when a person justifies his or her behavior by stating that the person who was victimized deserved it, or that because of circumstances the delinquent act committed needed to occur. The person might actually admit responsibility, but will refuse to acknowledge that anyone harmed by her or his actions did not deserve it. Sykes and Matza explained that “by a subtle alchemy the delinquent moves himself into a position of avenger and the victim is transformed into a wrong-doer.”74 We have all unfortunately heard of the rape myth that many rapists perpetuate: “She deserved it.” A less violent example Sykes and Matza provided to illustrate this technique is the figure of Robin Hood, who justified stealing from the rich and giving it to the poor because he saw it as necessary to even the economic playing field. Robin Hood was not defining the rich as victims in those situations in which he was stealing from them. When there is no discernible victim apparent, such as in the case of acts of delinquency against public property, it is even easier for a person to deny a victim and to avoid internalizing negative feelings about norm breaking.

4. Condemnation of the condemners. In this technique of neutralization, a person tries to turn the tables on those who condemn or disapprove of his or her behavior by condemning them. People who typically serve social control functions in a young person’s life, such as law enforcement officers, parents, and teachers, are labeled by delinquent youth as being corrupt or misguided in their disapproval. “Police it might be said, are corrupt, stupid and brutal. Teachers always show favoritism, and parents always ‘take it out’ on

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their children.”75 By engaging in this technique, youth can repress their feelings about their own behavior and motivations and shift them to others.

5. Appeal to higher loyalties. This final technique of neutralization is one in which a youth who has committed a delinquent act justifies it on the basis of a higher calling or purpose. Oftentimes, a young person will claim that a close friendship or relationship with a group of peers necessitates some sort of lawbreaking. The youth might not stand in opposition to the rules or laws in general, but feels that in a specific situation norm breaking is necessary to help a friend, a group of friends, or a family member. An example would be when a person helps a friend commit an act of delinquency in order to get money to pay for food, because she feels it is important for her friend to survive.

Sykes and Matza’s schema explains the ways that people who have actually done something wrong justify their behavior and talk themselves out of feeling guilty about it. It is basically a psychological consideration of this process. This theory is especially useful in conjunction with social control theory or differential association theory. Since both theories are normative and assume that individuals understand the difference between right and wrong, the techniques of neutralization offer an explanation for why people engage in delinquent behavior when they know it is wrong.

Denial of responsibility: The belief that outside forces compel a person’s behavior, and thus the person refuses to take responsibility for his or her actions.

Denial of injury: A neutralization technique in which the person denies that anyone has been harmed by her or his actions.

Denial of the victim: A neutralization technique in which a person justifies his or her behavior by stating that the person who was victimized deserved it, or that because of circumstances, the delinquent act committed needed to occur.

Condemnation of the condemners: A neutralization technique in

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which a person tries to turn the tables on those who condemn or disapprove of his or her behavior by condemning them.

Appeal to higher loyalties: A neutralization technique in which a youth who has committed a delinquent act justifies it on the basis of a higher calling or purpose.

General Strain Theory In Chapter 5 you will be introduced to the macro-level versions of anomie and strain theories. As we discussed, these classic strain theories dominated criminological research in the 1950s and 1960s, and their relevance was marked in public policy of the time, particularly in strain theory’s impact on the War on Poverty during the 1960s.76 Strain theory came under attack in the 1970s as relativist theorists shifted the focus to conflict and labeling theories (see Chapter 6), offering a new perspective on societal influences on both crime and punishment. One of the main critiques of the classic theories was the focus on class-based delinquency and crime, given that the assumption was a uniform societal goal of wealth attainment (Merton’s version).

Robert Agnew resurrected the tradition with his general strain theory (GST) by expanding the discussion of what may create strain in juvenile’s lives (see Figure 4.4).77 GST focuses on what circumstances lead individuals and groups within a society to engage in delinquent behavior. Agnew suggests that they are “pressured into crime.” Along with the failure to achieve valued goals, Agnew argues that strain may also result from negative relationships. Agnew specifies three major types of strain:78

1. The anticipated or actual failure to achieve a goal (for example, not achieving a spot on a sports team or achieving popularity with peers).

2. The anticipated or actual loss of a positive stimulus (for example, the death of a parent or breakup of a romantic relationship).

3. The anticipated or actual presentation of a negative stimulus (for example, physical assaults, failing grades, public insults, discrimination, or oppression). Such negative relations will likely lead to anger and frustration, which may then lead to delinquent behavior, such as physical violence, running away from home, illicit drug use,

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or self-harming behavior.

Figure 4.4 Model of General Strain Theory

Source: Adapted from Agnew, R. (2001). Building on the foundation of general strain theory: Specifying the types of strain most likely to lead to crime and delinquency. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 38, 319–361.

Agnew argues that some types of strain are more likely to cause crime and delinquency than others.79 He identifies the following characteristics as most likely to cause crime: The strain is high in magnitude; the strain is seen as unjust; the strain is associated with low self-control; and the strain creates some pressure or incentive for criminal coping. More specifically, examples of strains that are likely to cause crime include parental rejection, erratic or excessively harsh discipline, child abuse and neglect, negative school experiences, abusive peer relationships, criminal victimization, residence in economically deprived neighborhoods, and discrimination based on characteristics such as race/ethnicity and gender.

Agnew is careful to point out that not all individuals respond to strains

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with crime and delinquency, and, in fact, most people cope in legal and conforming ways. There are many possible coping strategies, including behavioral coping, cognitive coping, and emotional coping.80 Behavioral coping strategies focus on actions that might help to reduce the strain itself. Cognitive coping strategies involve trying to reinterpret the strain to lessen the impact of that strain. Emotional coping strategies are an attempt to lessen the negative emotions that might arise from the strain. Coping strategies can be positive or negative. This means that, according to Agnew, delinquency is seen as a coping strategy, albeit a bad one.

Behavioral coping: A type of coping strategy that focuses on actions that might help to reduce the strain itself.

Cognitive coping: A type of coping strategy that involves trying to reinterpret the strain to lessen the impact of that strain.

Emotional coping: A type of coping strategy that is an attempt to lessen the negative emotions that might arise from the strain.

General Strain Theory and Race Agnew lists several instances of strain that may be specifically linked to the experiences of juveniles of color, including criminal victimization, adverse or negative school experiences, and most specifically the experience of prejudice and discrimination.81 J. M. Kaufman, Rebellon, Thaxton, and Agnew extend this discussion to specifically examine the strains and coping mechanisms present in the lives of African Americans.82 They suggest that African Americans are more likely to experience a host of strains including economic, community (neighborhood strains), educational (unfair discipline), discrimination, and victimization. And to the extent that much of this strain may be perceived as unfair (it is one thing to be disciplined because you have actually done something wrong, and another thing to be disciplined because you are singled out), the reaction to strain and coping may be less conventional.

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One of the circumstances in which racial discrimination may exist is during pretextual traffic stops. Drivers of color may experience significant strain under these conditions.

©iStockphoto.com/Rich Legg

Gabbidon detailed an excellent review of the way that GST might help explain racial and ethnic differences in delinquency.83 While he reviewed the expanse of studies that examine both crime and delinquency, he highlighted several important studies that focus on delinquency. Simons, Chen, Stewart, and Brody specifically examined the relationship between discrimination, strain, and delinquency among black juveniles.84 They found that discrimination fostered anger and depression among juveniles and that this anger and depression was a predictor of delinquency. A second study by Perez, Jennings, and Gover examined the effect of strain on Hispanic juveniles.85 This study found that “in both low and high Hispanic concentration areas, as the adolescents’ perception of anti- Hispanic discrimination increased so did the likelihood of violent delinquency.”86 Finally, while university students are technically not juveniles anymore, Moon, Hays, and Blurton also found that experiencing race discrimination was a type of strain that led to violent delinquency and

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crime.87

All of these studies put the experiences of juveniles of color into a context. Some differences in delinquency rates between juveniles of color and white juveniles may be attributable to the increased levels of strain that juveniles of color are exposed to, especially strains/stressors coming from discrimination and increased levels of social control that juveniles of color are exposed to in school.

General Strain Theory and Gender There has been a substantial level of research examining the effect of strain on gender differences in delinquency, too.88 Broidy and Agnew used general strain theory to answer two questions: (1) How can we explain the higher rate of crime among males? and (2) How can we explain why females engage in crime?89 To explain the higher rate of criminality among boys than girls, Broidy and Agnew suggest four possible relationships between gender and strain. First, boys might be subject to more stressors or strains than girls. However, after examining the various strains that boys and girls are subjected to, they concluded that girls are subjected to at least as many strains as boys, if not more.

Second, the strains that boys and girls face may be different, and the strains that boys face may be more conducive to delinquency than those faced by girls. Examining the gendered differences in strain, Broidy and Agnew concluded that boys focus more on strains of a material nature and are more likely the victims of aggression and anger, while girls focus on strains that are more interpersonal in nature and focus on issues of procedural justice. For this reason, Broidy and Agnew concluded that strain may explain why boys engage in more violence and property crime.

Third, boys and girls might have different emotional responses to crime. Some studies suggest that boys respond to stress with anger, while girls respond with depression.90 And it is true that in many instances girls respond to stress with depression, but they also respond with anger. In fact, Mirowsky and Ross found that girls often respond with more anger than boys.91 However, how boys and girls experience anger is different. Boys are more likely to experience anger in a morally righteous way (they are more likely to blame others for their treatment and to take insult), while

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girls are conflicted by their anger, feeling guilty that they are angry and worrying it might jeopardize relationships. The way boys experience anger (in an outward rather than inward manner) may mean that their strain and anger are more conducive to delinquency.

Finally, Broidy and Agnew examined whether boys are more likely to respond to their strain and anger with crime than girls. In other words, they examined what coping strategies both boys and girls have available to them. The findings are mixed on gender and coping strategies. Some research suggests that girls have less effective coping resources (because of a lower sense of mastery or self-esteem), while other research suggests that girls have higher levels of coping strategies because they have more emotional social support. In the end, Broidy and Agnew concluded that boys may be more likely to engage in outward-aggressive delinquent coping mechanisms when legitimate ones are not available, while girls may be more likely to engage in self-directed delinquent coping mechanisms, such as alcohol and drug abuse or eating disorders, when legitimate coping mechanisms are not available.

A Focus on Research: General Strain Theory and Delinquency: Extending a Popular Explanation to American Indian Youth

In their Youth & Society article, “General Strain Theory and Delinquency: Extending a Popular Explanation to American Indian Youth,” Eitle and Eitle examine the ability of general strain theory to predict the delinquent behavior of American Indian youth.92 The researchers found that general strain theory did predict the likelihood that American Indian youth would engage in general, violent, and property crimes. Those who had experienced criminal victimization, or had recent negative life events, were more likely to engage in delinquency.

In addition, they found that having strong social support decreased the likelihood of delinquency while exposure to substance-using peers increased delinquent behavior. However, they also found that religiosity had an unexpected positive effect on delinquency. In other words, those who were more religious were more likely to engage in delinquency. Eitle and Eitle speculate that their measure of religiosity may, in part, be measuring traditional American Indian spirituality, and given that American Indian culture and religion are not universally supported or accepted in general society, a strong religious presence may actually

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add strain.

Eitle and Eitle also tested whether personal and social resources could impact the effect of strain on American Indian youth behavior. In other words, could those with personal and social resources basically combat their strain and not engage in delinquency? Their findings were unexpected. Most important, the researchers found that school commitment and school attachment affected youth behavior but not in the expected way. Those with greater school attachment were more likely to have a strong relationship between school-based strain and general delinquency. Again, Eitle and Eitle suggest that this may be because there may be a conflict of culture between American Indian youth and the large urban and suburban schools in which this study was conducted. In other words, large urban and suburban schools have not been known to support American Indian culture in a deep and meaningful way.

According to Eitle and Eitle, these findings suggest that more research needs to be done to examine why strain may be caused by school and religion—two social resources that should be supports to help youth through stressful times. In both instances, if American Indian youth are not feeling the support from mainstream society, they could be compounding their stress.

Discussion Question How might schools help decrease strain for American Indian youth?

Source: Eitle, D. & McNulty Eitle, T. (2016). General strain theory and delinquency: Extending a popular explanation to American Indian youth. Youth & Society, 48(4): 470–495.

Micro-Level Theories and Public Policy One of the most important contributions of theory is that it can inform the public policies that are created to address juvenile delinquency and crime. Given that this chapter has presented theories that explain individual-level behavior, public policies from these theories would also focus on individual-level behavior.

Differential association theory focuses on the learning of delinquency from

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peers and in the form of social learning theory from reinforcements and punishments that individuals experience in their interactions with friends, family, school, and general society. Public policy created from this theory could focus on several factors. For example, school programs that focus on either decreasing norms that favor delinquency or increasing conventional norms could stem from this theory. While in high school, we both experienced peer groups established by school counselors that emphasized the importance of conventional peer interactions. These groups were populated by “outgoing” students, and students who were seen as leaders or popular by the school administration. The message of these groups mostly revolved around the importance of staying off drugs and alcohol. It was believed that as high school students we would be much more likely to listen to and take this message from our peers than we would from adults in our life.

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A public policy from social control/social bonding theory would focus on one or all of the social bonds that must remain strong in order to stop delinquency. For example, this theory would advocate for strong, rich, well-funded after-school programs for juveniles, such as clubs (e.g., Model UN or the chess club), music programs (e.g., marching band or jazz band),

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sports programs (e.g., field hockey, football, or cheerleading), and non– school-related activities (e.g., girl scouts or boys’ and girls’ clubs). What bonds would these programs help strengthen? In fact, they have the possibility of strengthening at least two bonds. The involvement bond would be strengthened through the time spent involved in these programs. A juvenile who has Model UN or football practice for two hours after school has two fewer hours in the day to get into mischief. And it is much more likely that when students are done with these after-school activities their parents will be returning home from work, meaning that parental supervision is more likely after these programs than right after school. The commitment bond is also likely strengthened with these programs. As juveniles become more committed to their activities, more bonded with the others in the club or on the team, and more committed to the success of the group or organization, they will be less likely to jeopardize these activities by engaging in delinquent behavior.

Finally, general strain theory (GST) focuses on the likely strains and available coping mechanisms for juveniles. GST emphasizes that strains are likely in most juveniles’ lives (we cannot likely avoid all strain in our lives), but that some strains may be more likely in some juveniles’ lives than in others (remember, both girls and juveniles of color are more likely to experience discrimination and oppression). Public programs may focus on decreasing strains that certain groups experience more than others or increasing the general coping skills of all juveniles. For example, given the studies that have documented that students of color receive more harsh treatment while at school, a school district may create special training based on these findings that helps teachers identify the differential treatment that some students might experience. Enhanced training for teachers and administrators may help decrease disproportionate social control that targets juveniles of color. While it is extremely important to create programs that address strain and certainly alleviate strain that is more likely placed on one group of juveniles than another, most strain theorists would probably argue that it would be easier to strengthen coping skills in youth than eliminate strain. For example, an emphasis in both home and school settings on appropriate and inappropriate responses to stress (for example, early emphasis with children that responding aggressively, with anger and violence, is not appropriate) and offering alternatives, such as methods of verbally communicating or taking time to let one’s anger and stress diminish, may help juveniles identify better coping strategies.

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Summary

This chapter has focused on social process theories that explain individual-level behavior. The theories in this chapter are some of the most popular theories used to explain juvenile delinquency, but as we have discussed, they were not created with all types of juveniles in mind, and some are better than others at explaining the diverse experiences of juveniles and differing levels of delinquency that some groups of juveniles engage in. We can see that general strain theory has been used with a fair degree of success to explain gender differences in delinquency, and while few studies have used the theory to examine race differences, those that have started are quite promising. While differential association theory was actually created as a comment on the myopic focus of criminologists up to that time, and their obsession with street crime and “lower class” offenders, the theory has not really been used systematically to move away from a focus on street delinquency or to address systematic differences in levels of delinquency among girls or juveniles of color. The theories in Chapter 6 have been created to expressly examine many of these differences.

Eye on Diversity: Antibullying Exercise Evaluating a School’s Program

Many schools have antibullying programs now that focus on helping students identify traditional bullying and cyberbullying as a way to decrease instances of bullying at school. In addition, there has been an increase in stories in the media about gay and lesbian youth who have been bullied with severe consequences for those experiences.

Contact a local middle or high school. Ask if the school has an antibullying program in place and, if it does, ask if there is a written policy or program you may have access to. Examine this program. Does it seem to follow any of the theories discussed in this chapter? Does it acknowledge that some youth may be bullied more than others? Evaluate the program for its likely ability to decrease bullying on campus.

Finally, choose one of the theories we have examined in this chapter. Using this theory, create your own antibullying program for a middle or high school. Pay special attention to the different experiences that girls, juveniles of color, or gay and lesbian youth may have with bullying and try to create a program that acknowledges these differences.

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Discussion Questions 1. “If brain capacity and function is still developing, with frontal lobes

developing last, can we hold adolescents responsible for uninhibited, anti-social behavior?”93

2. Thinking about the process of differential association, can you give an example from your life of your associations affecting your likelihood to engage in, or not engage in, delinquency?

3. Which of the social bonds do you think is most important for preventing delinquency? Why?

4. Can you identify three strains/stressors that existed in your middle school or high school that you or other students experienced? Do you think that all students experienced these strains equally? Why or why not?

5. Create a community program to prevent delinquency based on differential association, social control, or general strain theory.

6. Evaluate the process of confining juveniles in detention/correctional facilities using the theories in this chapter. Would any of these theories advocate for detention facilities as a preventative measure for delinquency? Explain why or why not.

Key Terms Appeal to higher loyalties 114 Atavistic 97 Attachment 108 Behavioral coping 116 Belief 108 Biological determinism 97 Certainty of Punishment 96 Celerity of Punishment 96 Cognitive coping 116 Commitment 108 Condemnation of the condemners 114 Craniometry 97 Denial of injury 114 Denial of responsibility 114 Denial of the victim 114 Differential association 100 Ectomorphic 98

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Emotional coping 116 Endomorphic 98 Environmental determinism 97 Eugenics 97 Involvement 108 Life course theory 108 Mesomorphic 98 Micro-level theories 94 Negative punishment 103 Negative reinforcement 103 Normative theory 94 Phrenology 97 Positive punishment 103 Positive reinforcement 103 Severity of Punishment 96 Social bonds 105 Social contract 95 Stigmata 97 Techniques of neutralization 113 Trajectory 109 Transition 109

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. True 2. True 3. True 4. True 5. True 6. True 7. True 8. True 9. True

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Chapter 5 Macro-Level Theories

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Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Explain why social structural theories of delinquency are considered sociological positivist theories Distinguish between Durkheim’s and Merton’s versions of anomie theory Outline the roots of social disorganization theories and their fundamental assumptions Identify the primary ways social structural theories of delinquency address race, gender, and class Relate social structural theories of delinquency to possible policy interventions

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Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 150.

1. Social structural theorists focus upon how factors inside of a person’s conscious control influence delinquency.

2. According to Durkheim, anomie occurs when shared norms are no longer apparent.

3. Merton theorized that there are 10 primary ways by which people adjust to the strain created by societal goals and the legitimate means to obtain those goals.

4. Social disorganization theory is often used to focus on delinquency rates between neighborhoods or geographical regions.

5. According to Park and Burgess’s concentric zone model, we can expect that the rate of street delinquency in the commuter zone will be lower than the rate of street delinquency in the zone of transition.

6. Frazier’s work on delinquency in the black community focused on the influence of disorganization outside of downtown Chicago on migrants from the South.

7. Most studies have found that collective efficacy makes the social disorganization of a neighborhood worse.

8. According to research, girls may experience the impact of neighborhood effects, such as collective efficacy, in different ways than boys.

Jason and Alex are teenagers who live on the outskirts of a major city. Their family moved to the apartment that they now live in three years ago when they immigrated to the United States. They can still remember the excitement their parents had before the big move—they could not stop talking about the future and the many opportunities that living in the United States would provide. Jason and Alex didn’t know exactly what would happen when they moved, but as young boys they imagined that life might be like they had seen on celebrity Instagram accounts—a life in which a young man could easily strike it rich and have a giant house, many cars, and all sorts of fancy possessions. They were excited about the possibilities because they were tired of seeing their mother and father working so hard to survive.

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Now, as teenagers getting close to graduating from high school, Jason and Alex are struggling to figure out what decisions to make. Their living situation does not look at all like what they imagined life might be; they live in a run-down area, there are many homeless people sleeping on the streets near their apartment, and there is quite a bit of street crime, especially at night. Jason and Alex’s parents are working long hours in a factory, often on the night shift, to make ends meet, just like most of the adults in the neighborhood who have recently come to the United States from a variety of countries and were able to find jobs. The boys have had a hard time adjusting to the life of teenagers in the United States—it does not seem as though getting good grades in school and playing by the rules pays off in any substantial way, and they were automatically tracked into the lowest level of classes due to the fact English is their second language. They feel unchallenged and bored in school. Alex is pretty close to dropping out, and Jason is barely getting passing grades.

After a big flood damaged their neighborhood last year, things got even worse for everyone. Now, almost all of the businesses that used to attract customers have left, and it’s hard for young people who do not have cars to get to another area to find jobs. To Jason and Alex, it appears as though the guys in the neighborhood who are dealing drugs are the only successful ones. They have new, trendy clothes and cars, and are able to spend money on the weekends and still have money to spare to help their parents. Jason and Alex have been approached by some of those guys looking to expand their drug sales in the area and are thinking that it would probably be a smart idea to work with them.

Social Structural Theories of Delinquency In order to understand Alex and Jason’s situation, we might want to take the perspective of a macro-level theorist in this chapter to look at the big picture that surrounds it—that is, the overarching social forces that impact not only these two young men, but a number of people around them at the same time. In this chapter we will do just that by examining social structural theories that pinpoint the ways in which large-scale social factors influence delinquency. The theories that we will examine in this chapter are traditional sociological theories that are considered sociological positivist theories. This is because scholars coming from this perspective utilize a positivist approach, which means that they use scientific methods (i.e., observation, measurement, and empirical verification) to study the social world. Social structural theorists take a

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deterministic position on delinquency; that is, they claim that factors outside of the conscious control of individuals, chiefly the social organization of society and/or the environment, influence or determine delinquency (for more on determinism see Chapter 11). As you will see, this means that when we look at the opening scenario of the chapter and try to imagine why Alex and Jason might want to be drug dealers through the perspective of one of the social structural theories, we look to explanations that transcend those based on the micro level or individual level (e.g., those that focus upon mental health [psychological theories] or those that see delinquency as simple choice to pursue pleasure [rational choice theory]).

In this chapter we will focus on two general types of macro-level theories: those that come from a tradition of what is known as anomie theory, and those that derive from a tradition known as social disorganization theory. These theories consider the role of large-scale social change in human behavior, and the effect of the environment on individuals. According to these theories, if we want to figure out why youth are committing acts of delinquency, we will want to step outside and take a look at the world around us!

Sociological positivist theories: Theories created by scholars using scientific methods (i.e., observation, measurement, and empirical verification).

Determinism: The concept that factors outside of the conscious control of individuals, chiefly the social organization of society and/or the environment, influence or determine behavior.

Macro-level theories: Theories of delinquency that focus on the social structure or the big picture of society.

Anomie theory: Durkheim’s theory that proposes that rapid social change often results in a state of normlessness that results in the deregulation of people and their behavior.

Social disorganization theory: The theory of delinquency that posits

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that neighborhoods may become so disorganized that delinquent behavior occurs as a result.

Anomie Theories Anomie theories consider how the society is structured, and how that structure impacts our ability to follow social norms. These theories work from the premise that society is based on a set of norms and that most community members share these norms. When people go against the norms, in the form of either deviance or delinquency, it is typically because they are experiencing forces in their social world that are leading them to do so.

Durkheim’s Anomie Theory Although he did not specifically address the delinquency of young people in his scholarly work, the person who is credited with inspiring anomie theories of delinquency is French theorist Émile Durkheim. Durkheim (1858–1917) was a man of many “firsts”—he earned the first PhD in sociology in France and also taught the first sociology class in France.1 He was a consensus theorist who believed society is best described as being based on a loose consensus in which most people agree on the same basic values. In other words, he assumed that we all share a basic sense of right or wrong and that laws and other rules reflect the values that we share. (This stance can be contrasted with many conflict-based assumptions of the critical theories that will be discussed in Chapter 6.)

Consensus theorist: A theorist who assumes that society is based upon consensus and that laws generally reflect agreed-upon societal expectations.

One of Durkheim’s most famous works, The Division of Labor in Society, focused upon the function of the division of labor in society.2 He decided that division of labor’s function is to shore up society’s shared moral sense (its collective conscience—its sense of right and wrong) because it makes people depend on one another to get anything done. He studied law in industrial society and in preindustrial society to determine what brought people together in times prior to the shift to industrialization. He claimed

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that in preindustrial (or what he labeled mechanical) society, the collective conscience was strong because everyone basically did the same thing all day—for example, worked the fields—and thus people basically had the same outlook on life. Society was close-knit, and the law was repressive at that time; it focused upon punishment for punishment’s sake and on the infliction of pain against people who defied society’s norms and rules. He claimed that industrial society (what he labeled organic society) is more fragmented due to the division of labor, but we now rely on each other to do different jobs out in the world, so the collective conscience still exists, though weakened. Laws in industrial society, according to Durkheim, are restitutive, and stress the restoration of equilibrium and making amends, rather than repression.

Durkheim first referenced anomie in his study of the division of labor in society. He explained that a well-integrated or stable society in industrial times is one in which society’s members are dependent upon one another for different purposes, and the division of labor is spontaneous. But when the division of labor is forced, things do not work as harmoniously, and, as he stated, “if the division of labor does not produce solidarity in these cases, it is because the relationship of the organs are not regulated, because they are in a state of anomy.”3 In simple terms, shared norms are no longer apparent (the word can be remembered by looking at its roots: a signifies “without,” and nomy is built on nomos, meaning “laws or norms”; hence “without norms”).

In his work The Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim stated that there are social facts, or dimensions of human life that are external to the individual and that restrain individuals—values, cultural norms, and social structures.4 In Suicide, he looked at the social facts related to suicide rates.5 His work was groundbreaking because it was the first time scholarly attention had been paid to suicide as a social behavior rather than an individual choice. He examined police-recorded suicide rates in Western Europe during the 18th century and found that the suicide rates over time differed according to the characteristics of a given community. Communities in which people were more highly integrated into society and regulated by its various institutions were found to have lower suicide rates. For example, when societies had many people who were members of highly structured religions, such as Catholicism, and many people who were married and over the age of 20, their members tended to be well integrated and less likely to commit suicide. Particularly relevant to the

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sociological theories of delinquency that follow in Durkheim’s footsteps was the typology of suicide types that Durkheim developed based upon the results of his study. He called one of his four types of suicide anomic suicide, building upon his consideration of anomie as it related to the division of labor. Anomic suicide occurs when abrupt changes in a community lead to a loss of integration and a decrease in the shared belief and adherence to societal norms. Abrupt changes that might affect a community include increases in the frequency of divorce or physical and economic disasters that disrupt the very foundation of a community. In an anomic society, there is no effective regulation of its members because a state of normlessness has taken hold. People do not know what to do; there is confusion about how to proceed in life. The dreams and wants of society members are not being met, nor are they being constrained. People’s desires are unchecked. The rules are no longer clear, and according to Durkheim’s anomie theory this can lead to large violations of social norms, such as taking one’s own life. If a Durkheimian anomie theorist were to consider the scenario about Alex and Jason outlined at the beginning of this chapter, she or he would likely pay a great deal of attention to the effects of the recent flood that affected their community, as such an event is likely to result in a number of disruptive events that can weaken a society and its social order. An anomic theorist would not be surprised that Jason and Alex feel adrift in the aftermath of such a disaster, but would instead expect it to be the case. Delinquency, in turn, would be an unsurprising next step for them.

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Anomie theorists state that times of disaster are ones in which extreme social change leads to unexpected behaviors and a likely increase in delinquency and crime.

Colin McDermott/NWS/NOAA;

Collective conscience: Society’s shared moral sense or sense of right and wrong according to Durkheim.

Mechanical society: Preindustrial societies that shared a strong collective conscience and had high levels of informal social control.

Organic society: Industrial societies that are fragmented due to the division of labor, yet maintain a sense of collective conscience (although weaker than in mechanical society).

Social facts: Dimensions of social life that are external to the individual and that restrain individuals.

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Merton’s Strain Theory Robert Merton built upon Durkheim’s concept of anomie when he was a PhD student in sociology at Harvard University, four decades after Durkheim’s original formulation. Although attending school at a prestigious Ivy League university, Merton was intimately familiar with life in less privileged circumstances. He grew up in the inner city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the son of Eastern European Jewish immigrants, and was well aware of the social forces urging everyone in U.S. society to take advantage of opportunities and to become successful adults.6 Indeed, in Merton’s case, he did become quite successful, and his strain theory is one of the best known criminological theories of all time. In his now famous 1938 article “Social Structure and Anomie,” Merton created a theory of anomie that focused upon the United States.7 This theory is still quite popular as an explanation for certain types of youth delinquency.

On first glance, Merton’s concept about anomie seems diametrically opposed to Durkheim’s. He considers how social norms can be so strong that some people become strained and are pushed to break some rules (and some laws) in order to accomplish them. What is important to note is that, like Durkheim, Merton thought that anomie was related to unregulated desires. But, in Merton’s case, he explained the unregulated desires were woven into the very fabric of the “American Dream.”

What “American Dream” do you think is the predominant one that people are socialized to aim for as they mature? Typically, people think of the image of the heterosexual married couple, 2.5 kids, and the home with the white picket fence. In the 21st century arguably the shape that the familial part of the dream takes comes in many forms. Some might add a bit more glamour to the picture as well—prestige, wealth, maybe even fame. The most common version certainly involves some measure of financial or material success. All of these things are thought to be laudable targets to go after, and if you are exposed to any sort of mass media (or even just your own family), you have probably been the recipient of the message that you can accomplish this if you only work hard and put your mind to it. Merton claimed that in U.S. society to obtain this material and financial wealth is the primary cultural goal. As a result, “social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in the society to engage in non-

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conforming conduct, rather than conformist conduct.”8 In other words, some people will be compelled to deviate rather than to follow the rules in certain circumstances. Merton claimed that the reason why is that although most people believe in the cultural goals of the American Dream, all people do not have access to the legitimate means of accomplishing these goals. These legitimate means, getting an education, deferring gratification while working hard, and ultimately getting a reliable job with potential for growth and promotion, are not equally available to all, and vary depending on one’s socioeconomic class. He explained,

Anomic suicide: One of the types of suicide that Durkheim theorized, which was more likely to occur in societies experiencing rapid social change and a lack of social norms.

Strain theory: Merton’s idea of what happens when social norms of conventional success (i.e., the American Dream) are not accompanied by equally strong or available legitimate means of achieving that success.

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The “American Dream” has long invoked certain images of material success.

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These goals are to held to transcend class lines, not to be bounded by them, yet the actual social organization is such that there exist class differentials in the accessibility of these common success-symbols. Frustration and thwarted aspiration lead to the search for avenues of escape from a culturally induced intolerable situation; or unrelieved ambition may eventuate in illicit attempts to achieve the dominant values.9

Merton claimed that the gap between the cultural goal of monetary success and the limited opportunities to achieve that goal causes strain. He stated that there are five ways that people adapt to this strain (see Table 5.1).

Conformity is the first and most common way of adapting to strain. Merton considered conformity as the one nondeviant adaptation to strain. Conformists have accepted both the goal of the American Dream and the socially legitimate ways of trying to obtain it. They follow the rules and do things they are told; they might go to school, get an advanced education or some additional training after graduation, work part-time jobs, save their earnings, and possibly obtain a good paying job, with some security and promise of advancement. Merton claims that the fact that most of us are conformists is what upholds the stability of society—otherwise it would be impossible to maintain.

Innovation is an adaptation that occurs when people do not accept the legitimate route to obtaining the cultural goal of material and financial wealth, because they either are blocked from accessing legitimate means, or do not believe that they should be limited to those ways of obtaining their goal. This adaptation is the one discussed the most, especially in relationship to the study of delinquency. Innovators include those who break the rules or the law to get their hands on some money or material goods. There are too many examples of this to list here, but innovators can include people who are drug dealing, shoplifting, and burglarizing.

Ritualism is the innovation in which people have abandoned the American Dream but continue to go through the motions of doing what most of society rewards—going to work, and going to school. In other words, these people are just “playing the game” even though they do not believe their

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actions will lead them to financial wealth or do not care about that cultural goal. Merton claimed this was a deviant adaptation to strain, because to abandon the societally approved striving toward advancement and monetary success is to go against the norms of society. People who go to work and follow every single rule, just to get through the day and survive, are examples of ritualists.

Adaptations to strain: The five ways that Merton theorized that people adjust to the strain created by the societal goals and the legitimate means by which to achieve those goals: conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, and rebellion.

Source: Merton, R. K. (1938). Social structure and anomie. American Sociological Review, 3(5), 672–682. Note: In his schema, Merton used + to signify acceptance, – to signify nonacceptance or rejection, and +/– to signify not only rejection but substitution of new goals and means.

Retreatism is the adaptation of those who have rejected the cultural goal of material success and have also rejected the legitimate means of going about such a goal. These folks are seen as those who have “dropped out” of society in some way, perhaps after trying to be materially and financially successful by either legitimate or illegitimate means and, ultimately, failing. Merton thought that some chronic drug users and addicts, homeless people, and some mentally ill people would fall into this category. He claimed this was the least common adaptation.

Rebellion is the last type of adaptation. Rebels not only reject the cultural goals of monetary success promoted as part of the American Dream, but

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also reject the legitimate means for going about them. Basically, they reject the entire system of cultural goals and acceptable means and want to replace them with new goals and means, what Merton called “a new social order.” Not many people fall into this category besides political terrorists and, possibly, the members of some cults.

Differential Opportunity Theory Merton’s theory of anomie was quite popular, and many people have expanded upon it through the years. One of the most successful expansions of the theory was forwarded by Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin in 1960 in Delinquency and Opportunity: A Theory of Delinquent Gangs. What they brought to the table was something Merton had not considered in his theory—they focused upon the question of how a person’s access to illegitimate means affects the shape of his or her adaptations to anomie and strain.

As Merton stated, we do not all have equal access to legitimate means to success. Yet, Cloward and Ohlin argued that we need to also think about how there is not equal access to illegitimate means of obtaining cultural goals as well. For example, if you are a teenager growing up in a Southern California neighborhood and you have resigned yourself to earning some money illegally, it is much more likely that you will be inclined to “innovate” by selling methamphetamine for a white or Latino gang than by dealing heroin for the Italian Mafia. You simply do not have easy access to the Italian Mafia, nor do you have easy entrée into their illegal dealings, because of how your social world is structured.

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Cloward and Ohlin studied youth gangs and the neighborhoods in which they formed. They focused on neighborhood conditions and the opportunities available to learn and practice legitimate or illegitimate skills. They found that in some marginalized neighborhoods, criminal delinquent subcultures, or gangs, arose in the face of limited legitimate opportunities. In these neighborhoods there were established ties between young gangs and long-standing criminal subcultures, such that it made

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sense for gang members to learn the ropes of whatever criminal enterprise in which their elders were involved. Oftentimes these activities were theft- oriented, and tied to organized crime syndicates. Adults involved in criminal activities were visible members of the community, and acted as role models to the boys who wanted to imitate them. The boys learned to stay out of fights and to avoid violence as a way of making sure no extra attention was put on their activities, or those of the adults with whom they were involved.

In other neighborhoods that tend to exist in disorganized areas that ar

In other neighborhoods that are poor or working class, Cloward and Ohlin stated that retreatist delinquent subcultures would be found. They characterized these youth in these subcultures as those who could not find a place in either the criminal or the conflict subculture. Perhaps a young man is not perceived as tough enough to be accepted by a group of teens who spend most of their days fighting people from other gangs—he might be compelled to adapt to his failure to be part of this group by becoming involved with those others who have been unaccepted and who know how to get and to use illegal substances.

Criminal delinquent subculture: A subculture in which youth commit acts of delinquency as a means to an end—usually to obtain something material or monetary to gain status in the group.

Conflict delinquent subculture: A subculture in which youth oppose the mainstream through violence, underground economies, and/or gang activity because of a lack of opportunities to succeed.

Retreatist delinquent subculture: A subculture of youth who join together after failing to find a place in either the criminal or the conflict delinquent subculture.

Subcultural Theory of Delinquency Albert Cohen’s subcultural delinquency theory was also informed by Merton’s anomie theory. In 1955 in his book Delinquent Boys, Cohen examined the ways in which boys coming from an economically

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disadvantaged background deal with the strain that comes from not being able to succeed at institutions perpetuating middle-class standards.10 These standards, such as individual responsibility, ambition, long-term goal planning, deferred gratification, nonviolent recreation, and respect for others’ property, are those taught more commonly in middle-class homes and neighborhoods, and working-class young men are not always exposed to them. Thus, when they go to schools that promote these values, they are not well equipped to succeed in those environments and are typically seen as unsuccessful students—they do not follow rules well, are not punctual, and have problems acting calmly in the classroom. Because of their frustration with their status they take part in what Cohen calls “reaction- formation”—they decide to turn the middle-class values on their head by engaging in and promoting violent behavior, instant gratification, and all- in-all a negative attitude toward authority and society in general. Unlike other responses to strain, Cohen finds that the subcultural responses do not serve a concrete purpose other than satisfying an emotional one; the behaviors that the members of the group engage in typically work against them in a culture that values hard work and the pursuit of long-term goals.

Now that we have examined the basics of Merton’s anomie theory, and some of the classic theories inspired by it, we can interpret Alex and Jason’s situation by using their concepts. As recent immigrants whose family is struggling to make ends meet, Alex and Jason do not have access to a lot of resources to help them succeed in school, nor do they have the means to obtain a part-time job. They do not have the money to buy a car, and they do not have easily accessed transportation to get them outside of their neighborhood where legitimate job opportunities are located. Yet, the boys have long been influenced by the American Dream and the promise of material success that they see all around them on TV and in the movies. An anomie theorist, in the tradition of Merton, would see that their position in the social structure is setting up Alex and Jason to experience strain. Innovative or “creative” ways of earning money by illegal means is a form of delinquency that will likely be generated out of this situation. A differential opportunity theorist would pay special attention to the fact that Jason and Alex have easy access to an illegitimate money-making effort, drug dealing, which makes it highly likely that they will get involved with drug dealing in their neighborhood. The humiliation and disappointment that Jason and Alex feel about not being able to excel in school, or in money-making endeavors in general, is something that we would pay attention to if we were utilizing Cohen’s subcultural theory of

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delinquency; we might expect the young men to adapt an antagonistic attitude toward authority figures in general and to begin to express distaste for school and everything it stands for because of what they experience as failure in the system.

Subcultural delinquency theory: The theory that involvement in small groups of youth in marginalized neighborhoods or social groups arises in the face of limited legitimate opportunities.e socially unstable (we will discuss such neighborhoods at length later in the chapter), conflict delinquent subcultures develop as a result of a lack of both legitimate and illegitimate opportunities for youth. According to Cloward and Ohlin, there is simply not much going on in these neighborhoods, and youth become frustrated. There are few successful role models, and the immediate world around them looks bleak. As a means of expressing their frustration, they often turn to violence. Boys attempt to gain respect through physical force and intimidation.

From the Classroom to the Community: The “I Have a Dream” Foundation

According to Merton, if we want to keep kids out of trouble, one of the things we can do is to encourage conformity. One way to do this is to help youth to stay in school. Yet, it is clear that all youth do not have equal access to the financial resources and social support that could help them graduate from high school and to pursue a higher education. Members of the “I Have a Dream” (IHAD) Foundation recognize this inequity and work with youth who live in low-income communities to improve their chances of staying in school and avoiding opportunities to engage in delinquency. The IHAD program was first developed in 1981 by Eugene Lang after he returned to his elementary school in East Harlem as an adult and found that about 75% of the students were estimated to drop out of school at some point. He was determined to help change this situation. The IHAD Foundation has programs in cities across the United States, and they are offer service in six areas:

1. Academic achievement 2. Knowledge and life skills 3. Mental health and stability 4. Mindset of direction and aspiration 5. Support networks 6. Financial resources and opportunity

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There are IHAD-affiliated programs across the United States, and they all follow the same model. Program administrators choose a cohort of students or public housing residents to be part of the program. Those youth who are chosen, called “Dreamers,” participate in the program from elementary school until high school graduation. IHAD sponsors provide Dreamers with mentoring, tutoring, financial assistance, and information about college as they continue their studies. Program details differ depending on the particular needs of the youth involved, but all include an acknowledgment that in working-class and economically struggling communities, the high school dropout rate is extremely high, especially for youth of color, and a great deal of encouragement and action is needed to counter that trend. When Dreamers graduate from high school, the IHAD Foundation will provide financial assistance to help them go to college or to a vocational school.

Discussion Questions 1. The “I Have a Dream” Foundation focuses upon education as a

pathway to a conventional lifestyle. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach?

2. What component of Merton’s theory does this program work to change: the legitimate means of achieving the American Dream, or the end goal of the American Dream itself? What might the program look like if it set out to change the component it doesn’t currently address as well? Would it be possible for program administrators to do so? Why or why not?

Sources: “I Have a Dream” Foundation. (2016). What we do. Retrieved from http://www.ihaveadreamfoundation.org/what-we-do/; “I Have a Dream” Foundation—Los Angeles. (2016). How it works: IHADLA educating children in poverty changes communities. Retrieved from http://www.ihadla.org/how-it-works

Anomie Theories of Delinquency and Race, Class, and Gender Intersections Anomie/strain theories of delinquency employ notions of socioeconomic privilege and disadvantage in their conceptualizations of strain. Traditionally, they have not given a great deal of explicit attention to the relevance of race and gender. The bulk of race and gender studies on

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http://www.ihaveadreamfoundation.org/what-we-do/

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anomie-related theories has been on Agnew’s general strain theory—a theory derived from Mertonian strain theory but with more of a micro- or individual-level focus—and one that we analyzed in the previous chapter.

Anomie Theories and Race

One of the exceptions to the absence of race-oriented research on Merton’s anomie theory is Cernkovich, Giordano and Rudolph’s work “Race, Crime and the American Dream.”11 They conducted a longitudinal study that compared black and white youth’s perceptions of the economic message of the American Dream with their behavior as teenagers and, years later, as young adults. These researchers found that black adults were very committed to the American Dream. They also found that even though they were more likely to have lower-paying jobs or to be unemployed than their white counterparts, they did not experience strain that led to crime. Yet, strain did lead to crime among white adults. They attributed this finding to the possibility that

Whites are more likely than African Americans to feel frustrated when they are unable to realize the promises of the American dream. . . and such failure, when it does occur among Whites, may generate high levels of anger and frustration and result in criminal behavior in some instances. . . . Because African Americans have been subjected to a long history of racial and economic discrimination, economic failure, while never welcomed, is not entirely unexpected.12

In Walters’ work, he used Mertonian strain theory to understand hate crimes by white people against people of color and other members of minority groups and came to similar conclusions about race.13 He theorized that although strain theory is not sufficient to fully understand acts of hate, it is a necessary tool for understanding them. He explained that although socioeconomically marginalized members of dominant groups are likely to experience strain and to scapegoat other members of a racially and ethnically diverse society, socioeconomically privileged people in dominant groups may be in fear of strain and also act out in hate.

Anomie Theories and Gender

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In terms of gender, a few studies have tested anomie/strain theory by comparing male and female delinquency.14 Findings are generally mixed. Usually not many differences are found in terms of rates of delinquency of boys and girls related to measures of strain. When differences are found in studies, they do not take a particular pattern—in some studies girls are more affected by some types of strain than boys, and at other times boys are found to be more affected by the limited or blocked opportunities related to strain than girls.15 In one study, Smith and Paternoster looked at whether strain experienced in the educational realm had different effects on marijuana use of male and female youth, and they found that social strain was not significantly related to either group’s drug use.16

How can strain theory be used to understand acts of hate against the LGBT community?

Alex Milan Tracy / SIPPL Sipa USA / Associated Press

Anomie Theories and Class

Recent studies demonstrate the generalizability of classic strain theory to countries beyond the United States. In a globalized world, many countries now promote financial and material cultural goals in the tradition of the

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United States. For example, a study of Turkish youth, through the eyes of classic strain theory, found that strain, particularly perceptions of blocked economic opportunities, is related to an increase of delinquency on the part of Turkish female adolescents.17 The authors of the study explained that the relatively recent onslaught of Western messages about consumption have come to affect Turkish girls more than boys. This is because their lesser position in Turkish society creates more obstacles for them to obtain the education and job-related opportunities required to accomplish financial goals; Turkish boys are more privileged than girls and do not experience this as strongly. Thus, the girls act out in delinquency as a reaction to their perceptions of strain. A study reassessing the role of Merton’s strain theory using data from the country of Ukraine found that the relative strain of high school students was related to their likelihood to engage in delinquency.18 The authors assert that in the anomic cultural context of post-Soviet Ukraine, adolescents are more likely to report delinquent behavior if they see their access to legitimate opportunities as limited in comparison to others and have feelings of relative deprivation.

Social Disorganization Theory Social disorganization theory is a social structural theory of crime and delinquency that was very popular from the 1920s to the 1940s and in the 1980s and 1990s.19 To put its initial emergence into perspective in relation to the anomie theories just outlined, social disorganization theory was developed after Durkheim’s theory and before Merton’s. It emerged out of a desire for scholars to study the various changes happening in the urban areas of the United States in the aftermath of World War I. The emergence of social disorganization theory marked a shift away from theories of crime and delinquency that were focused on the individual level (e.g., psychological theories that posited something was wrong internally with an individual causing him or her to commit crimes), to those that looked to external forces as motivations for misbehavior. Social disorganization theory really does not look much at individuals at all, but looks at crime and delinquency rates between neighborhoods or geographical regions. The easiest way to remember the thrust of social disorganization theory is to note that, as real estate agents like to say, “it’s all about location, location, location!”

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Park and Burgess’s Social Disorganization Theory Social disorganization emerged out of the work of scholars associated with the University of Chicago’s Department of Sociology, and thus it is often referred to as a “Chicago School” theory. The main idea of the theory is that society is always in the midst of a cycle of change that shifts from social disorganization to reorganization and back again. In the process, certain neighborhoods become so disorganized that, in order to adapt to them, people must engage in deviant behavior. The theory essentially places humans into the context of the plant and animal world and requires us to think about how our “natural habitats” affect our behavior.

Social disorganization theorists pay a lot of attention to the question of how the state of a neighborhood might increase or decrease the likelihood of street delinquency.

The work of Robert Park and Ernest Burgess played a formative role in the social disorganization theory of delinquency that their colleagues from the University of Chicago later produced. They drew upon ideas derived from

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popular thought of the day—namely Charles Darwin’s ideas about evolution, as well as those related to social ecology, the study of relationships between individuals, social groups, and the environment, to explore the changing world around them. In their 1925 bo

Park and Burgess conducted their research of the city of Chicago by going out into the community and mapping “the natural urban areas” of the city. They claimed that once cities were fully developed, they could be mapped as having five different concentric zones emanating out around the city center (see Figure 5.2). The downtown area or city center has the highest degree of land use and feels the impact of large-scale social change very strongly. Typically people with the money to do so decide to move away from the areas near downtown that are highly populated and out into zones where land use is less dense and people have more room to move. They take their money with them, and invest it in the new communities in which they take root. Then, other groups of people in a process called “succession” move into the less desirable area that they left behind. Each natural zone was thought to have its own characteristics. The character of life in these zones was seen to be a function of place and to be unchanging over the years, regardless of any shifts in the demographics of a neighborhood over time.

Social ecology: The study of relationships between individuals, social groups, and the environment.

Symbiosis: A state of interdependence that social disorganization theorists state characterizes the social world.

Heterogeneity: Difference and diversity; in a neighborhood context heterogeneity often reduces informal social control.

Informal social control: The means by which ordinary people exert control over others’ behavior through enforcing traditions or norms and by informally punishing those who break such norms through the use of gossip, stigmatization, and disapproval.ok The City, Park and Burgess presented their theory of urban ecology in which they borrowed concepts from plant ecology to explain human behavior in the city. They noted that, like plants, humans generally live in a state of

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symbiosis in the world, in which we are interdependent and give and take from one another in order to survive. The major changes in a given society—immigration, urbanization (population shifts from rural to urban areas), and the rise of technology—interrupt societal balance from time to time. Because of a rise in heterogeneity or differences among people living in a given area, there is a lack of shared norms. Because of this, there is also a reduction in the amount of informal social control in the affected area—community social ties are weakened, and there is less of a community structure in place to dissuade people from acting out against the societal norms, rules, and laws. Crime rates will increase until a new level of balance is reached. Park and Burgess utilized ecological terms to explain the trajectory of this cyclical process (see Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.1 Arrow Diagram of Park and Burgess’s Model of the Cycle of Social Disorganization and Reorganization

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Zone 1: The central business district (CBD)—This zone is typically the center of the city where many businesses are located and the forces of urbanization, immigration, and technological changes have a strong effect. Zone 2: The zone of transition—The area immediately on the outskirts of the downtown area was where Park and Burgess stated that the most physical deterioration could be seen and where the social problems of the city were most abundant. This is the area where many homeless live on the streets, and where people are living very closely together. People who newly arrive to the city often live in this area because it is affordable. But after living there a bit they are eager to move out of the area. Thus, they focus on working, sometimes multiple jobs, if they can find work, and eventually moving—when they have saved enough money to do so. Typically, there is not a lot of investment in the community on the part of either the government or private agencies, and community residents are not always invested in it either because they see themselves as on the way out soon. According to Park and Burgess, this zone of transition is the area where one is most likely to observe street crime, in part because the community is not exerting much informal social control upon one another. As residents move out into areas farther away from the urban center, generally they move into areas that are more privileged. Living density and land use decrease. Zone 3: Multifamily housing—This zone is characterized by a high amount of group living, in the form of either housing complexes, apartments, and duplexes. In any case, oftentimes generations of families live together in this zone. It is a little removed from the stressors of the innermost city and the transition zone, but still subject to some of them. This is typically a working-class area. Zone 4: Single-family housing—In Zone 4 there is an abundance of single-family housing. Usually the community is a middle- to upper- class community with lots of room for children to play and lots of green spaces, such as parks to enjoy. Many people live in houses, or, if they live in townhomes or condominiums, they have yards and garages. People in this zone are typically just living by themselves or with a few members of their immediate family. Zone 5: The commuter zone—This area is characterized by the least density and the most distance from the forces of social change impacting the central business district. Another name for this zone is the suburbs. These areas typically have a lot of community and

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government invested in them—they are kept clean and have many of the desirable geographical features of Zone 4, and additional ones as well. Because people find this area so attractive and comfortable, if they have the money to do so they may even drive into the central business district to work during the week (hence its name the commuter zone). Social order is often intact in these areas according to Park and Burgess.

Concentric zone model: A model used by social disorganization theorists in which they map an urban area and measure the degree of social disorganization in each.

Zone of transition: The area right outside of the central business district of a city that experiences the most negative effects of the forces of social change and the highest rate of street delinquency.

Figure 5.2 The Concentric Zone Model

Shaw and McKay’s Social Disorganization and Delinquency Theory Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, researchers associated with the University of Chicago, built upon the social ecological model, by examining how delinquency in Chicago related to the concentric zones. In

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the research that they describe in their book Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, they examined almost 56,000 juvenile court records that spanned over 30 years of juvenile cases in Chicago (beginning in 1900).20 They then plotted on maps the home addresses of 10- to 16-year-old boys who had been brought into the court for alleged delinquency, who had been committed by the court to a correctional facility, or who had significant interaction with the police related to alleged delinquency.

The findings of their research supported Park and Burgess’s model. They found that delinquency rates were the highest in the CBD and Zone 2, the zone of transition, consistently over time. The ethnicity of the groups of people who lived there changed over time, and was not correlated with delinquency. Delinquency appeared to be strongly related to the effect of living in a disorganized neighborhood and decreased with distance from the city center. Neighborhoods with high rates of delinquency had high rates of poverty, residential mobility, and racial and ethnic diversity. In line with Park and Burgess’s theory, their study supported the idea that delinquency can be attributed to location, not to individual traits of people. Although in the years following the study’s publication, many people cited it as an example of income being negatively correlated to delinquency (i.e., less income and more delinquency), this is an inaccurate summary of Shaw and McKay’s findings. Instead, as Bursik explains,

Shaw and McKay did not posit a direct relationship between economic status and rates of delinquency. Rather, areas characterized by economic deprivation tended to have high rates of population turnover and population heterogeneity. . . . Population turnover and population heterogeneity were assumed to increase the likelihood of social disorganization.21

Frazier’s Ecological Analysis of Delinquency Among Black Youth E. Franklin Frazier also did groundbreaking work on social disorganization in association with the University of Chicago.22 He became a doctoral student and began working under Robert Park when he was in his early 30s and focused upon black families and neighborhoods in Chicago.

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Frazier wrote his dissertation, The Negro Family in Chicago, in 1932. Frazier’s work served as a serious intellectual challenge and critique of racist theories about black culture and families.23 Frazier utilized a social disorganization lens to examine many of the issues in which he was interested, which he partnered with a sociohistorical eye on the impact of slavery on black family life and issues of crime and delinquency.24 Frazier’s paternal grandfather was a slave until he bought his freedom and became emancipated, and his mother was born into slavery. His interest in the subjects of which he studied was both personal and political.

Frazier utilized Park and Burgess’s concentric zone framework to look at changes in the rates of black delinquency in Chicago over time. He did studies of the cases of black delinquency in Chicago and found that the rate of such delinquency had increased subsequent to the migration of black people to the region from the South during and after World War I. He found that most of this delinquency occurred after youth and their families migrated right outside of Chicago’s Central Business District—an area that had long had a high delinquency rate and was socially disorganized. Frazier stated that black families in the disorganized area experienced a breakdown in social control that was markedly different from the experience of black families who lived in more organized zones. Frazier’s work on social disorganization and delinquency has received little mainstream attention since the 1960s (when his work was misrepresented by the Moynihan Report and was utilized to blame black people and socioeconomically disadvantaged families for their economic plight), and it is one of the few classic works to explicitly consider race as an important factor related to social disorganization studies.

Sampson and Groves’s Model of Social Disorganization Social disorganization theory experienced a decrease in popularity after the 1940s as people began to focus more on individualistic theories and/or theories that were not focused upon social ecology.25 It is difficult to invest the time and energy, not to mention financial resources, to carry on types of studies that Shaw and McKay thought were necessary to study social disorganization properly over a span of several years, and there was some confusion about exactly how to measure social disorganization. These longitudinal studies on social disorganization fell out of favor for

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some time. It was not until the 1980s that several studies about social disorganization were published.

One major study of delinquency and social disorganization that garnered widespread attention in the 1980s was that of Robert Sampson and Walter B. Groves. In their 1989 article “Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social Disorganization Theory,” published in the American Journal of Sociology, Sampson and Groves developed a variant of Shaw and McKay’s theory of social disorganization and delinquency. They worked from a definition of social disorganization as “the inability for the community structure to realize the values of its residents and maintain effective social control.”26 Sampson and Groves then explained what they theorized were the specific ways in which social disorganization affected crime and delinquency. In other words, they discussed the intervening variables, the intermediate steps between social disorganization and its expression in the form of delinquency. They stated there were three intervening factors. Social disorganization leads to (1) sparse local friendship networks, (2) unsupervised teenage peer groups, and (3) low organizational participation (i.e., low community member involvement in formal and voluntary organizations), which facilitate crime and delinquency (see Figure 5.3).

They tested their expanded social disorganization theory by statistically analyzing data on crime in Britain, and found support for their theory. There were higher victimization rates and self-reported incidents of violent and property crimes in neighborhoods that were characterized by their three intervening variables. Subsequently, others have also found support or partial support for the expanded model.27

Intervening variables: Variables that change the relationships between other variables because of their existence.

Collective Efficacy Model In the 1990s, Robert Sampson, Stephen Raudenbush, and Felton Earls added to the social disorganization research by developing the concept of collective efficacy. They define collective efficacy “as social cohesion among neighbors combi

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Collective efficacy: Social cohesion among neighbors that is characterized by efforts to make positive changes in their neighborhoods.ned with their willingness to intervene on the behalf of the common good.”28

Sampson et al. theorized that collective efficacy is a factor that may mitigate or lessen the effects of social disorganization on a community and, in turn, lessen violence. Collective efficacy is seen in the everyday ways that people in the community take actions in the name of the community to make it more organized. These researchers looked at the informal ways in which residents work together to create public order, such as by watching children’s playgroups, by acting to stop youth in the neighborhood who are trying to “ditch” or skip school or to deal drugs, and by standing up against people who are causing trouble in public spaces in the neighborhood. They found that when communities were severely disadvantaged, had a high proportion of recent newcomers, and had a low number of people who lived there for a long period of time, collective efficacy was negatively affected. As a result, more violence was found to occur in those communities. Their results strongly supported their modified version of social disorganization theory. As Sampson and his colleagues expanded on social disorganization research in the 2000s, they often discovered that collective efficacy was strengthened in some immigrant communities, and delinquency and crime rates were lower than in other similarly situated neighborhoods.29 This was the case even in low- income communities in the inner city. This finding challenged the findings of their previous research and partially challenges the assertions of traditional social disorganization theorists as well.

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Some studies have found that if there is a sense of collective efficacy among neighbors in a socially disorganized neighborhood, it helps lessen the likelihood that delinquency will occur.

Figure 5.3 Sampson and Groves’s Model of Social Disorganization

Social Disorganization Theories of Delinquency and Race, Class, and Gender Intersections Unlike another body of theories that we will explore later in this book, critical theories of delinquency—issues of race, class, and gender—are not

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at the forefront of most social disorganization theorizing. This is because the theory focuses on places, rather than people. Nevertheless, there has been work done looking at the relationship between race, socioeconomic class, and gender and social disorganization, which we will briefly examine here.

Visit edge.sagepub.com/bates2e to view a video clip about factors that lead to delinquency.

Social Disorganization Theory and Race

The classic works of ecological theory of Park and Burgess, as well as those of Shaw and McKay having to do with delinquency, have long pointed out the irrelevance of race to the misbehavior of people living in disorganized areas. In their work, Shaw and McKay noted that the ethnicity or race of people living in the central business district and the zone of transition didn’t matter; rates of delinquency were higher than in the rest of the city there, and this was consistent over time. Of course, they did focus on issues of race and ethnicity in the sense that they thought that when a diverse group of people lived in an area together (when there was ethnic and racial heterogeneity), the neighborhood would be characterized by less social cohesion. As discussed previously, E. Franklin Frazier did look explicitly at issues of how social disorganization affected black communities in Chicago, yet his work is rarely discussed in mainstream considerations of social disorganization theory today.

Social disorganization theory has been used to understand the impact that mass incarceration has on low-income communities of color who live in urban areas, typically in the zone of transition.30 Although these areas are now not as ethnically or racially heterogeneous as they once were, many of the characteristics of the areas remain the same as the early social disorganization theorists stated. A high degree of social mobility of the residents, concentrated poverty, and a lack of shared norms and values challenges residents of these areas when they attempt to make strong community bonds and also makes it harder to control crime and delinquency. The social controls of the state, including incarceration, are geared at controlling individuals, but they may have potentially harmful secondary effects on the community. As explained by Rose and Clear, “at

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the ecological level, the side effects of policies intended to fight crime by controlling individual criminals may exacerbate problems that lead to crime in the first place.”31

In the News: Voices of Youth Dealing With Crime and Delinquency

Occasionally, newspapers will include editorials by teenagers in an effort to shed light on how they see the world. In one such editorial, young people in Chicago wrote about their perspectives on crime and delinquency for the Chicago Tribune (2012, April 7). The following themes can be seen in their observations:

In summertime, low-income neighborhoods in Chicago experience an increase in delinquency and crime. There is little police intervention or protection from gang activity in these communities and the people who are not involved feel like they have nobody to turn to and most resort to hiding inside to avoid victimization. Young people have to fear being harassed or robbed while going to and from public transportation in the neighborhood and feel there is little protection from law enforcement as well. Youth not only would like more protection from violence in their neighborhoods, but better relationships between law enforcement officers and the community. Given the crime patterns in Chicago, young people recognize a need for adults to take preventative measures in times and places where delinquency and crime is typically high.

Discussion Questions 1. What are the connections that can be found between the themes of

the teenagers’ editorials and the main ideas of social disorganization theory? In other words, how are these youth drawing upon social disorganization concepts to make their arguments?

2. What sorts of suggestions might a social disorganization theorist make in response to the concerns of the young people?

Source: Adapted from Classroom Voices (2012, April 7). Chicago Tribune, Opinion. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/letters/ct-vp- 0407classroomvoiceslettersbriefs-20120407,0,4087185,full.story

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The impact of mass imprisonment is disproportionately experienced by the poorest communities of color in the United States today and “there is a social dynamic that aggravates and augments the negative consequences to individual inmates when they come from and return to particular neighborhoods in concentrated numbers.”32 In areas that are already socially disorganized, the removal of residents through incarceration creates additional community-level disruption because those residents often have complex ties to their social networks, and their removal from them is disruptive to their families, friends, and neighbors. When these networks are damaged or broken, it is more difficult for communities to develop a sense of collective efficacy, and the relationship between communities and state social control agents additionally becomes contentious. This, in turn, negatively affects a community’s ability to receive public services and resources from governmental agencies, which can weaken a neighborhood’s social capital and results in concentrated disadvantage.33 Coercive mobility, social mobility inside and outside the neighborhood, is increased each time someone is incarcerated and each time someone is released back into the neighborhood from prison or a detention center.34 A formerly incarcerated youth or adult re-enters the neighborhood with the added socialization of the prison or detention center subculture, which is said to increase the heterogeneity of community values and lead to further disorganization.35 Youth of color who are growing up in these socially disorganized neighborhoods that bear the burdens of imprisonment must contend with reduced quality of life along many dimensions, such as public health, access to romantic partners, economic stability, and public safety.36

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Mass incarceration in the United States has a particularly negative effect on low-income communities of color.

AP Photo/Brynn Anderson / ASSOCIATED PRESS

Coercive mobility: The removal of people from a poor neighborhood as a result of incarceration. A formerly incarcerated youth or adult re- enters the neighborhood with the added socialization of the prison or detention center subculture, which is said to increase the heterogeneity of community values and lead to further disorganization.

Social Disorganization Theory and Class

Socioeconomic class is considered in social disorganization theory as it relates to neighborhoods. Both classic and modern variations of social disorganization theory look at issues of socioeconomic class in the sense that they link neighborhoods’ resource bases to the concepts of social disorganization. In their simplest formulation, social disorganization theories of delinquency see low socioeconomic class as one of several signs of social disorganization, which collectively tend to lead to higher rates of delinquency and crime.

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Social disorganization theorists tend to address class issues in cities, but some researchers have begun to utilize the theory to look at rural areas as well. D. Osgood and Chambers did this in their study of social disorganization and rural areas in the southern United States. In their research, they explained that they were testing “the proposition that social disorganization theory is based upon principles of community organization and social relations that are applicable to communities of all types and settings.”37 They looked at violent crime rates across 264 rural counties in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Nebraska. They found that family disruption (which they measured as the proportion of female-headed households), population turnover, and ethnic heterogeneity were all positively related to arrest rates for rape and weapon offenses. Unlike most social disorganization studies, they did not find that in rural communities the socioeconomic status of the neighborhoods under investigation significantly affected these measures of crime.

Contemporary social disorganization research has also expanded to look at how the socioeconomic levels of socially disorganized neighborhoods work in conjunction with other markers of social disorganization (including neighborhood racial diversity) to generate delinquency. Beverly Kingston, David Huizinga, and Delbert S. Elliott looked at adolescent delinquency in high-risk urban neighborhoods, in Denver, Colorado, in an attempt to examine differences between neighborhoods that suffer from numerous social problems and others in terms of the production of delinquency.38 Kingston et al. found that the structure of a particular neighborhood does indeed affect the social relationships and, ultimately, delinquency rates:

In a sample of structurally disadvantaged neighborhoods, variation in neighborhood poverty accounts for variations in the perceived effectiveness of social institutions and youths’ perceptions of limited opportunities, even when the sample is quite restricted. Furthermore, neighborhoods with greater racial mix have smaller social networks and lower levels of social control. The poorest Denver neighborhoods also have significantly higher rates of violent offending.39

They found that objective poverty (the actual rate of poverty in a region) and perceptions on the part of youth that their life chances were negatively

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affected by living in their neighborhood most strongly predicted rates of juvenile delinquency. The youth who felt the most hopeless about the effects of the environment on them, and those living in particularly rough neighborhoods with even fewer resources than most other high-risk neighborhoods, were apt to engage in delinquency more than other youth.

Social Disorganization Theory and Gender

What about social disorganization theorists’ treatment of gender issues?

In general, very little attention has been paid to issues of gender, social disorganization, and delinquency.40 When scholars have considered gender, they have tended to hypothesize that boys would be more affected by neighborhood social disorganization than girls because they are generally allowed more freedom to be outside in the neighborhood. Nevertheless, many tests of this hypothesis do not support it and instead show that all youth are similarly affected by social disorganization.41 A study by Abigail Fagan and Emily Wright looked at the neighborhood effects on delinquency for boys and girls in Chicago.42 Unlike many previous studies, they tested to see if such effects—if differences between youth due to gender—were statistically significant. They examined both the effects of collective disadvantage, the result of social disorganization, and the mediating effect of collective efficacy. Their results were surprising ones. They found that collective efficacy of a neighborhood actually was related to an increase in female delinquency in disorganized neighborhoods, rather than a decrease, which is generally predicted by the theory. In addition, concentrated disadvantage was related to a decrease in girls’ violent delinquency. There were no significant social disorganization effects shown for boys at all in their study. In light of their findings, the authors concluded that social disorganization may work in complex ways at the individual level and that girls may sometimes feel the impact of neighborhood effects such as collective efficacy in different ways and, sometimes, more strongly than boys.

Corina Graif drew upon social disorganization in her study of the role of gender in neighborhood effects on delinquency.43 Like other researchers before her, she looked at longitudinal data related to the Moving to Opportunity Program, a randomized intervention program that assisted families from public housing in five U.S. inner cities to relocate to

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neighborhoods with low poverty rates.44 Graif examined what type of neighborhoods the participants resided in and classified them as one of the following three types of extended neighborhoods, which are immediate neighborhoods and their surrounding areas: (1) neighborhoods of extended concentrated disadvantage (extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods whose surrounding neighborhoods were also very disadvantaged), (2) neighborhoods of localized concentrated disadvantage (extremely disadvantaged neighborhoods whose surrounding neighbors were not disadvantaged, and (3) neighborhoods of extended nonconcentrated disadvantage (neighborhoods of nonextreme disadvantage surrounded by similar neighborhoods). She found that girls who lived in extended neighborhoods with nonconcentrated disadvantage benefitted significantly from the area’s organization; they increased their pro-social behavior and experienced the benefits of collective efficacy. Girls who lived in neighborhoods of extended concentrated disadvantage exhibited the highest degree of risk-taking behavior. On the other hand, boys in localized concentrated disadvantaged neighborhoods showed the most risk-taking behavior. Graif noted that part of this is likely related to a sense of relative deprivation that occurs when boys notice that their neighbors enjoy more privileges, yet she states that even without this sense of injustice, delinquency is more likely because of the ready availability of desirable material goods nearby. She also found gender differences in exposure to risk and protective factors in extended neighborhoods, and that girls’ frequent involvement in supervised and structured activities and/or being in the home protected them, while boys’ involvement in unsupervised and unstructured activities, often outside of the home, left them more vulnerable to negative extended neighborhood effects.

A Focus on Research: Huang, Ryan, and Rhoden’s “Foster Care, Geographic Neighborhood Change, and the Risk of Delinquency”

In the article “Foster Care, Geographic Neighborhood Change, and the Risk of Delinquency,” published in Children and Youth Services Review (2016), Hui Huang, Joseph P. Ryan, and Michelle-Ann Rhoden use insights from social disorganization theory to examine the neighborhood factors that influence delinquency in foster youth. They conducted a longitudinal study of foster youth born in 1983 and 1984 in Chicago, Illinois, in which they analyzed census data about the neighborhoods where the youth were placed in foster care, as well as administrative records and court records, to determine their subsequent

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delinquency. Their sample was predominantly African American (92%) and almost equally divided between girls and boys. Huang et al. discovered that when foster youth are moved from their original home to neighborhoods with higher residential stability, there is a lower risk of delinquency than if they were moved to neighborhoods characterized by lower residential stability. They found this trend specifically for the foster youth who were moved before the age of 12. They also found that neighborhood stability played a more apparent role in the lives of boys than girls; boys who were moved into higher stability neighborhoods had less likelihood of delinquency than those moved to less stable neighborhoods, but this effect was not as apparent for girls. The researchers did not find that change in neighborhood concentrated disadvantage was associated with juvenile delinquency risk among their sample.

Discussion Questions Given the findings of the study, what sorts of societal changes would help reduce the likelihood that foster youth will engage in delinquency after their placement in a new neighborhood? What sorts of programs and policies would support these changes? What recommendations would you make to foster care administrators about how to place foster youth with foster families? Would you have different recommendations based on gender? Why or why not?

Let’s look back at the opening vignette about Alex and Jason one last time now that we have examined social disorganization theory and its relationship to delinquency. How would a social disorganization theorist analyze their situation? First and foremost, attention would be paid to the location in which the boys are living their lives. As the scenario indirectly indicates, they are likely living in a zone of transition as recent immigrants to a large city—the city in which they live has a lot of street crime, is dilapidated, and has many homeless people sleeping on the streets, which fits the description of Zone 2. Also, it is an area that people work to find a way to move away from as soon as they can, which is a testament to its disorganization. A social disorganization theorist might note that Alex and Jason are struggling in this environment. There is little sense of community around them, and because their parents and others in the neighborhood are working so hard to make ends meet (or looking for work), and many are recent immigrants from a variety of different

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countries, there is little informal social control to be found—if Alex and Jason want to deal drugs to make some sense out of their situation, there may not be many people trying to stop them. Their reaction, in this perspective, can be seen as a completely normal response to the world around them.

Social Structural Theories and Public Policy Now that we have considered a number of social structural theories, let’s think about their possible applications. There are a number of ways in which the insights of the anomie and social disorganization theories could be used to create public policies geared at reducing or eliminating delinquency.

Anomie What would social policies on delinquency look like if they were based upon ideas honed from the anomie-related theories? The element that most would have in common would be a focus on reducing anomie and strain among working-class youth. With a reduction of anomie and strain, we can expect there to be a corresponding reduction in delinquency. Policies based upon Durkheim’s notion of anomie would focus on messages that tell youth that unlimited aspirations are unrealistic, and that dreams of

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wealth will only be realized by a segment of the population. Policies based upon Merton’s version of anomie might do the same, but because this approach is seen as a somewhat negative take on the very popular American Dream (involving speeches that begin with lines such as “Let’s be real, kid—you are never going to be rich”), most policymakers focus on the other elements of Merton’s theory. Nevertheless, policymakers could work to shift the message of the cultural goals promoted in the United States (or other countries in which the cultural goals and means are the same). As Einstadter and Henry suggest, “Crime control techniques in such a policy framework might involve limiting the extent that corporations create demand of unnecessary consumption through advertising in the mass media.”45 Campaigns to shift societal messages about what constitutes success could also be implemented, but because they would challenge the mainstream ideas about meritocracy (i.e., a system that rewards hard work), they would be unpopular.

A strain-reducing approach based on Merton’s anomie theory that would be more accepted is to focus upon increasing the legitimate opportunities for youth to reach cultural goals and to excel in our society’s institutions. Genuine equity in access to opportunities for all would require large-scale overhauls to our capitalistic social structure, but Merton’s theory does not explicitly discuss such a major change. Instead, the focus of his work lends itself to a focus on promoting reforms of our existing systems. Policies that take anomie theory insights into account would focus upon prevention as a means of addressing the potential for delinquency. Tutoring, affirmative action programs, scholarship programs, and the mentoring of youth in low- income communities are all actions that would promote prevention goals in our social policymaking.

Many people have been inspired to implement similar preventative policy recommendations based on Cloward and Ohlin’s and Cohen’s work. Beginning in the 1960s, programs such as Head Start, Mobilization for Youth, Job Corps, and the Community Action Partnership were put into place to attempt to bolster marginalized youth’s ability to do well in school and in the workplace.46 Plenty of other groups utilize anomie theories to inform delinquency and crime-related policies today, such as the “I Have a Dream” Foundation (see From the Classroom to the Community, above) and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Prevention efforts are good for those who are not yet caught up in the

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juvenile justice system. To reduce strain among youth who have been institutionalized and released, reentry programs that teach formerly incarcerated youth skills are needed. Policymakers considering issues of anomie will realize that youth who have delinquent records will experience strain even more than other youth because they are formally stigmatized. Policies that promote and fund adult assistance and peer mentoring will help these youth get back on a conventional path to adulthood.

Social Disorganization If we were to take the position of a social disorganization theorist and consider how we should best influence social policy, we might decide not to do anything. Remember, some social disorganization theorists originally believed that social disorganization was simply a stage of a community’s life that would resolve itself and become organized in time. As Davis explained, many believed that “the melting pot, in time, would eradicate urban pockets of deviance. Even the slum, the lowest point of urban disorganization, would rise from its submerged status and be absorbed into the urban order.”47

Nonetheless, if we take a social disorganization perspective, we may still want to use our energy to contribute to policies for change (perhaps we do not have enough time or patience to wait and see if reorganization will occur on its own). Because social disorganization is a theory that points to neighborhood or community disorganization as a determinant of delinquency, a person who is interested in using policies and programs for change will want to focus on making neighborhoods more organized. If the neighborhood is more organized, then, the reasoning goes, young people will have less of a need to act out in response to a community that leaves them feeling disoriented and desperate. Indeed, policymakers who are concerned about the impact of disorganization on individuals may want to start programs to clean up the neighborhood, to start a neighborhood crime watch, and to close down brothels or drug houses in an effort to help community organizations.

Prevention: Any number of programs and policies geared at keeping youth on the conventional path and out of delinquency involvement.

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on the Media: The Interrupters

The Frontline documentary “The Interrupters” (often available to view on the PBS website) sheds light on a group of adults who attempted to “interrupt” street violence in some of Chicago’s toughest areas. The “interrupters” were people from the communities that they were targeting, often former gang members, who worked for an organization called CeaseFire. Operation CeaseFire was based upon the premise that the spread of violence can be stopped by having people intervene in potentially violent situations and by speaking to people, teens and adults, who appear to be headed down a violent path. Watching the documentary allows the viewer to see the complicated, and sometimes painful, process to strengthen and organize a community that has been shunned and disregarded by many. The city of Chicago quit financially supporting the program in late 2015, and supporters are concerned about the rising crime and delinquency and light of diminishing community support.

Discussion Questions 1. After watching at least 30 minutes of The Interrupters online,

what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the violence intervention that is shown in the documentary?

2. How does the notion of “interrupting violence” through community outreach relate to social disorganization theory?

Sources: PBS Video. (2012, February 14). The Interrupters. Frontline. Retrieved from http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/interrupters/; Associated Press (2015). Anti-violence programs shut down as Chicago shootings climb (Oct. 9). Chicago Tribune. Retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-ceasefire-funds-frozen-as- chicago-shootings-climb-20151009-story.html

Some of the originators of the social disorganization perspective were very involved with such policymaking. For example, the Chicago Area Project (CAP) was orchestrated and managed by the Institute for Juvenile Research, where Shaw and McKay did their research for years. The project focused upon improving the zone of transition in Chicago by providing resource centers for residents. Those involved in the project worked to provide services to help youth manage life in the inner city, as well as to facilitate the matching of youths with preexisting services provided by

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other organizations in the community.48 The project founders, one of whom was Clifford Shaw, set out to work with the leaders of the community and to help strengthen the existing institutions—churches, youth groups, clubs—rather than to bring in outside groups to “improve” the area. The CAP considered these groups the natural resources of the community and believed they should be built upon to strengthen the community.49 In addition, they had “curbside counselors” who were present in the neighborhood and talked to youth who were gang involved, or involved in delinquency, in an effort to try and keep them out of trouble. This approach was aimed at helping individuals deal with the disorganization in their community in ways that would not damage their futures. They worked with agencies to divert youth from institutionalization in the event that they were involved in delinquency and worked to reintegrate youth who came back from time in a juvenile institution as well. The CAP still exists today and works to help organize grassroots groups in the area to bring change to their own communities (see www.chicagoareaproject.org).

Another social change approach that supporters have cited as related to social disorganization aims, but that certainly would not be supported by all social disorganization theorists, is the “Operation Weed and Seed” programs that have cropped up across the nation. These programs are focusing on “weeding” an area through collaboration with law enforcement and other government agencies (i.e., shutting down brothels and drug houses, and perhaps arresting the leaders of criminal gangs), then “seeding” the area by investing in it and providing physical and financial resources to help improve the appearance and day-to-day life of the community. Although the seeding component of this approach may be seen as a positive way of strengthening the community, some would argue that any increased presence of the police in the community, or any people from outside of the community coming in to reform it, constitutes a disruptive force that would only lead to more disorganization. Instead the collective efficacy of the community should be strengthened in more organic ways.

A last type of policymaking based upon social disorganization and focused upon delinquency prevention would provide youth with mentorship and activities outside of their immediate neighborhoods to expose them to the possibilities available in other areas in the future. Yet, as Kingston et al. note, it is important not only to help youth to change their perceptions of

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futility and frustration, but for interventions to actually improve opportunity structures as well.50

Summary

Anomie and social disorganization theories require us to shift our focus to elements of the social structure that either facilitate or hinder delinquency. In the case of anomie theories, it is clear that the classic conceptualizations of Durkheim and Merton both focus on the dangers that occur when human beings have unlimited aspirations that go unchecked due to either rapid social change or insistent cultural messages about success. In the latter case, it is clear that when society is structured in ways that do not allow equal access to quality education and jobs, youth will often feel compelled to accomplish material or financial success in whatever means they can. Merton theorized that we can expect to see youth attempt to innovate or “get creative” about the ways they obtain the American Dream in such circumstances in different forms of delinquency that generate money. As elucidated by Cloward and Ohlin, the different forms of delinquency in which strained youth decide to participate are not completely random, but are shaped by the illegitimate activities readily available to them. According to Cohen’s theory of delinquent subcultures, it is unsurprising that young men from working-class homes are essentially set up for, if not outright failure, a clash of social norms. Assuming that working-class youth have not been socialized with middle-class norms of behavior and then are placed in school systems that unquestioningly prioritize those middle-class norms, they are likely to experience the process as degrading. Young people in such a situation may choose to develop groups of friends in a similar situation and utilize their own oppositional norms of behavior to express their anger and frustration with the structure, albeit oftentimes unproductively.

Social disorganization theories encourage us to imagine our world as alternating between periods of organization and disorganization in a never-ending cycle. This theory requires us to think about delinquency as a response deriving from the degree of social organization present in our immediate environment, the assumption being that the physical and social class location of our neighborhoods impacts our behavior. The ecological framework of Park and Burgess, later incorporated into Shaw and McKay’s social disorganization theory of delinquency, states that geographical distance from the forces of social change that come to bear on the center of cities results in a lower rate of street delinquency than occurs in places and spaces unprotected by social order.

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Nevertheless, young people who do live in neighborhoods that display markers of disorganization focused upon by the theory may also experience what Sampson and Groves call a sense of collective efficacy —community empowerment and cohesion that shield them from the delinquency-inducing effects that would otherwise be expected. Social disorganization theorists provide evidence that delinquency explanations that focus on the big picture allow us to address large- scale factors that individual-level explanations often cannot.

Eye on Diversity Exercise: A Look at Sexuality, Homeless Youth, and Delinquency

In this activity we would like you to consider the relationship between sexuality, homeless youth, and delinquency in your vicinity through the lenses of the social structural theories covered in this chapter. Homeless youth are unsurprisingly among some of the most marginalized youth in a given society, and little attention is given to their situations. Homeless or “street youth” have been shown to end up homeless because of reasons such as family conflict and abuse, timing out of the foster care system and having nowhere else to live, and rejection due to identification as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender teen.51 When on the streets, they often engage in a number of high-risk behaviors, such as alcohol and illegal drug use, risky sexual behavior (often known as survival sex), and various acts of delinquency.52 LGBT homeless youth are also very vulnerable to victimization while on the streets, in the form of robbery, assault, and rape, yet they have few community resources tailored to their needs.53

Do some research on what resources are available for street youth in your community or the nearest city. Examine online sources or visit a nearby resource center to get your information and to answer the following questions:

What specific services are provided for LGBT youth who are without permanent shelter in your community? How might the resources that are (or are not) available affect LGBT youths’ experiences of anomie and/or strain?

Discussion Questions

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1. Assess the relevance of Merton’s notion of the American Dream in the 21st century. Do you think that young people still subscribe to a vision of success based upon materialism? Explain why or why not.

2. What are the implications of Merton’s categorization of nondeviant and deviant adaptations to social strain? Do you agree with the assumptions on which he based his model?

3. What can community activists and policymakers do to curb delinquency in your neighborhood or one nearby by using the insights from differential opportunity theory?

4. Social disorganization theorists ask us to think about delinquency in terms that draw upon the field of plant ecology, rather than in the psychological terms that dominate popular discussions of deviance. What does this allow us to see that we wouldn’t otherwise? If social disorganization were the most popular explanation of juvenile delinquency today, how might that change mainstream responses to juvenile wrongdoing or norm breaking?

5. What are some of the race, class, and/or gender concerns addressed by anomie and social disorganization theories? What race, class, and gender concerns go unaddressed in these theories?

6. Compare and contrast anomie and social disorganization theory explanations for delinquency. Which do you think is the best equipped to deal with delinquency issues today?

Key Terms Adaptations to strain 129 Anomic suicide 127 Anomie theory 126 Coercive mobility 142 Collective conscience 126 Collective efficacy 139 Concentric zone model 135 Conflict delinquent subculture 131 Consensus theorist 126 Criminal delinquent subculture 131 Determinism 126 Heterogeneity 135 Informal social control 135 Intervening variables 139 Macro-level theories 126

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Mechanical society 127 Organic society 127 Prevention 146 Retreatist delinquent subculture 131 Social disorganization theory 126 Social ecology 135 Social facts 127 Sociological positivist theories 126 Strain theory 128 Subcultural delinquency theory 131 Symbiosis 135 Zone of transition 136

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. False 2. True 3. False 4. True 5. True 6. True 7. False 8. True

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Chapter 6 Critical Theories

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Explain the commonalities of all critical theories Summarize labeling theory’s origins and key concepts Outline the major conflict theories of delinquency and their key concepts Identify multiple feminist theories and their respective emphases Assess how critical theories address the relationship between race, ethnicity, social class, gender, sexuality, and delinquency Analyze the relevance of critical theories of delinquency to public policy

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Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 180.

1. All critical theorists have an interest in understanding how social power affects human behavior.

2. The social critiques that emerge from the critical theories often inspire people to get involved in actions to alleviate social inequities.

3. According to labeling theories, stigmatizing youth after their first act of misbehavior is a good way to prevent them from engaging in secondary deviance.

4. Becker explained that people who are similarly labeled, whether they engage in the same activity or not, will experience similar outcomes.

5. Moral panics about crime and delinquency have resulted in the disproportionate labeling of white youth.

6. Conflict theorists claim that laws often reflect the interests of the working class.

7. According to DuBois, many acts of crime and delinquency can be seen as efforts to resist racial and legal oppression.

8. Some feminist theorists claim that the concept of intersectionality helps us understand the complex effects of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability on young people’s behaviors.

9. Chesney-Lind and other feminist criminologists state that it is important to look at patriarchy, or male dominance in societal institutions, in order to understand girls’ lives.

Cecilia, a 17-year-old Latina from Southern California, has lived in the same neighborhood all of her life. She is comfortable in her hometown because nearly all of her extended family live in the same area, and many of the young people there are like her—bilingual Spanish-English speakers and the sons and daughters of recent immigrants. As she was growing up, she could stop by her relatives’ homes to have a meal, to babysit her nieces and nephews, and to get emotional support when things got tough. And things did get tough for Cecilia, several times in her life. She was bussed to a middle school out of her area to a school with very few Latinos and when she was there experienced a great deal of bullying and teasing because she was from a “bad” neighborhood

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and her parents did not have much money to give her for clothes. The teasing escalated, and she was sexually assaulted, in the locker room, one day by two boys from wealthy families. Although she reported it to Mr. Thorton, the principal, the boys were never punished. Cecilia became depressed and dreaded going to school.

As she got older, many of her friends and relatives became part of the neighborhood gang. At first Cecilia was not part of the gang, but after getting put on the official gang list by the gang unit of the local police department (because she sat outside and talked to friends and cousins in the gang sometimes), her life changed. School officials began treating her differently, and teachers began to ignore her, as if they did not believe that she cared about her education. In the neighborhood, the few girls and boys her age who were not in the local gang acted as if they were too busy to hang out with her anymore, and the police officers in her neighborhood frequently accused her of being involved with various gang-related acts of delinquency. The only people who continued reaching out to her were the guys and girls on her block who were involved in the gang. Slowly, she began to spend more time with them, going with them when they were doing things like tagging, drinking in the park, and shoplifting. She figured she had nothing to lose because everyone already treated her as if she were in the gang, and it also helped her forget about the frustrations and pain of her daily life. It was an added plus that it took her away from school, where she felt unsafe.

Critical Theories of Delinquency What led to Cecilia’s delinquency? Clearly, many factors were involved. The critical theories of delinquency that we will examine in this chapter (labeling, conflict theory, and feminist theories) provide us with different lenses we can use to analyze her situation. Although the theorists associated with the three schools of thought we will focus on make sense of delinquency by highlighting different factors, they all share an interest in social power, the ability to make things happen, “to realize your wishes, [and] to produce the effects you want to produce.”1 These perspectives require us to look deeply into the world we live in and into the topic of delinquency with a critical eye. Doing so oftentimes results in unexpected answers to questions about delinquency that we might raise—answers that ultimately challenge more popular explanations for delinquency that we hear on the news or that are shown in television shows and movies. The social critiques, or concerns that emerge from these theories, are known

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for inspiring many to get involved in social actions in their communities in the name of alleviating social inequities—unfair distributions of power and social control.

All three types of theories that we examine in this chapter lead us to question how we decide what acts and what people are delinquent. The creation of labeling theory brought attention to race, class, gender, sexuality, and other social variables that we now know are central to the assignment and receipt of labels, but that had previously been underexamined by social scientists.2 Conflict theories focus on the ways that the benefits and burdens of our economic and class system influence our definitions of delinquency and work to either encourage or discourage delinquency. And feminist theories of delinquency share an interest in the ways in which categories of gender and sexuality are used to socially control youths’ behaviors as well as to create and define delinquency.

Visit edge.sagepub.com/bates2e to view a video clip about real-life examples of labeling theory.

Labeling Theory The labeling theory of delinquency is often used in conjunction with other theories to explain the process of first calling a particular act a delinquent one and then using that label to justify a particular means of punishing or reacting to the person who has then been labeled. The power of labels is pretty clear to most of us in our daily lives as we were raised with cultural messages about them. The old childhood fable about the “boy who cried wolf”3 demonstrates the power of labeling as it relates to wrongdoing for young readers. In that story, a boy who was guarding the sheep of his village from wolf attacks yelled out that he saw wolves several times when he had not actually seen any. Because he cried out several times with false information, he was labeled by others in his community as a person who did not tell the truth. Then, when he eventually did see a wolf and yelled out a warning for the townspeople to hear, nobody listened or believed him because the label had stuck—he was no longer considered trustworthy. Although the moral of the story was to be honest, when we look at it through sociological glasses we can see that the labeling ultimately was harmful to both the boy and the greater community. This fable is one in

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which the boy has actually done something that has resulted in his labeling, yet as you will see the labeling perspective can also be used to analyze acts of wrongdoing in which people have not done anything related to the label that has been placed upon them. For example, the opening scenario of this chapter about Cecilia, a person who was labeled as a juvenile delinquent and gang member at a point when she was not actually doing anything to warrant those labels, can also be analyzed through the lens of labeling theory. Labeling theorists explain that the assignment of a label can have an impact on an individual’s future that is worthy of serious examination.

Power: The ability to make things happen and to exert your will or wishes upon others.

Social inequity: A concept that refers to unfair distributions of power and social control.

Origins of Labeling Theory

Differences in the ability to make rules and apply them to other people are essentially power differentials (either legal or extralegal). Those groups whose position gives them weapons and power are best able to enforce their rules. Distinctions of age, sex, ethnicity and class are all related to differences in power, which accounts for the differences in degree to which groups so distinguished can make rules for others.4

Labeling theory has its origins in the works of many scholars, but its best known concepts are primarily derived from the work of Edwin Lemert, Howard Becker, and Erving Goffman.5 Labeling theory became popular in the 1960s and early 1970s, when many people were challenging the status quo and standing up and protesting in the name of civil rights and equality. This makes sense because labeling theory broadens the analysis of delinquency to include a consideration of who is doing the labeling of delinquents, who is being labeled, and to what social groups each delinquent belongs. Early labeling theorists developed ideas about how the

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assignment of labels may affect the people being labeled, and how those effects might impact the possibility of delinquency on their parts in the future. Ultimately, the perspective generates questions about how legitimate or warranted a given label is and whether its use is productive in preventing future acts of crime and delinquency. Is official labeling of wrongdoing a necessary part of preventing delinquency, or is it simply an exaggerated response to juvenile mischief and what Tannenbaum called the dramatization of evil?6

Edwin Lemert’s discussion of deviance applies to both juvenile delinquency and adult misbehavior. In his books Social Pathology (1951) and Human Deviance, Social Problems, and Social Control (1972), Lemert shifted the focus away from earlier theories’ focus on the reasons why a person may have originally engaged in an act of deviance (i.e., the subject of primary deviance) and introduced and developed the concept of secondary deviance.7 He explained that secondary deviance is the result of other people’s negative responses to an individual’s original act of “deviance”:

Secondary deviation refers to a special class of social defined responses that people make to problems created by the social reaction to their deviance. These problems are essentially moral problems, which revolve around stigmatization, punishments, segregation, and social control. . . . They become central facts of existence for those experiencing them.8

In other words, if people commit an act of deviance and others react in a strongly negative manner toward them, by treating them badly, punishing them, and ultimately telling them they are not worthy to run in the same circles as others in society, the people on the receiving end of such negative messages and behaviors are apt to internalize them. In turn, they may decide to engage in other acts of misbehavior as a way of dealing with the negative experience.

As noted in the words of Lemert above, stigma and stigmatization are central to the creation of secondary deviance. Erving Goffman, in his 1963 book Stigma: Notes on a Spoiled Identity,9 explained that stigma refers to a process by which the reactions of others spoil a person’s normal identity.

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In cases in which others label a person as deviant, delinquent, strange, or even just weird, the targeted person has been stigmatized. If the labeling process is widespread and/or perpetuated by especially powerful labelers, it may become hard for the labeled person to hang out with others who are considered normal or members of a “good crowd.” As Goffman would put it, for all intents and purposes the labeled person has a spoiled identity—it is tainted by the stigmatization.

Primary deviance: The initial act of deviance or delinquency that a person engages.

Secondary deviance: An act of deviance or delinquency that follows the labeling of a person as a delinquent or troublemaker.

Stigmatization: The process by which a person is marked or labeled as a deviant or a disgrace.

Spoiled identity: Goffman’s term for what happens when a person has been labeled as delinquent, criminal, or deviant, and the negative identity sticks, leaving him or her in a perpetual state of stigmatization.

This stigmatization can lead to a situation in which the label placed on a person comes to be the main thing that people refer to when talking about the person. In other words, it can become a person’s master status.10 When this happens in the case of youth, we might see someone referred to by others as a “gang member” or “meth head” or “juvenile delinquent,” rather than being discussed in terms of any other qualities, attributes, or labels that could also be applied to them (student, son/daughter, athlete, artist, blogger, etc.). Labeling scholars pay particular attention to the ways that processing of youth through the juvenile and adult justice systems work as status degradation ceremonies11—processes in which the juveniles are shamed and lose status in the eyes of the community along the way. In some cases a delinquent master status is so powerful that a youth labeled in this manner might go down the road of developing a criminal career or long-term delinquent involvement leading to a life of adult crime.

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Labeling theorists explain that when young people are labeled negatively, it is likely that they will be excluded and stigmatized by some of their peers.

Given that the labeling process was thought to be influential to the future of young people, detailed analyses about what rules labels reflect, how labels are assigned, and the different consequences of labeling were pursued by labeling theorists. Howard Becker, in his 1963 book Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance, considered who has the power to define the rules that young people are asked to follow:

Who can, in fact, force others to accept their rules and what are the causes of their success? This is of course a question of political and economic power. . . . By and large, for example, rules are made for young people by their elders. Though the youth of this country exert a powerful influence culturally—the mass media of communication are tailored to their interests, for instance—many important kinds of rules are made for our youth by adults. Rules regarding school attendance and sex behavior are not drawn up with regard to the problems of adolescence.12

Becker also explained that many of us assume that official sources, such as

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juvenile court records, will give us an accurate picture of delinquency in a given year. Although these numbers may reflect the decision making of prosecutors, police, and court administrators, we may need to take a second look at their accuracy. Becker stated that sometimes the numbers are higher than they ought to be. For example, in a case in which a young man has been arrested simply for associating with youth who are committing acts of delinquency, he will also be labeled delinquent. A youth may not have earned that label in the same way that his friend who robbed a liquor store did, yet in the long run the consequences of the labeling may be similar in spite of that fact.

To better understand this idea, think back to the details of the example at the beginning of this chapter. When Cecilia was first labeled as a gang member and a delinquent, she actually was not doing anything substantial to earn that label. But her experience out in the world was the same as if she had been committing acts of gang violence; she was shunned and stigmatized by those in the mainstream of society. Becker created a typology of deviant behavior to address the various ways that behaviors and perceptions of others (or labels of the behavior) were related to one another.13 He categorized possible scenarios in terms of whether the behavior involved was deviant (i.e., someone was breaking a rule) or not, and whether the behavior was labeled by others as deviant or as conforming to society’s norms (see Figure 6.1).

Master status: A status or label that comes to be held as more powerful than others (e.g., “delinquent”).

In two of the four types that Becker alluded to, the conformist and the pure deviant, the nature of the act a person is engaged in corresponds accurately to the label that others are placing upon the person. The conformist is following societal norms or rules and is not perceived as deviant. For example, many youth go to school, do their homework, and hang out with their friends when they have extra time, and are just considered run-of-the- mill kids. Becker would consider them conformists. The pure deviant is breaking societal norms or rules and is perceived as deviant as a result. An example of this might be the young person who enjoys stealing clothes from the local mall and then is caught and labeled a shoplifter by the local police. Once again, the deviant behavior and the deviant label match.

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Where things get complicated is with the other two types, the falsely accused and the secret deviant. The falsely accused person has not done anything deviant, yet is perceived by others who observe her or him as deviant (as is the case of the early stage of Cecilia’s example in this chapter). In the case of the secret deviant, a person is doing something that would likely be perceived and labeled as deviant if observed by others, yet is not labeled. According to Becker, this is typically the case with people who are successful in hiding their acts from others. Any number of taboo acts that a person might engage in could motivate a person to try and keep her or his secret deviant status. As we will discuss later in the chapter, not all people have the same ability to maintain a secret deviant status, in part due to the variation in social surveillance that people experience depending on their class, race, and neighborhood. In other words, some people and some neighborhoods are watched more than others, and because of living arrangements, some people have less privacy than others and thus are more likely to have their “secret” acts detected than they would be otherwise.

One of the most important points that Becker made about these different types is that at the end of the day, people who are similarly labeled, whether they actually have engaged in the activity assumed or not, will experience similar outcomes. So, the pure deviant and the falsely accused will often experience stigmatization and reduced social opportunities, and the conformist and the secret deviant will go unscathed by negative labeling.

Other important labeling concepts developed in the early stages of labeling theory include the moral entrepreneur and moral panic. Moral entrepreneurs are people who work to garner attention toward a social issue or group that they have decided amounts to a social problem; they create deviance, and by extension delinquency, by placing labels on behaviors and actions.14 As discussed by Gusfield, there is typically a power differential related to how this plays out: “Moral reformism of this type suggests the approach of the dominant class toward those less favorably situated in the economic and social structure.”15 Moral entrepreneurs have launched crusades around a number of issues, such as the temperance movement and the antismoking movement. Sometimes, crusades are fueled by the creation of a moral panic—heightened concern over an issue that is not in line with its seriousness or frequency of occurrence in the world.16 For example, Chambliss found that in spite of the fact that crime rates were not rising, police, politicians, and the media

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spread misinformation, beginning in the 1960s, which increased concern about crime among the general public and resulted in the tough-on-crime approach taken since the late 1970s in the United States.17 The moral panics about crime and delinquency have resulted in the disproportionate labeling of many youth of color, most notably black youth and young black men.18

Moral entrepreneur: People who work to garner attention toward a social issue or group that they have decided amounts to a social problem.

Figure 6.1 Becker’s Typology of Deviant Behavior

Source: Adapted from Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in sociology of deviance. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

In the News: Justice-Involved Youth

In April 2016, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development announced the Juvenile Reentry Assistance Program, which will help justice-involved youth find jobs and housing after paying back society for any wrongdoing that they have done. The use of the term justice-involved youth was intentionally employed in lieu of the term juvenile delinquent, which has long been used by government officials.

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Discussion Question 1. Why might critical theorists support the creation and use of the

new term, justice-involved youth?

Source: U.S. Department of Justice. (2016, April 25). The Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development to award $1.75 million to help justice-involved youth find jobs and housing. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/departments-justice-and-housing-and- urban-development-award-175-million-help-justice-involved

Development of Labeling Theory Social scientists who have followed in the footsteps of Lemert, Becker, Goffman, and other formative labeling theorists have elaborated upon the processes by which labeling can result in secondary deviance or, in terms of the focus of this book, secondary delinquency. They have done so, in part, in response to the critiques of the theory that were frequently made by scholars in the late 1970s and early 1980s19—critiques that the theory was too vague and not developed concretely enough to test scientifically.20 Some critics interpreted and assessed the proposition that labeling as a delinquent or negative labeling was always followed by delinquent behavior.21 Advocates of labeling theory explained that early labeling theorists always assumed the process to be much more complicated than that and reiterated that secondary deviance depends on multiple factors working in conjunction:

1. The degree to which the label is public, 2. The degree to which others react to the labeled person in a negative or

exclusionary manner, 3. A transformation in personal identity, and 4. Support from others who are involved in delinquency or acts

popularly thought of as deviant.22

The focus of labeling theory in recent decades has been on two factors that help explain why secondary deviance occurs in some cases and not in others after a person has been labeled: self-concept and social exclusion.23 Scholars have also looked more closely at who is doing the labeling and how that might affect a person’s likelihood of committing an

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act of breaking the rules or the laws again. As the theory has been tested over time and elaborated upon, most observers have come to agree that it is a useful tool that can work hand in hand with other theories that attempt to focus on the reasons why a person decides to break the rules in the first place (i.e., those that focus upon primary deviance).

Labeling, Self-Concept, and Gender To understand the relationship between labeling and self-concept, scholars of delinquency typically draw upon insights from the theoretical approach of symbolic interactionism. Symbolic interactionism is a framework that examines the way that people make meaning out of symbols, words, and other forms of communication to make sense of the world.24 One of the most famous symbolic interactionist concepts, Herbert Cooley’s looking- glass self, plays a role in studies of this type. This concept (which can be summarized in everyday language as “I am what I think you think I am”) refers to the idea that people imagine how others perceive them and then internalize that idea as their own.

Being labeled as a delinquent can negatively influence a youth’s self- concept—the way that the youth views herself or himself.25 Scholars have examined this idea in detail by considering how informal labeling (labeling by peers, teachers, and parents) and formal labeling (labeling by juvenile justice or criminal justice officials) affect youths’ thoughts about themselves. Adams et al. studied youths’ self-concepts and found that informal sources of labeling played an important role in influencing their future delinquency.26 When youth perceived that their peers or teachers labeled them negatively, they were more apt to report that they had engaged in delinquent behavior than youth who did not perceive such negative labels. Similarly, Matsueda found that when boys thought that their parents labeled them as rule violators, they were more likely to self- report that they had acted out delinquently than boys who thought otherwise.27 In addition, although parents were found to quickly assign negative labels to girls who acted out even once, the informal labeling process had a bigger effect on boys’ delinquency than on girls’.28 It seems that this was because when boys recognized that they were seen as rule breakers by their parents, it reinforced their self-concept of being macho or manly—qualities that boys are encouraged to develop by society as a whole. As a result they were more apt to internalize the delinquent label

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and to engage in future acts of delinquency than girls were.

Along the same lines, research has demonstrated that formal labeling of youth as delinquent by law enforcement agents makes it more likely that a youth will become heavily involved with delinquent peers as well as to join a gang after being labeled.29 In such cases, delinquent peers provide a sort of shelter from the storm of social stigmatization, as well as the psychological and social tools for committing acts of delinquency. When adolescents are labeled as delinquent by official sources, it directly contributes to a solidification of a delinquent path or career. Labeling theorists attribute this outcome, in part, to the effect of labeling on youths’ self-concept.

Self-concept: A concept that refers to the way in which a person views her- or himself.

Social exclusion: Youth who are negatively labeled as delinquents may later find themselves shut out or excluded from conventional or beneficial opportunities.

Symbolic interactionism: A framework that examines the way that people make meaning out of symbols, words, and other forms of communication.

Looking-glass self: The idea that a person imagines how others perceive her or him and then internalizes that idea as her or his own.

Labeling, Social Exclusion, Race, and Class A number of different scholars have conducted studies that look at the way in which labeling, particularly formal labeling by actors in the juvenile justice system, affects future delinquency by means of cutting off a number of opportunities or paths that are available for youth to pursue. These studies take a step away from the social-psychological approach of the self-concept studies (although they do not ignore this entirely) just considered and focus primarily on the social structure that a young person labeled as delinquent must navigate. The reality that many labeled youth

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must deal with is that they are shut out of many legitimate or beneficial opportunities. Studies in this tradition are drawing from life course theory30 and its consideration of cumulative disadvantage: disadvantage that a labeled delinquent youth experiences due to stigmatization in society’s primary social institutions, for example family, school, peers, and the government-run juvenile justice system.31 The negative reaction that a young person who is labeled delinquent experiences may result in a narrowing down of their life options in ways that matter in the long run. This may result in a delinquent or deviant career to use the words of labeling theorists: delinquency or deviance that a person pursues over the span of his or her life.

A study that looked at the creation of such a deviant career was conducted by Bernburg and Krohn.32 They looked at how boys who were labeled delinquents fared over time with an eye toward their social location, in particular their race and social class, and found the following:

1. Juvenile justice intervention during the teenage years lessened the possibility that a youth would graduate from high school;

2. Police labeling during the teenage years increased the probability of unemployment during early adulthood;

3. Juvenile justice intervention also increased the probability of early adult unemployment, but primarily due to its negative effect on youth’s educational progress;

4. Youth who were labeled by the police or juvenile justice actors as delinquents were more likely to engage in crime as young adults than other youth, in part because of lack of education and lack of employment; and

5. Young adults who were black (as labeled by juvenile justice officials) and who came from an economically disadvantaged home (as labeled by police or juvenile justice officials) were more likely to engage in crime than other young adults who had been similarly labeled.

In sum, Bernburg and Krohn found that official labeling affected labeled youth in multiple ways. Ultimately, class and race affected the ability of youth to persevere after being labeled delinquent. White youth and those with more financial resources at their disposal were better able to overcome the effects of being labeled as a delinquent and to stay out of trouble after the fact than others were.

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Other research that examined the long-term outcomes related to involvement in the juvenile justice system also found that it was related to future association with delinquent youth and illegal behavior.33 These findings support labeling theory and challenge the notion that formal punishment deters, or prevents, youth from committing future acts of delinquency or crime.

Cumulative disadvantage: Disadvantage that a labeled delinquent youth experiences due to stigmatization in society’s primary social institutions: family, school, peers, and the government-run juvenile justice system.

Deviant career: Delinquency, crime, or deviance that an individual pursues over the span of his or her life.

What About Positive Labeling? As you have seen from the previous examples, the bulk of current labeling research looks at negative reactions to a delinquent or criminal label. A less popular use of the theory twists this approach and considers how “devils in disguise” get away with misbehavior due to positive labeling by others.34 If you think back to high school, you can probably remember people who were thought to be studious and well-behaved by their parents or other adults, yet their friends knew them to be the life of the party every weekend, drinking alcohol and engaging in other delinquent activities. The youth in these situations understood the power of the positive label and may have actually worked hard to keep the label to get away with what they were doing. They recognized that their wholesome reputation helped distract observers from their delinquent actions. As Brezina and Aragones pointed out,

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When you were a teenager, did you know any “devils in disguise” whose delinquency escaped detection?

the ability to maintain positive labels in the eyes of adults, while engaging in extensive delinquency, is likely to be an important source of reward and reinforcement for many adolescents. And for certain youths, the ability to conceal a delinquent self from conventional others may produce rewards that are large enough to help sustain long-term criminal involvement.35

The process of manipulating or shaping the positive labeling process and, in turn, avoiding negative labeling and detection can be quite thrilling to the young person committing undetected acts of delinquency. Successful manipulation is related to race, gender, and class. White, middle or upper- class, females will usually have the easiest time manipulating positive labels and hiding their lawbreaking, while young men of color from low- income neighborhoods will have the most difficult time doing so.36 This is because widespread stereotypes of juvenile delinquents as young men of

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color from urban neighborhoods serve as the backdrop for societal impressions of wrongdoing, whether conscious or unconscious.

Resistance to the Delinquent Label The research on positive labeling, as well as the other more traditional types of labeling research,37 has demonstrated that youth have an active role in the labeling process. It is important to recognize that some youth resist the negative labels that are placed upon them, by putting them in a bigger political and social context.

Many youth resist labeling because they experience it as unjust targeting by law enforcement and other social control agents. Paul Hirschfield interviewed young adults of color (18–20 years old) about their past delinquent behaviors and their reaction to the labeling process that took place when they were arrested as juveniles.38 Because they grew up in urban areas subjected to a lot of police activity and attention, it was commonplace for youth to be arrested; as a result, they did not experience much stigmatization or shaming related to that activity. Rather than negatively affecting their self-concepts, the high rate of juvenile arrests for petty acts of delinquency or for acts that the young adults said they did not commit (i.e., false accusations) signaled to the youth that formal labels were not reliable. In other words, they were not considered legitimate or important within the community. At times, the label of delinquent was even thought of as something to be proud of and just part of the process of growing up in the city. As Hirschfield explained, this resistance to labeling as a negative phenomenon is a reaction to being shut out from tangible opportunities:39

A Focus on Research: Holsinger and Hodge’s “The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Girls in Juvenile Justice Systems”

In Kristi Holsinger and Jessica P. Hodge’s 2016 Feminist Criminology article, “The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Girls in Juvenile Justice Systems,” they build upon gendered pathway theory as well as labeling theory to examine the perceptions of detained girls and the juvenile justice staff who supervise them.40 The detained girls that they spoke to in a focus group were African American and

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identified as either lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). The girls reported being harassed about their sexuality by other detained girls while staff people failed to intervene. They also noted that there was a double standard for LGB girls and other girls—girls who weren’t labeled LGB could hold hands or sit close together, but LGB girls were accused of inappropriately crossing boundaries when they did so. In counseling groups, the girls were not allowed to talk about any same-sex relationships because staff were fearful they would inspire heterosexual girls to engage in sexual relationships with them.

Holsinger and Hodge explored themes that emerged in their focus groups with 21 black and white juvenile justice staff one year later. They found that LGBT girls were assumed to be predatory by many staff people and that they watched them more closely than other detainees. Although some staff noted an understanding of sexuality and had a positive take on LGBT youth, many staff had very little understanding of what it meant for girls to be bisexual. Staff also did not understand the needs of transgender youth. Requests of the girls to be called their preferred name or preferred pronouns were largely ignored. The authors of the article conclude that multiple changes are needed to address the needs of the girls in the facility and to counter the harmful assumptions and practices that drive many of the interactions in juvenile justice facilities today.

Discussion Question Holsinger and Hodge conclude that their findings highlight insights from feminist and labeling theory. According to these theories, what can we expect from the girls who are labeled as troublemakers and surveilled due to their sexuality and/or gender identity when they are released from detention? Why?

The emergent reality in Americans’ poorest urban neighborhoods, which sociology has only begun to grasp (but see LeBlanc, 2003), is that justice system labels are not merely sewn onto individuals, but they are etched into the social fabric of the ghetto [emphasis added]. . . . The normalization and de-legitimation of official labels are entrenched conditions for poor African-American neighborhoods across the United States, wrought by decades of mass arrests and imprisonment.

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The next theoretical tradition we will examine, conflict theory, focuses on the economic issues at the core of modern-day delinquency and the crime control industry.

Conflict Theory: A Focus on Socioeconomic Class Conflict or radical theory is closely tied to some variants of labeling theory that we have considered previously in this chapter—in particular the considerations of labeling that stress the role of power and socioeconomic class. If we recall the scenario at the very beginning of the chapter that detailed Cecilia’s path to delinquency and attempt to look at it as conflict theorists, we will be drawn to the question of how issues of money and material resources affected her life. Theories have emerged from the original formulations of conflict theory that expand it to include social analyses of race and ethnicity. Because of this, we might think about the fact that Cecilia was bussed to another neighborhood, one in which she was teased for being Latina and having little money, and then profiled as a gang member. We might also consider the role that police surveillance and crime control in low-income neighborhoods plays in limiting youths’ development of their full potential. In addition, we probably will consider her foray into shoplifting as a reaction to her position in society. As a conflict theorist, we might ultimately see Cecilia’s behavior as a means of survival and resistance.

Conflict theorist: A theorist who assumes that society is based on class conflict and that laws tend to reflect the interests of the powerful.

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This street art in downtown San Diego near a major shopping district embodies one of the messages of conflict theorists, which is to challenge the status quo.

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Courtesy of author;

The Origins of Conflict Theory Conflict theories of delinquency have their roots in the works of theorists who were focused not necessarily on delinquency per se, but rather on macro-structural issues related to the division of power in society; definitions of crime, deviance, and law created by those in power; and the repercussions of those social realities. These theorists were concerned with the big picture and the issues at the forefront of our society today— economics, race relations, and social justice.

Many variants of conflict theory are related to the work of German scholar Karl Marx and his consideration of social class.41 Marx theorized that societies were essentially characterized by class conflict. In his famous Communist Manifesto, co-written with Friedrich Engels, he stated that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”42 He was a historical materialist, a theorist who believed that if you want to understand any phenomenon in a given society, you must first look specifically at that society at a certain point in time, and examine the material base or economy of that society to understand what is transpiring. He claimed that the economic base of society, the infrastructure, influences everything else, which he called the superstructure. The superstructure was said to include all other institutions: for example, families, education, religious institutions, and the legal system. Therefore, Marx believed that law reflected the economic base of a society and crime also was related to issues of economics and ownership.

Because of the need to make a profit and create surplus value in a capitalist economic system, there is an automatic class conflict built into the system between the capitalists, or the bourgeoisie, the owners of the means of production (e.g., the owners of businesses), and those people who work for the owners, the workers, or the proletariat (e.g., factory workers). Marx stated that ultimately law works to reflect the interests of the owners as a means of helping capitalism stay afloat. Otherwise, all of the workers being harmed by the cost-cutting efforts of the owners will eventually realize how they are being oppressed, rise up in class struggle, and create a revolution. This revolution will result in the end of the capitalist system and, according to Marx, a switch to a socialist, and then subsequently a

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communist, system. (Communism as he envisioned it signified the shared ownership of property among all people.)

Class conflict: The conflict between owners and workers that Marx and Engels stated was built into the workings of a capitalist economy.

Class struggle: The outward manifestation of discontent that arises after workers realize that their class interests are being oppressed in a capitalist system.

Although not as widely recognized as Marx’s influence on the field of criminology and delinquency, the ideas of William Edward Burghardt (W. E. B.) Du Bois have also influenced conflict theories of today, especially those that look carefully at the role of race and social class.43 Like Marx, Du Bois wrote in the late 19th and early 20th centuries about issues of social conflict related to social structure. In works such as “The Negro and Crime,” The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study, The Spawn of Slavery: The Convict Lease System in the South, and Some Notes on Negro Crime, Particularly in Georgia, he examined issues related to the social position of black people, crime, and social control in the United States in light of the legacy of slavery and other injustices.44

Especially relevant to conflict theories of crime and delinquency that follow in his tradition is the idea that racial and class privilege largely experienced by white people in the United States allowed for a system of laws to be written and court decisions to be made that often benefited whites and harmed people of color, “treating the crimes and misdemeanors of negroes with such severity that the lesson of punishment is lost through pity for the punished.”45 He also considered the genesis of crimes committed by a subset of black people and stated that social injustices typically were at the root of these acts—the near destruction of black families after slavery and the various racist social practices that occurred during slavery’s aftermath. According to Du Bois, many acts of delinquency and crime can be seen as efforts to resist racial and legal oppression. Whenever we consider the relationship of racism (the systematic subordination of people of color based upon and maintained by stereotypes of inferiority) and delinquency, we are drawing upon his legacy. As we will see later in this chapter, his ideas live on in modern-day

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conflict theories.

The Development of Conflict Theories of Crime At the beginning of the 20th century, Willem Bonger, a Dutch scholar, built upon Marxist ideas and explicitly related them to the topic of crime in his book Criminality and Economic Conditions.46 He forwarded the idea that capitalism is a system in which business owners are encouraged to dominate and take advantage of the others in society, the workers and the consumers, to make a profit. Bonger claimed that capitalism basically tears apart the social fabric by making people, especially capitalists, inclined to egotism, or selfishness. Crime, especially economic crime, according to Bonger, is to be expected in a system that dehumanizes and pits people against one another in the name of profit. To minimize criminal activity, he stated that a large step would have to be made—the redistribution of wealth that takes all people’s needs into account and a shared ownership of the means of production (i.e., a shift to socialism). These proposed measures would shift the societal emphasis on domination to a focus on cooperation.

In the 1960s and 1970s, many radical or conflict criminologists picked up on the work of Bonger and his predecessors, as well as the work of labeling theorists, and focused on the role of the economy and class conflict in the production of crime.47 Before examining some of the conflict theories that deal specifically with delinquency, let’s examine one especially influential criminologist’s ideas about how conflict theory can be applied to adult crime. This contextualization will allow you to see how the delinquency theories have built upon some of the fundamental ideas of conflict theory’s take on crime causation and social control.

Racism: The systematic subordination of people of color based on and maintained by stereotypes of inferiority.

Richard Quinney’s early works, such as The Problem of Crime, The Social Reality of Crime, Critique of Legal Order: Crime Control in Capitalist Society, and Class, State, and Crime: On the Theory and Practice of Criminal Justice,48 established some of the fundamentals of a conflict theory approach to crime. His ideas, which reflected a basic form of

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Marxism known as instrumental Marxism, revolve around the idea that

through the legal system, then, the state forcefully protects its interests and those of the capitalist ruling class. Crime control becomes the coercive means of checking threats to the existing social and economic order, threats that result from a system of oppression and exploitation.49

According to Bonger, living in a capitalist economic system encourages us to be greedy, competitive, and to turn against each other through acts of delinquency or crime.

Quinney stated that working-class people who challenge the status quo of society are often labeled dangerous or subversive by government officials. Whenever crime issues are considered by the government, rehabilitation of individuals is emphasized as the way to go (he was writing in the 1970s; in today’s language it would surely be punishment), rather than a reconstruction of the capitalist socioeconomic system that actually

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produces crime.

Under a capitalist system, crimes of domination are committed by the state or government—crimes that involve acts of social control (e.g., police brutality, violations of civil liberties, and illegal surveillance), illegal government acts (e.g., assassinations and crimes of war), economic crimes, and social injustices against basic human rights. Quinney theorized that in the face of domination, some people accommodate, or go along with, the system of oppression at the heart of capitalism by engaging in predatory crimes (e.g., robbery, drug dealing, and burglary). These crimes are done in an effort to get money and to survive economically. People may also engage in personal crimes, or violent crimes (e.g., assault, rape, and murder), which are typically aimed at others who are also oppressed. And yet others consciously choose to oppose their working conditions and the corporations for which they work, through acts of resistance that may or may not be illegal (e.g., sabotaging the production of items on an assembly line or protesting a company). Although the type of Marxism that Quinney utilized in his theory is a basic form of Marxism, many other scholars have built upon his conflict tradition when studying crime and delinquency.

Conflict Theories of Delinquency There are not many conflict theorists focused specifically on delinquency;50 many conflict theories have been written to address both adult and juvenile behaviors. David M. Gordon’s work is a case in point. In his 1973 article “Capitalism, Class, and Crime in America,” he presented a critique of capitalism and its relationship to both crime and delinquency. Gordon discussed society’s obsessive focus on youth crimes against property and the disproportionate concern or fear aimed at young black youth. He stated that the oppressed of society, the poor and people of color, are channeled into prisons and eventually into a cycle of parole and recidivism, to stop any potential challenges to the injustice of the capitalist system. Imprisonment accomplishes a number of things: first, it limits any acts of resistance that those harmed the most by the system can wage because many voices are silenced; second, it increases any delinquency or criminality on the part of the imprisoned people because they are now part of an angry, violent system in which crime is a part of daily life; and, third, it stigmatizes and shuts people out of jobs and lucrative legitimate opportunities if released from prison. The system breeds class and racial

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antagonisms and prevents fruitful social movement organizing on the whole. According to Gordon, you can’t rise up if the workings of the system are actively keeping you down at every turn.

on the Media: Online Analysis of Miscarriages of Youth Justice

The Center for the Wrongful Convictions of Youth, which is part of the Bluhm Legal Clinic at Northwestern Law, uses online resources to communicate information about unjust juvenile sentences in the United States. They have created an interactive map that allows users to learn about laws governing youth around the United States. An especially powerful feature is the ability to click on states that are highlighted to find information about juvenile legal cases that involved false accusations or false confessions and ultimately resulted in punishment for acts that the youths didn’t do. They also have posted an online video lecture by the post-conviction lawyers of Brendan Dassey, whose case was featured in the Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer. In the video lecture, “Brendan Dassey: A True Story of a False Confession,” attorneys Laura Nirider and Steven Drizin discuss topics such as coerced confessions, pretrial publicity, and how legal documentaries affect the cases of both juveniles and adults.

Discussion Questions 1. How can labeling theory and conflict theory be used to analyze

the topic of false accusations, coerced confessions, and unjust detention of youth?

2. In what ways do you think documentaries on specific legal cases influence their processes and outcomes?

Sources: Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth. (2016). CWCY Spotlight (video lecture). Retrieved from http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictionsyouth; Center on Wrongful Convictions of Youth. (2016). NationalOutlook: Laws Governing Youth (map). Retrieved from http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictionsyouth/map

David F. Greenberg was one of the first scholars to use a Marxist lens to focus specifically on delinquency.51 In “Delinquency and the Age Structure of Society,” Greenberg examined the fact that juvenile delinquency involvement peaked during the early high school years and

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http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictionsyouth

http://www.law.northwestern.edu/legalclinic/wrongfulconvictionsyouth/map

generally decreased with age. He claimed that this could be explained by looking at juveniles’ position in the labor market over time. Greenberg stated that the ability for youth to get jobs in their teenage years was hampered historically by various factors related to the capitalist economy in the United States; labor laws, mandatory schooling laws, and the need to exclude large numbers of possible employees from the economy to keep jobs for adults. Yet in spite of that, the pressure on youth to have the funds to pursue a conventional social life remained high. In the face of social pressures to have money, and little availability of money through paid work, youth were more apt to commit acts of theft. He said that this held true for boys and girls and that an increase in girls’ participation in theft in the 1970s was not related to a change in gender roles during that time period as some theorized (as you will see in the liberal feminist section later in this chapter), but instead was simply related to the lessening of youth’s economic power at that time. Greenberg claimed that as youth aged they strengthened their self-esteem through other means besides spending money on their social lives and their ability to earn money legitimately expanded as well, leading to a decrease in economically motivated acts of delinquency.

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What do you think about Greenberg’s claim that some acts of theft and

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other forms of delinquency are related to the fact that youth are shut out of many job opportunities because of their age, yet they are bombarded with societal messages encouraging them to spend money and become consumers?

In addition to his focus on theft, Greenberg considered other acts of delinquency (i.e., fighting and vandalism) as responses to school systems that focused on limiting students’ freedom to act. He stated that a lot of the school procedures, as well as the content of what the students are taught, are a means of preparing the students to enter a capitalist system that rewards following rules, acting predictably, and following the status quo when they are adults. Acts of delinquency that do not result in any sort of economic value to the youth who engage in them can be seen as a form of rebellion or disengagement with the capitalist system. Although this was traditionally more common among lower-class youth, Greenberg stated it also holds true for youth of all social classes who see the flaws in the capitalist system and are fed up with it. When youth decide to drop out or leave school, they are often happier with the lack of social control, they often feel less controlled and degraded, and as a result they engage in fewer acts of delinquency than they did when they were in school. His discussion of the different effects of this process on white youth and youth of color implicitly picked upon on the observations posed by Du Bois and was later mirrored in the work of other conflict theorists.

Mark Colvin and John Pauly developed another Marxist theory of delinquency in 1983. In their article “A Critique of Criminology: Toward an Integrated Structural Marxist Theory of Delinquency Production,” Colvin and Pauly considered the ways in which the capitalist economy structures the lives of working adults and their children. They theorized that adults who have working-class jobs are often subjected to coercive authority in their day-to-day lives (e.g., they may be yelled at or micro- managed). These workers, when they go home and parent their own children, may do so in ways that are physical, punitive, and/or “erratic”52 —fluctuating from a punitive approach to an overly lenient one—which increases the possibility of creating a negative bond between the parent and the child. Children with negative bonds to their parents often feel negatively toward the authority figures in school as well, which translates to poor performance on IQ tests and in the classroom in general. They will

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then tend to be tracked into low-level, highly coercive classrooms in which children are expected to misbehave. They pick up on these cues, and teachers label them as troublemakers and slow learners. In addition, youth who live in lower-income neighborhoods will be going to schools with fewer resources, and the system of rewards and punishments will not be one that can rely on money or prizes, so coercive systems of social control are more likely to be the norm (i.e., you don’t get a prize for behaving, but you do not get humiliated or yelled at if you behave).

These factors in and of themselves prime children to act out in delinquent behaviors. If they are inclined to do so, Colvin and Pauly state, friendship groups can play an important role,53 and a young person may become part of a criminal delinquent subculture, in which youth commit acts of delinquency as a means to an end—usually to obtain something material or monetary to gain status in the group—or a conflict delinquent subculture, in which youth oppose the mainstream through violence, underground economies, and/or gang activity because of a lack of opportunities to succeed. Negative bonding to authority figures plays a role in both delinquent subcultures (first introduced in Chapter 5), but particularly in the conflict subculture.

There has been mixed empirical support for Colvin and Pauly’s theory of delinquency.54 It is difficult to test for a number of reasons, but primarily because it requires getting into the homes of those being studied and examining parenting styles and bonding firsthand. Sally Simpson and Lori Elis broadened the scope of the Colvin and Pauly’s original analysis to include a look at how gender and race played a role in relationships to authority in the workplace, the home, and friendship circles.55 In general, they found experiences with disadvantaged schools, coercive authority, and peer groups were related to serious patterned delinquency in the manner outlined by the theory. At the conclusion of their study, Simpson and Elis surmised that girls and boys, women and men, are subjected to different types of control at the workplace and the home and that this fact needs to be integrated into the structural Marxist theory of delinquency in order for it to be more comprehensive. Social class structure is important, but it plays a more complicated role in youth’s lives than Colvin and Pauly imagined.

Many examinations of the conflict tradition in crime and delinquency have continued to examine this complex relationship between social class, race,

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class, gender, social control, and delinquency.56 In the next section of this chapter, we will examine a related set of theories that also examines these relationships: feminist theories.

Feminist Theories: A Focus on Gender and Intersectionality As noted at the outset of this chapter, feminist theories share a lot in common with labeling theories and conflict theories. Feminist theories of delinquency are best known for their analysis of the role of gender in delinquency, yet as you can observe from our discussion of the other perspectives earlier in this chapter, modern-day labeling and conflict theories also consider gender as an important factor in creating delinquency. In this section, we will back up a bit and consider some of the most important concepts that have been forwarded in the name of feminist criminology and feminist studies of delinquency. What differentiates theories labeled as feminist is a matter of emphasis—feminist theorists of gender and delinquency not only tend to study the issue of gender but are committed to actively changing the world to be a more just one, for girls and women, as well as for boys and men. It amounts to what feminist scholars have long called “walking the talk” or engaging in real-world practices that go hand in hand with the study of social problems and concerns.

If we go back to the scenario about Cecilia provided at the beginning of this chapter, and consider it from a feminist perspective, we are open to looking at it a number of ways. The reason for this is there is not just a single feminist perspective, but multiple feminist perspectives as we will soon discuss. In spite of their differences, all feminist perspectives share a concern with gender issues and the way in which the social roles of “boy,” “girl,” “man,” and “woman” play out in everyday life to advantage some and disadvantage others. In Cecilia’s case, a feminist observer would hone in on the abuse that Cecilia faced at school, and the inadequate response of the school principal, Mr. Thorton, to her victimization. This victimization would be seen as directly related to the delinquency that Cecilia later took part in; because she felt unsafe at school and she was frightened to experience another incident in which she was harmed and ignored, she looked to peers outside of school to keep her company. Eventually, she fell into engaging in acts of delinquency with them. Later in this section, after

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we describe some of the major feminist traditions, we will refer back to Cecilia’s scenario one last time, to consider how feminist scholars might also focus on a variety of other factors in the scenario as being especially important to the creation of delinquency.

Criminal delinquent subculture: A group in which youth commit acts of delinquency to obtain something material or monetary to gain status.

Conflict delinquent subculture: A group in which youth oppose the mainstream through violence, undergrounds economies and/or gain activities.

In the News: Teen Computer Hacker Arrested for Targeting U.S. Government Employees

On February 12, 2016 a 16-year-old boy known online by the name of “Cracka” was arrested by British law enforcement because he was suspected of conducting hacks on U.S. intelligence officials in conjunction with a group that calls itself “Crackas With Attitude” (CWA). Cracka, in addition to two of his online companions in CWA, was arrested under suspicion of numerous illegal acts, including breaking into the e-mails of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency Director John Brennan (and sharing his documents on WikiLeaks) and the Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper. In addition, Cracka is suspected of being involved with a hack that resulted in the publishing of the details related to 20,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation employees. He was interviewed by a newspaper in 2015, and he expressed at that time that his hacking was inspired by his dislike of U.S. foreign policy and support for Palestinians. (Of note: He has also been suspected of rerouting the National Intelligence Director’s incoming calls to the Free Palestine Movement.)

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Discussion Question 1. How would a conflict theorist account for Cracka’s behavior and

those of his CWA youth colleagues?

Sources: CBS News (2016, Feb. 12). Teen Who Allegedly Hacked CIA Chief’s AOL Account in Custody. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cracka-teen-hacker-cia-director-john- brennan-aol-email-account-custody; Franchesci-Bicchierai, L., & Cox, J. (2016, Feb. 12). Teen Allegedly Behind CIA, FBI Breaches: “They are trying to ruin my life.” Motherboard News. Retrieved from http://motherboard.vice.com/read/uk-police-arrest-teenage-hacker-cia- john-brennan-fbi-cyberattacks; Perez, E. (2016, Feb. 12). First on CNN: British Police Nab Alleged ‘Crackas’ Hacker. CNN News. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/11/politics/fbi-british-police- crackas-hacker/

The Origins of Feminist Theories To elaborate on the origins of the many feminist theories that exist would take an entire book itself, so in this part of the chapter we will simply

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http://motherboard.vice.com/read/uk-police-arrest-teenage-hacker-cia-john-brennan-fbi-cyberattacks

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/11/politics/fbi-british-police-crackas-hacker/

present an abbreviated discussion that frames feminist thinking related to crime and delinquency in its bigger context.

Although feminist theorizing about social life is typically traced back to what is known as the “first wave” of the women’s movement, which occurred in the late 1800s and early 1900s, feminist theorists of the “second wave” of the women’s movement, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, began garnering a lot of attention to their ideas. That period in history was characterized by a lot of social movement activity—people were working for social change around issues related to causes such as women’s rights, civil rights, and the peace movement (as a reaction to the Vietnam War). Today, we are in the period of the “third wave” of feminism, one in which the importance of paying attention to the varied life experiences of women around the world is central to feminist analysis.57 Although they differ slightly in the way in which they imagine gender concerns to take shape in our world, feminist theories generally agree on the following:

Gender is not a natural fact but a complex social, historical, and cultural product; Gender and gender relations order social institutions in fundamental ways; Gender relations and constructs of masculinity and femininity are not symmetrical but are based on an organizing principle of men’s superiority and social and political-economic dominance over women; Systems of knowledge reflect men’s view of the natural and social world; and Women should be at the center of intellectual inquiry, not peripheral, invisible, or appendages to men.58

There are many different ways to categorize the various types of feminist theories, but one popular way to divide them is into the major groups shown in Table 6.1.

As Amanda Burgess-Proctor explained, in the 21st century, one of the most promising approaches to feminist theorizing is multicultural feminism.59 Multicultural feminists (e.g., Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill)60 build upon the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberle Crenshaw by putting the concept of intersectionality at the center of social

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issues analysis.61

Intersectionality (also discussed in Chapter 1) is the idea that to truly understand the social experience of others you have to consider the ways in which they experience race, class, gender, age, sexuality, and ability— all of these variables simultaneously affect a person’s experience of the world. By using this sophisticated conceptual lens, we can better understand how a given person can be oppressed in some ways, and be privileged in other ways; it allows for a nuanced investigation of our social reality.62

Intersectionality: The ways in which race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, sexuality, and ability (and other social factors) interact to shape a person’s social experience.

Now that we have considered some of the types of feminist theories, we can look back on Cecilia’s scenario from the beginning of the chapter and think about what feminist theorists might focus on if they were to analyze it. Liberal feminist thinkers would focus on the need for rules to be created and enforced at school to make girls feel safe, and ultimately to prevent delinquency and other harms. Radical feminists would assert that the school’s administration needed to be changed to stop the sexist practices of the school principal, and would see Cecilia’s delinquency as an unsurprising response to the abuse she experienced. They would advocate for the creation of safe spaces for girls to talk about their concerns and experiences at the school. Marxist and socialist feminists would add a focus on the class issues and hone in on the male assailants’ connection to money and power and how it influenced the administration to choose to protect the young boys’ reputations and sacrifice Cecilia’s physical and emotional health. Critical race feminists and multicultural feminists, concerned not only with gender, but with race, ethnicity, class, and sexuality, would also consider the ethnic and class conflict that Cecilia was facing at school. The fact that Cecilia was a Latina who was bussed from her working-class neighborhood, and that she was assaulted by white boys from wealthy families, would be seen as an example of racial, class, and gender privilege all working to victimize Cecilia, and eventually to create a situation from which she needed some sort of reprieve or shelter.

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According to some feminist theorists, intersectionality helps us understand the complex effects of race, class, gender, sexuality, age, and ability on young people’s behaviors.

Siri Stafford/Lifesize/Thinkstock

The Development of Feminist Theories of Crime and Delinquency Feminist theories that focused heavily upon issues of crime and delinquency became prevalent beginning in the 1970s. Much feminist work tries to make sense of youth and adult misbehavior, so we will be highlighting both feminist studies of crime and feminist studies of delinquency in this section. Unlike other traditions covered in this chapter, there are not many feminist theories specifically about delinquency causation, simply because the focus of feminist work is primarily gender injustice, not delinquency specifically.

In 1975, Freda Adler developed one of the best known feminist theories of

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crime and delinquency, a liberal feminist theory known as the liberation theory of female criminality. In Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal63 she furthered the argument that female crime was not, as previous generations of scholars had often stated, a function of biology or physiology, but instead was primarily related to social factors. Women were not born to be better behaving, but simply were socialized to be so. She claimed that as the women’s liberation movement continued to take hold, female crime continued to rise. Girls and women were being socialized to leave the realm of the home and to venture out into the workplace, and at the same time they were essentially encouraged to act more like boys, and men were encouraged to act assertively, aggressively, and sometimes even greedily.

The theory Adler furthered was that the newfound freedom that many girls and women were experiencing was allowing them to pursue criminal and delinquent opportunities that they would not have experienced earlier in history. She examined crime rates as found in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Report and stated that for nearly every type of major crime (except murder and assault) the rates for females increased tremendously since the 1960s, while the rates for males did not. She hypothesized that as women gained more equality with men they would continue to have rapid rates of increase in their official crime rates, and added that female crime tended to be economically motivated and typically was not violent. After the publication of her book, Adler expanded her analysis to look at cross-cultural patterns related to gender and offending in the 1960s and 1970s, and stated that she found similar results in a variety of countries around the world.64

Sexism: The systematic subordination of girls and women based on and maintained by stereotypes of inferiority.

Heterosexism: The institutionalized favoritism toward heterosexual people and bias against others.

From the Classroom to the Community: The Equity Project and Justice for LGBT Youth

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Social science research and firsthand observations of the juvenile justice system in action inspired a number of people from across the country to form the Equity Project (www.equityproject.org). This group, which includes justice professionals from groups across the United States, such as the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), Legal Services for Children (LSC), and the National Juvenile Defender Center, works toward “equity, fairness, and justice” for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) teens who become involved in the juvenile justice system. Because of heterosexism labeling and stigmatization often are a part of daily life for LGBT youth who are forthcoming about their sexuality. As a result, these youth are disproportionately likely to have contact with the juvenile justice system at some point.

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http://www.equityproject.org

The Equity Project is working toward the humane treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth in the juvenile justice system.

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The Equity Project cites the following as some of the reasons why this is the case: LGBT youth often become homeless due to unaccepting families; they sometimes participate in acts of delinquency to survive, such as prostitution and theft; they are often made fun of at school and find it hard to excel and may drop out of school; and they often are isolated and depressed, which leads many to abuse substances as a means of coping. When LGBT youth become involved in the system, their due process rights are often violated—people working in the system stereotype and mistreat them; they are verbally, sexually, and/or physically abused while in juvenile institutions; they are unjustly prosecuted for having same-sex relationships; and their psychological and physical safety is often disregarded.

The Equity Project works to conduct research on LGBT youth in the juvenile court system to create positive reforms in the system by sharing data and advocating for youth. The group aims to make sure all youth have proper legal representation, ensure they are protected from harm while in the purview of the juvenile justice system, and help generate conversations and organizing online among concerned parties. As in the tradition of many critical theorists, the group is attempting to use theory and research to create concrete changes in policies and practices. The Equity Project recognizes that the causes of delinquency have roots in injustices linked to our major social institutions.

Discussion Question 1. As the Equity Project points out, heterosexism and homophobia

can have disastrous results for LGBT youth. Looking back over the course of your teenage and childhood years, what are some experiences that you can now recognize as involving heterosexism and/or homophobia affecting young people? Were there adults who actively addressed these forms of oppression either before or after they occurred? How did the individuals who were targeted respond? In delinquency? What are some groups in your local area that do work similar to that of the Equity Project?

Although many feminist observers appreciated the shift in emphasis from theories of female biological and physiological inferiority to a discussion of the social basis of crime and delinquency, Adler’s theory was met with a good deal of criticism in the years following its dissemination,

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particularly from feminists who studied Adler’s work and stated that she misinterpreted the data she analyzed or that key parts of the theory were not substantiated, such as the notion that simply filling a particular role in the workplace would be that transformative without a corresponding shift in the power structure.65 Scholars since have criticized Adler’s work for its lack of attention to issues of race and class, as well as its simplistic consideration of gender.66

Carol Smart made another breakthrough in the world of feminist criminology with her publication of Women, Crime and Criminology: A Feminist Critique.67 In this book she looked at lack of attention given to women’s crimes and at the inaccurate assumptions made about women that were part of some traditional explanations for women’s lawbreaking. Like Adler, she debunked ideas related to the claim made long ago by biological theorists such as Cesare Lombroso, who stated that either women (and, by extension, girls) committed crimes because they were motivated by physiological factors, such as hormones, or, unlike other girls, they were born biologically defected and geared toward being criminals. Smart pointed out that these ideas about crime causation were flawed, and treated social problems as biological ones, yet allowed girls and women to be treated with especially serious punishments and treatments. To demonstrate that this was in fact the case, and that women and girls were not always given lenient treatment in the justice system as the popular stereotype indicated, she drew on work by a theorist who is perhaps the best known feminist theorist on juvenile delinquency, Meda Chesney-Lind.

Meda Chesney-Lind has done a massive amount of groundbreaking work in the area of feminist theorizing on delinquency, spanning from the 1970s to the current day. She was one of the first feminist scholars to point out the institutionalized bias against girls in criminological theorizing and in justice practices. In her 1989 article, “Girls’ Crime and Woman’s Place: Toward a Feminist Model of Female Delinquency,” she noted that up until the late 1980s most theories of delinquency were androcentric, or male- centered.68 In particular, she noted that theories of delinquency tended to be focused on lower- and working-class boys. She argued that what she called the “add girls and stir approach” was not sufficient to address the greater picture of delinquency—a picture that, for girls, included being arrested quite a bit for noncriminal status offenses, such as being truant from school, being in need of supervision, and running away from home.

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By ignoring the widening of the net of social control over girls through status offenses, traditional theories of delinquency miss the boat. Chesney- Lind pointed out that although mainstream theories of delinquency have often paid little attention to gender, those creating and maintaining systems of juvenile justice have long been hyper-interested in policing young girls’ sexuality, particularly that of immigrant girls and girls of color, and placing these girls in juvenile institutions in the hope that they will not become “promiscuous” or “immoral.” Chesney-Lind pointed out that a move toward feminist criminology involved looking at the bigger picture of patriarchy, or male dominance, in societal institutions and how variables such as racism and classism interplay with this dominance to affect girls’ lives and influence their behaviors.

Chesney-Lind wrote another article around that time with feminist criminologist Kathleen Daly, which has become one of the most commonly recognized discussions of feminism and criminology. In the article “Feminism and Criminology,” the authors outlined the ways in which mainstream criminology failed to address questions of gender in a meaningful way and considered a few of the most popular feminisms at the time, their perspectives of the world, and how those perspectives might be of use to the study of crime and delinquency.69 (The perspectives that they focused upon at the time were less numerous than those that we discuss in the 2000s and included liberal, radical, Marxist, and socialist approaches.) Daly and Chesney-Lind traced the development of feminist scholarship on crime and noted that two questions had dominated such research in the years before.70 The first type of research looked at what they labeled “the generalizability problem,” whether theories created to explain male delinquency and crime could apply to the acts of girls and women. The second type of research was done in the name of looking at “the gender ratio problem,” the question of why males commit more crimes than females. They made the argument that additional topics about why girls committed acts of delinquency needed to be pursued. They pointed out that patriarchal society allows girls, and women, to be exposed to abuse and violence that shape their behaviors. These acts of violence and abuse need to be at the center of analysis. Get rid of those factors, and you will eliminate a large amount of self-defensive delinquency on the part of girls.

Androcentrism: An approach that places boys’ and men’s experience

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at the center of scholarly examination, thereby neglecting or ignoring aspects of girls’ and women’s experience.

Patriarchy: A social system that is based on “the rule of the father” and a male-dominated power structure that is evident in the majority of social institutions.

Feminisms: The many theories that center on gender and the ways it is constructed and reinforced through laws and social practices.

In her article “Towards Transgression: New Directions in Feminist Criminology,” Maureen Cain agreed.71 She outlined the main concerns that had captured the attention of feminist criminologists historically: studies about gender equity in the criminal justice system and the fact that girls were treated differently than boys in the system, accounts about female offending, and female victimization. She claimed that it was important to utilize a new approach to feminist studies that transcended the typical liberal feminist angle traditionally pursued and to look at the bigger picture, because “what happens to girls and women in courts and prisons connects with what happens in the playground, in the family, and at work.”72 Cain forwarded the idea that the experiences of girls and women needed to be considered on their own—without any reference or comparison to boys and men. She made the argument for what she called a “transgressive criminology,” which would shift studies of delinquency and crime away from using males as universal reference points. By doing this, she claimed that the many different standpoints of girls and women could finally be recognized, after decades of being obscured by an unquestioned focus on boys and men. Cain explained that feminist transgressive criminologists transgress, or go across the traditional boundaries of, criminology as a discipline; they study the lives of girls and women in their broadest sense first, and only as a result of being interested in big questions about topics such as gender, power, and violence do they end up studying questions of delinquency and crime. Cain claimed that boys and men should be studied too, but that yet another shift of focus was in order: Scholars needed to analyze society’s constructions of maleness and in particular ask, what is it about being a boy or a man in society that is criminogenic or crime producing? The numbers demonstrate that most people involved in crime and delinquency are male, and rather than

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spending time studying why females are not more involved in crime, Cain argued that the focus needs to be on how ideas of what it is to be a boy or a man shape future behavior.

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Feminist research finds that girls often experience a number of stressors, including trauma and abuse, which precede their delinquency.

As Kathleen Daly in “Feminist Thinking About Crime and Justice” explains, in the 2000s feminist scholars are, on the whole, not so interested in creating general theories of crime and delinquency but are interested in developing theories about women’s participation in crime and their victimization, considering how crimes and laws are gendered, and analyzing the language of law, policy, and popular discussions in terms of their consideration of gender justice.73 Among the central questions asked are “How does sex/gender structure women’s and men’s identities and actions, and how, as active agents, do men and women produce the structures that shape them?” As we know, human beings create the very institutions that we then must answer to. Feminist scholars of delinquency, crime, and the criminal justice system look closely at how we buy into or challenge ideas of sex and gender as well, and how criminal justice institutions reflect these stances. Feminist criminology today has embraced a look at the multiple factors that affect human experience by moving beyond a focus on gender to focusing on race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability—as alluded to previously what critical race scholar and lawyer Kimberle Crenshaw famously termed intersectionality.74 This focus on the complex interactions between social variables allows feminist scholars to counter the backlash against feminist criminology that has manifested in recent years with a body of rich and grounded data.75

Feminist studies of delinquency generally find that “the fact that they are less serious delinquents than their male counterparts does not mean that girls have fewer needs; indeed, a close review of their situations reveals a pattern of interconnected troubles that indicate the highly negative contexts and experiences that produce their delinquency.”76 Work that examines these interconnected experiences explores the gendered pathways that differentiate girls’ delinquency from boys’.77 In “Girls’ Troubles, Girls’ Delinquency, and Gender Responsive Programming: A Review,”78 factors including trauma, destructive and distraught families, dangerous neighborhoods and unsafe schools, substance abuse, physical and mental health problems, as well as risky sexual behavior and need for special education were highlighted as being central to the creation of

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delinquency on the part of teenage girls and worthy of serious consideration. Emily Salisbury and Patricia Van Voorhis’ quantitative examination of gendered pathways to delinquency found three pathways that led girls to incarceration as adults: childhood victimization that led to mental health challenges and substance abuse; unhealthy intimate relationships that facilitated victimization as adults, a reduction in self- efficacy, and substance abuse and mental health challenges; and challenges in the realm of accumulating social and human capital that result in difficulties with financial issues and employment.79 The quantitative study of Natalie J. Jones and her colleagues also found that many girls follow gendered pathways to delinquency, yet they additionally found that some of the girls in their sample displayed a path that was in line with the traditional notion of the antisocial youth (i.e., had pro-delinquency attitudes, displayed impulsivity, and acted out more violently than other youth).80

In “The Struggle for Heterofeminine Recognition: Bullying, Embodiment, and Reactive Sexual Offending by Adolescent Girls,” James Messerschmidt examined the effects of both gender conformity pressure and heterosexual sexual norms on girls (i.e., the effects of pressures of heterofemininity)who did not live up to dominant gender or sexual expectations.81 He demonstrated that teen girls sometimes sexually offended in response to bullying by others, and because of a desire to satisfy heterofeminine gender expectations and to become sexually experienced, they took advantage of boys who were younger and socially less powerful than they were. Feminist studies, such as those by Messerschmidt and gendered pathways theorists, highlight the need for societal change to focus on violence and the various “isms”—sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism—to decrease the delinquency of both girls and boys.

Gendered pathways: Pathways to delinquency that are influenced by one’s gender.

Critical Theories of Delinquency and Public Policy As you can see, the various critical theorists all point to large-scale factors

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in their discussions of delinquency. These macro-level factors are not easily changed through social policies, but piecemeal efforts can be made to chip away at what are seen as unjust institutions, which critical theorists believe will lessen the prevalence of delinquent acts. Social policies that decrease formal labeling of juvenile misconduct are favored by labeling theorists. The least amount of formal intervention possible is seen as ideal by labeling scholars—this can be through informal diversionary measures when young people get in trouble for relatively minor acts of delinquency or decriminalizing or removing harsh punishments from acts that currently are penalized. Labeling theorists, like other macro-oriented thinkers, support policies that allow families and youth access to resources and opportunities to stave off delinquency. According to conflict and Marxist theories, a switch from a capitalist to a socialist economy (an economy that reduces economic disparities between people) would help reduce delinquency. Because this is a very unlikely scenario to occur in the United States today, critical theorists usually support the redistribution of power in whatever way possible, through progressive taxation, minimum- wage laws, comprehensive health care, paid parental leave, and policies to support families in general.82 Feminist theorists are concerned with promoting just relations not only in terms of gender, but also in terms of race, sexuality, ethnicity, and class. A dismantling of sexism is a primary concern, and although all feminists do not agree on these issues, many will advocate policies that include the equal treatment of men and women, and boys and girls, under the law (e.g., equal pay for equal work), as well as the elimination of patriarchy and gender discrimination through education and affirmative action policies. Many feminists support antiracist and antiheterosexist practices and juvenile justice policies that make these practices real for youth both in and outside of juvenile institutions. An acknowledgment that abuse, neglect, and violence disproportionately affect low-income girls and girls of color is also seen as central to the improvement of delinquency-related policies and practices in order for them to be fully effective.

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Summary

As we look back on this chapter of critical theories, it becomes apparent that a wide variety of theoretical attempts to address delinquency and crime come from a critical perspective. Critical theorists are concerned with big questions of power and social control, and although you have seen in this chapter that some theories have been specifically concerned with addressing crime and delinquency, most critical scholars focus their work upon examining and transforming systems of inequity and oppression.

The critical perspectives include labeling theories, which are based on the theoretical contributions of people such as Edwin Lemert, Howard Becker, and Erving Goffman. Labeling theory gained popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and highlighted the ways that the labeling of youth as delinquents and the corresponding negative reactions to them, such as stigmatization and punishment, could lead to secondary deviance. After youth are labeled with the master status of “delinquent” (or any other similarly negative label), their status becomes degraded in the eyes of others, and it is more likely that they will end up engaging in future delinquent acts (or continue on the path of a “criminal career”). Becker’s typology of deviant possibilities outlined the ways that a deviant label placed upon a person may or may not correspond to one’s actual behavior, and highlighted the fact that at the end of the day the label itself has negative consequences regardless. Labeling theorists also have pointed out that the control of young people’s behavior is related to the efforts of moral entrepreneurs who begin moral panics over an issue and then inspire crusades to get a hold on whatever issue appears to be out of hand. Recent research in the labeling tradition has shown that moral panics related to delinquency often focus upon youth of color and, particularly, black male adolescents. In addition, contemporary labeling research has demonstrated that self-concept, social exclusion, and cumulative disadvantage are important factors to consider in order to understand why some labeled youth engage in

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secondary deviance and others do not. Considerations of how positive labeling can facilitate delinquency and how youth work to consciously resist labels are also important new areas of labeling theory explorations.

Conflict theories utilize some of the insights from labeling theory in their consideration of how power and socioeconomic class affect the creation of delinquency and the control of both delinquency and youth deemed to be troublesome. These theories are rooted in macro-level or big-picture analyses of economics, race relations, and social justice. Many variants of conflict theory build upon the class-based analyses of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels and the idea that individuals from the working class, or the unemployed class, are more likely to experience the negative effects of power relations central to the functioning of a given economy. Laws themselves are thought to generally be more reflective of the needs of the economically powerful in a given society (capitalists today), than those of the least powerful in a given society. Many critical theories are also influenced by the race- and class-based analyses of W. E. B. Du Bois. Du Bois pointed out that many laws in the United States have traditionally benefited wealthy white people and harmed poor and working-class people of color. Crime and delinquency, in this perspective, can often be seen as a form of resistance against unjust laws and social practices. Richard Quinney’s critical criminological theory of the 1970s is the best known modern articulation of how laws reflect the needs of the privileged. Critical delinquency researchers coming from a critical perspective in the 1970s (e.g., Gordon and Greenberg) emphasized the role of juvenile detention as one that affects communities of color the most seriously, one that helps stem any protest or opposition to capitalism and unjust laws or social practices, and one that increases the likelihood that the youth who are targeted will one day reoffend. The Integrated Structural-Marxist Theory of Delinquency (Colvin and Pauly) forwards the idea that capitalism affects workers in certain ways, and those practices of authority placed upon them in the workplace are replicated in the discipline of their children at home; these factors in turn affect juveniles’ experiences of authority and social control and may affect the likelihood of participation in delinquent subcultures.

Feminist theories of delinquency are best known for their consideration of the role of gender in delinquency, and their emphasis on using theory to change the world to a more just one (i.e., praxis). In addition, contemporary feminist theories focus on intersectionality, and the ways in which race, class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and other factors work together to influence young people’s behaviors. Feminist theories can

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be traced back to the “first wave” of feminist scholarship in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the “second wave” of the 1960s and 1970s, and the most recent and current “third wave” of feminist scholarship. Feminist scholars of delinquency have noted that there has traditionally been a focus on boys and young men in the research and have worked to analyze the experiences of girls and young women. There are numerous forms of feminist theories that influence delinquency scholarship today: liberal, radical, Marxist, socialist, critical race, postmodern, lesbian, and transnational. Feminist theorists focused on crime and delinquency (e.g., Freda Adler, Carol Smart, Joanne Belknap, Kathleen Daly, and Meda Chesney-Lind) have shifted the focus to girls. The majority of these theorists agree that the abuse and violence that girls are disproportionately exposed to in a patriarchal or male- dominated society need to be central to an analysis of girls’ delinquency. Questions about how the experiences of girls in the juvenile justice system mirror the treatment of girls in society as a whole, about the gendered nature of laws and their enforcement, and about the ways in which gender expectations shape youth’s delinquent and nondelinquent responses are investigated. Feminist scholars today focus upon the need to eradicate not only sexism, but racism, classism, and heterosexism. Indeed, all critical scholars agree that if such changes were to take place, we could expect to see a corresponding reduction in crime and delinquency.

Eye on Diversity Exercise: Are Critical Theories of Delinquency Being Put Into Action in Your Area?

Are critical theories of delinquency being put into action in your area? In order to find out, begin by conducting some Internet research on activist groups related to juvenile delinquency and/or juvenile justice issues in the city in which you go to school. Then, take the following steps to collect data on the issue:

1. Count the number of groups that have organized around juvenile delinquency or juvenile justice issues in your city. If you are in a large city and there are many of them, simply start by examining 10 of them. If there are not any in the area of your college or university, examine the county in which your school is located.

2. Analyze their websites and statements of purpose. What do they state is the problem they are setting out to address? How do they define it? Jot down your observations on a piece of paper, and then step back and consider if their statements reflect any of the concepts related to the labeling, conflict, and/or feminist

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perspectives. 3. Next, consider how they are attempting to address the problem as

they have defined it. See if the methods they recommend reflect labeling, conflict, and/or feminist perspectives.

4. Finish the exercise by writing a paper of your findings. If you have analyzed several groups, you may want to create a chart that categorizes the findings to easily gauge if there is a critical presence among activist groups in your region.

Discussion Questions 1. Labeling theorists’ fundamental concern is with secondary deviance

rather than primary deviance. What are the strengths and weaknesses of this approach? What other theory do you think would work well with labeling theory to explain primary deviance? Why?

2. Several conflict theories of crime and delinquency were discussed in this chapter. Which one do you think best addresses delinquency today? Explain what elements of the theory made you choose it.

3. The idea of intersectionality is central to many feminist theories today. What does the concept signify? How does the application of this concept help us better understand the experiences of a particular young person?

4. Critical theorists often see youth’s involvement in delinquency as a form of resistance against unjust treatment. What do you think of this proposition? Can you think of examples when resistance is related to delinquency? Can you think of examples in which resistance does not explain delinquency? List your examples.

5. In what ways do labeling, conflict, and feminist theories address power disparities? Which approach do you find the most compelling?

Key Terms Androcentrism 174 Class conflict 163 Class struggle 163 Conflict delinquent subculture 168 Conflict theorist 162 Criminal delinquent subculture 168

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Cumulative disadvantage 160 Deviant career 160 Feminisms 175 Gendered pathways 176 Heterosexism 171 Intersectionality 170 Looking-glass self 159 Master status 156 Moral entrepreneur 157 Patriarchy 174 Power 154 Primary deviance 155 Racism 164 Secondary deviance 155 Self-concept 159 Sexism 171 Social exclusion 159 Social inequity 154 Spoiled identity 155 Stigmatization 155 Symbolic interactionism 159

Chapter Pretest Answers 1. True 2. True 3. False 4. True 5. False 6. False 7. True 8. True 9. True

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Part 3: The Social Contexts Of Juvenile Delinquency

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni; ©iStockphoto.com/yzak; AP Photo/Lawrence Journal-World, Aaron Lindberg/ASSOCIATED PRESS; ©iStockphoto.com/jpbcpa

Chapter 7: Families in Context 182 Chapter 8: Schools in Context 216 Chapter 9: Peers and Gangs in Context 248 Chapter 10: Drugs in Context 276

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Chapter 7 Families in Context

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

Chapter Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to

Describe the nature and extent of family trends, including marriage, divorce, and unmarried birth rates Explain the complicated relationship between family structure and delinquency Explain the impact of family process on the relationship between family structure and delinquency Explain the impact of family process on delinquency Explain the nature and extent of child maltreatment Analyze the complicated relationship between child maltreatment and delinquency Explain the relationship between child maltreatment, parental incarceration, and the experiences in foster care for youth

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Chapter Pretest

Test your knowledge of this chapter’s material by determining whether the following statements are true or false. Be sure to compare your answers with the answers on page 214.

1. There is a greater percentage of children in two-parent households than any other type of household.

2. Family structure is a stronger predictor of delinquency than family process.

3. Gender, race, class, and age have an impact on how juveniles experience family relationships.

4. An egalitarian household is one in which both partners earn the same amount of money.

5. Older children are more likely to be maltreated than younger children.

6. Neglect is the most likely form of maltreatment that children experience.

7. Black children have the highest rates of maltreatment. 8. Girls who run away from home are more likely to report sexual

abuse than boys who run away from home. 9. LGB teens are one of the largest subgroups of teens to run away.

10. Parental incarceration affects all children equally. 11. When a father is incarcerated a significant majority of children are

cared for by the other parent. 12. Foster youth are more likely to be absent from school than non-

foster youth.

In 2003 the San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership published a bill of rights for children of incarcerated parents. Based on original work by Gretchen Newby of Friends Outside, a California organization that addresses the special needs of families affected by incarceration, Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Bill of Rights recognizes that children’s needs extend well beyond physical comfort and security. The following excerpt is from Parenting Inside Out, an Oregon-based program that advocates for parents’ and children’s rights while parents are incarcerated, and conducts a parenting program to increase parenting skills for those incarcerated:1

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1. I have the right to be kept safe and informed at the time of my parent’s arrest.

Many children of offenders are introduced to the criminal justice system when their parent is arrested and they see him/her taken away in handcuffs. The majority of police and sheriff’s departments do not have protocols for dealing with the children of arrested parents; in too many cases, the resulting experience is terrifying and confusing for the children left behind.

2. I have the right to be heard when decisions are made about me.

When a parent is arrested, children whose chaotic lives may already have left them with little sense of control often feel even more alienated from the events that swirl around them. Adults they have never met remove their parents with little explanation, then decide where the children will go without consulting them.

3. I have the right to be considered when decisions are made about my parent.

Ask the child of an incarcerated mother what might have improved his life and his prospects and you’re likely to hear some version of this answer: “Help for my mom.” Even after years of trauma and abandonment, young people are likely to see their parents as troubled and in need of support, rather than as bad and in need of punishment.

4. I have the right to be well cared for in my parent’s absence.

When a child loses a single parent to incarceration, she also loses a home. In the most extreme cases, children may wind up fending for themselves in a parent’s absence.

5. I have the right to speak with, see and touch my parent.

Visiting an incarcerated parent can be difficult and confusing for children. If the parent is in a county jail, the child may have to talk to him on a staticky telephone and look at him through scratched Plexiglas. If he is in prison, the child may have to travel a long distance to spend a few hours in a visiting room full of other prisoners and their families.

6. I have the right to support as I struggle with my parent’s incarceration.

Children whose parents are imprisoned carry tremendous burdens. Not only do they lose the company and care of a parent, they also must deal with the stigma of parental incarceration and fear for their parent’s safety and well-being. Researchers who have

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interviewed offenders’ children have found them prone to depression, anger and shame. Many young children experience a parent’s arrest as simple abandonment.

7. I have the right not to be judged, blamed or labeled because of my parent’s incarceration.

Incarceration carries with it a tremendous stigma. Because young children identify with their parents, they are likely to internalize this stigma, associating themselves with the labels placed upon their parents and blaming themselves for their parents’ absence.

8. I have the right to a lifelong relationship with my parent.

Separation is hard on families—but so, paradoxically, is reunion. Recently released prisoners face an obstacle course of challenges and obligations. They must maintain a relationship with a parole or probation officer; find work and housing despite a criminal record; and struggle to rebuild relationships with friends and family.

Losing a parent to incarceration is a life-changing event. Those who work with children impacted by incarceration can use this Bill of Rights to guide policies and procedures that can help to mitigate some of the trauma and can help children develop the resilience to live positive, prosocial lives.

Source: San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents.

This chapter is about family and delinquency. Most people would probably assume that when we say family and delinquency we mean how family life (most often thought of as structure—one parent or two—and process—for example, attachment or supervision) might affect youth behavior. Certainly this is a large component of the discussion, and we devote ample time to it. But there are so many more issues that fall under family. In this chapter we will examine how the family has changed, child maltreatment, parental responsibility laws, the impact and response of running away from home, the growing phenomenon of parents in prison, and the influence these issues have on the lives, experiences, and behavior of our youth. And, as with every chapter, we will examine the diversity of these experiences based on race, class, gender, and sexual orientation.

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