Juvenile Delinquency and Conduct Disorder free essay sample

According to Dryfoos, Juvenile delinquency generally refers to behavior of youth that violate the social norms, like commit socially unacceptable behavior and the criminal acts. According to juvenile delinquency ordinance, juvenile delinquency applies to those whose aged between 7- 20. As juvenile delinquency accounts for significant proportion of crime rate in Hong Kong, therefore, the cause of it should be considered. In this easy, the characteristics of the youth will be outlined to serves as the foundation to analysis the cause of crime. Then, I will briefly illustrate the similarities and differences of the macro-level learning theories and the micro-level learning theories. Afterwards, I will apply the above theories in analyzing the juvenile delinquency in Hong Kong, aiming to explain that the micro-level learning theories are more comprehensive in explaining the cause of crime. The characteristics of the adolescents Adolescent is the transition period from childhood to adulthood. Such onset of puberty forces a child to be more adult like and therefore shows the following characteristics. We will write a custom essay sample on Juvenile Delinquency and Conduct Disorder or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page First, In order to look like a worthwhile individual, teenagers long for independence. Therefore, they usually view authority as sources for intervening their life and thus usually hostile to authorities, like parents, teachers and police. On the contrary, they want to experience the independence by spending time with friends, research shows that adolescent usually spend twice more time with friends , therefore their thought and action are susceptible to be influenced by deviant peers. Further, teenagers are moodiness as a result of rapid changes in the hormone levels. Therefore, juvenile crime usually is a result of sensation-seeking, without obvious goals and target. Therefore, the above factors show that the immaturity both physically and mentally cause them to be more likely to commit crime. Even the characteristics of the adolescent cause crime, the macro-level learning theory and the micro-level learning theory should also be illustrated. We aims to show that with the characteristics of hostility towards authority and the longing for peer acceptance, juvenile delinquency should be better explained by the micro-level learning theories. Macro-level learning theories The macro-level learning theories focus on explaining the structural characteristics that cause juvenile delinquency. The Macro-Level learning theories include both anomie and strain theory. Anomie refers to a states of low level of moral regualation from rapid social changes , while the strain theories means that people do not follow the social norms to achieve their goals. Both theories views that crime exists because specific groups hold value that are conducive to crime or justify crime in some circumstances. Under such situation, the approval of crime serves as the motivation for crime for those groups. However, there are differences held by the anomie and strain theories in explaining the cause of crime. Their differences are that Anomie is better in explaining why some societies have a higher crime rate. Anomie states that crime exists when a society is placed too much emphasized on the cultural goals and relatively less emphasized on the means to achieve the goals. As a result, the traditional institution fail to regulate the goal seeking behavior, so people tend to achieve the cultural goals illegitimately. The society of which is characterized by anomie where people behavior is subject to less regulation. On the contrary, the strain theory is further developed to precisely explain how the lower class people are pressurized to commit crime. In general, they views that the inability to access the cultural goals produce strain on people. In details, Merton proposed that there are five forms of adaption to strain. However, only the illegitimacy adjustment will cause crime. The first type of the illegitimate adjustment is innovation, which describe people to achieve goal through illegitimate means. The second type of adjustment include substituting alternative goals which may leads to crime, the examples includes rebellion and retreatism. Micro-level learning theory The Micro-level analysis attempts to explain how the individual engage in crime. The differential association and social learning theories shares characteristics on this theory. Both theories emphasize that juvenile delinquent is learned, particularly from intimate others. Also, the association that occurred early in life, over long period of time, frequently are more conducive to crime exists. However, social learning theory specified in explaining that the peer groups is a important social context in which the person learned to defined the law as favorable or unfavorable through the interactions with intimate others. During those associations, the criminal learned the technique and definition that are conducive to crime as afterwards individuals will rationalized and changed their attitudes, that encourages the violation of the law. Therefore, a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definition favorable to violate the law, which is the result of frequent contact with criminal partners. However, the social learning theories are the extension of the Sutherland differential association theory, emphasized equally on the four mechanism by which the criminal behavior is learned through observations. The mechanism includes differential association, definitions, differential reinforcement and imitation. Therefore, Sutherland believes that crime can be learned indirectly by associating with the distant reference group and values. After this differential association, crime is likely when an individual attach the positive and neutral meaning to crime. These definitions made crime morally accepted and justified for the individual. The third mechanism is the differential reinforcement, which means that crime is likely when the individual expects the outcomes for the criminal behavior produce greater amount of tangible and intangible reinforcement than that of the negative outcomes. The fourth is that imitation of the criminal behavior, which is likely when the models have positive outcomes. After examining the characteristics of the teenagers and the sociological theory of crime, we will use the following case to show that the differential association and social learning theory offer a better explanation in the cause of the juvenile delinquency. Drug abuse Differential association and the social learning theories is a better explanation of drug abuse among teenagers. A study carried out by the Hong Kong federation of youth group (HKFYP) shows that teenagers’ first experience with drug is mostly caused by the peer influences. Delinquent friends are the main channel of acquiring drug . The finding is also supported by a local example. An example is from Anna. The reason is that she faces difficulties in adapting to the secondary school life, later she started to take drug as she once went to Disco with her friends, she first feels uncomfortable after taking drug at first, but she became addicted to drug because of friends persuasion. The above cases show that Micro-level learning theories are better than the Macro-level learning theories in explaining drug abuse. The anomic and strain theories will explain the increases in drug abuses are due to the rise in materialism. Such conditions leads the traditional institution, like family fails to effectively socialize individual to relieve their depression in the positive way, meanwhile, teenagers have more monetary resources to relief their depression. Therefore, without sufficient social control, teenagers will try to retreat from the ways and means that society accept and take drug with their friends. However, when considering the characteristics of the teenagers, the differential and social learning theories are more precise in explaining the cause of drug abuse It is known that the media and the parents always promote the message of defending drug abuse. The results are that teenagers felt their freedom are threatened and want to get away from the authority. One solution is that they want to challenge the authority, and meanwhile experienced the freedom through taking drug with friends. Therefore, the differential and social learning theories are better in explaining drug abuse is a learned behavior through associating with the delinquent friends . Such exposure to delinquent friends leads teenagers to attach a positive definition favorable to take drug. For examples, teenagers tend to view drug abuse as a normal part of social life, especially in disco. The delinquent friends will also serves as a role model and people learn the technique of how others take drug through observations. Further, teenagers will become drug addicted as they receive non-social and social reinforcement. The social reinforcement is the continuous support from the delinquent friends. Also, the non-social reinforcement comes from teenagers getting physically high after repeatedly taking drug. Those reinforcements increase the tendency of drug taking and thus cause drug abuses. Therefore, the social learning and differential association theories can explain that apart from recognition of friends the differential perception of reward would cause shoplifting. In this case, the teenagers regard recognition by peer is reinforcement while paying effort to Shoplifting Differential association and social learning theory is a better explanation of the cause of crime. Here we will illustrate it with two local examples . One is that a boy come from middle class steal a cup noodle with his friends, which priced at $9 in a convenience store. Another case is that two teenagers steal a latest mobile phone, they are familiar with the way of stealing and successful stole the mobile phone within five minutes. Anomic and strain theories can explain the shoplifting in terms of the rise of materialism. That means parents,schools are likely to focus on the material success, so the traditional value of gaining money in proper way is devalued by the parents. Thus, the tradition institution fails to socialize the juvenile. Therefore, the juvenile will tend to use less effort to gain the material success, thus the shoplifting is easier to occur. Therefore, the shoplifting is characterized by innovation, which means juvenile turn to use fewer efforts but can still achieve the material that they want. The above cases show that the things stolen are not very expensive, therefore, shoplifting is not stemmed from severe strain, and rather it reflects the want for peer recognition. Teenagers want to be independence and peer acceptance is one way that they can feel confident about themselves apart from their family. As peer acceptance is so important that teenagers will conform to the life of their delinquent friends. When considering the above characteristics of teenagers, the differential association and social learning theories can better explain the cause of shoplifting. The Macro-level learning theories can explain the shoplifting as associated with the intimate friends, such exposure to the delinquent friend leads the teenagers conform to the norms of the delinquent groups through attaching a positive meaning to the shoplifting. As the cases I mentioned, the shoplifting happened with other delinquent friends. Through observing the process and consequences of stealing by peers, the teenagers will learn the stealing technique. The intimation of skills of teenagers is usually resulted in recognition by the friends as reinforcing the shoplifting. Therefore, shoplifting is a learned skill that was rewarding to the individual. Generally, the macro-level learning theories can address the characteristics of the teenagers and further explain associate with delinquent friends will cause of shoplifting. Vandalism is better explained by the differential association and the social learning theory. Here we will illustrate with one local example. During the mid-autumn festival, the youth gang did a bus terminus arson. one of the boy claiming himself as the doer in the facebook and later arrested. The anomie and strain theory explain it in terms of the rise of individualism. Individualism promotes the exercise of one goal and interests. That means the juvenile focus on their own exercise, meanwhile, the traditional value like civil minded is less emphasized. Therefore, the juvenile tends to commit vandalism without guilt as they believe that others will be responsible for cleaning the mass made by them. Vandalism is characterized by the innovation, which means the juvenile still keep their goal but is using a news means to release themselves. The differential association and the social learning theory offers a better explanation in the cause of crime. The reason is that they can explained that the vandalism is usually done with delinquent friends, than the juvenile usually attached a favorable definition to vandal. The vandal can serves as a role model, teenagers can learn the process ofo destructing public property and the rewarding consequences of vandal behavior. In conclusion, the anomie and strain theories of crime offer better explanation of juvenile delinquency than the differential association and social learning theories is invalid as most of the cases can be explained more comprehensively by the differential and social learning theories, so the validity of this statement depends on cases. , while the Micro-Level learning theories explain the individual differences in committing crime.