Section B, Question 1: Explaining Youth Crime- Individual, Socio-structural and Systemic Causes

The map relates to Section B, Question 1 of the YODD Exam:Explaining Youth Crime- Individual, Socio-structural and Systemic CausesSpecifically, the exam area examines the role of individualistic theories in explaining youth crime.What propels youths to commit delinquency is often a complex interplay of a variety of biological, genetic, and environmental factors which is further complicated by various reactions to environmental factors.The ‘triad of youth justice’ (Case, 2018:2) reveals that the nature of ‘Youth Offending’ is defined and revised over time through the activities of various social, cultural, economic, political, professional, academic and media influences. It is shaped by how a society chooses to define (construct) ‘youth offending’ at any given point in time, which in turn can influence how youth offending is explained, which in turn can influence how it is responded to through the philosophies, systems, structures, strategies, processes and practices that constitute youth justice- construction of ‘childhood’. Definitions, explanations and responses as three interrelated and mutually-reinforcing elements working together in the social construction of youth offending and youth justice responses to it!Over the last 200 years, a series of explanatory theories have been advocated which seek to identify-•Causes•Influences•Predictors•correlatesA significant number of these theories have privileged the study of young, working-class, white males as the archetypal ‘offender’. As a result, it is important to explore their limitations due to their implicit, “androcentric, ethnocentric and class-centric biases” (Case, 2018:51).These dominant theories have been utilized to inform and shape the way we conceive of youth offending and have helped to shape youth justice responses tom it. As such, it is important to explore their validity!The question requires you to:Identify the historical development of explanatory theories of youth offending.Acknowledge the plethora of criminological theories of juvenile delinquency.Analyse individual explanations of offending.Compare socio-structural explanations of crime.Evaluate the influence of integrated theories on explanations of youth crime

INTRODUCTION

Aim-

Objective-

Context

Content

Reasoning

DESCRIBE

Historical Development of Explanatory Theories of Youth Offending- Traditional Theories

Individual Explanations

Classicism-

Crime occurs due to 'rational choice'

Gives rise to crime control strategies.

Biological Positivism-

Crime occurs due to determined factors at the physiological level and biological levels.

Crime can be treated and the individual rehabilitated.

Socio-structural Explanations

Positivism

Crime occurs due to determined factors at the sociological and psychological levels.

Critical Explanations

Draws on the concept of 'Power'- "By pointing to power without analyzing its class basis and the nature of the state, [the sociologists of deviance and labeling theorists] transformed the actions of the powerful into an arbitrary flexing of muscle" (Young, 1978:13).

Critical Theories

Power to Criminalise/De-criminalise certain forms of behaviour.

Power to evade criminalisation.

Labelling

Structural inequalities becomes institutionalized within the operation of the law and the wider working of the state.

Crime as the product of socio-political conditions which are influenced by the political interests of those who seek to maintain their position.

Focus is on the activities of the powerless whilst obscuring their ability to exploit their own privileged position.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSE

Traditional theories negate the varying factors that are important at those crucial stages of development throughout the life-course such as:

How early childhood experiences and family experiences can impact on later behaviour.

Intertwining of personal factors, social factors, socialization factors, cognitive factors, and situational factors

Integrated Explanations of Crime

Integrated Positivist Theories

Sociobiological theories

Social Control theories of crime

Integrated Risk Factor Theories

Artefactual Risk Factor Theories

Enhanced Pathways Risk Factor Theories

Socio-Political Context

According to Case et al, (2017), this:

“socio-political risk perspective began to gain popularity within criminology in the industrialised western world” (2017:511).

CONCLUSION

Recap

Aim-

Objective-

Context

Content

Reasoning

EVALUATION

RFR assert that their explanations for crime causation have validity- that they are common sense, simplistic, acceptable and practical explanations for crime (Farrington, 2007):

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Case (2016: online) suggests the ‘evidence’ comes from an endless stream of self-fulfilling, repetitive risk factor research studies and experimental, risk-based ‘what works interventions.

Incestuous, pseudo-psychological, Americanised, over-simplified and dehumanising. Privileging this model to the relative exclusion of alternatives (e.g. actually talking to children about their experiences and understandings) ” (2016: online):

SUPPORT

Risk Factor Research Paradigm (RFRP)

Multi-Factor Developmental Theory (Glueck and Glueck, 1930)

The Criminal Career Model (West and Farrington, 1973)

Dual Taxonomy (Moffitt, 1990)

Age-Graded Theory of Informal Social Control (Sampson and Laub, 1993)

Assess risk, target it through intervention, solve crime).

Test their validity and the common claims they make:

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The readily understandable findings of RFR have now become embedded in the Youth Justice system in terms of policy and practice and a ready set of targets for intervention.

Focus of both assessment and intervention shifted from the child to the general environment, the family, and the school environment.

The approach has come to dominate assessment, planning and intervention tools for the identification of ‘factors’ in an attempt to predict ‘risk’

Asset

AssetPlus

Onset

This discourse has given rise to two central concepts:

1. Trajectories- “a pathway or line of development over the life span” (Sampson and Laud, 1993:8).

2. Transitions- life events which bring about short-term changes in social roles within long-term trajectories