In your own words, describe Hirschi's General Theory of Crime.
Give an example of a young person 'at risk' for delinquency based on this theory (give this young person a name). Don't forget, your description of this child and what's going on with them should be based on this theory
posted by ProfessorQuinnCCP @ 11:35 PM
9 Comments:
I. In my own words Hirschi's general Theory of Crime is a form of developmenatl theory that involves different concepts such as biosocial, psychological, routine activities, and rational choice theories.
II. An Example of a young person that is "at risk" for delinquency is John who is 13 years old and does not go to school because he feels as if he cannot pass the class that he will just not go to school. In his eyes, committing burglaries is his way of having fun and is better than going to school. He has already been to juvenile court for truancy and has been ordered to attend school by the judge but chooses not to which is his own rational choice. John does not have a job and feels that whatever he does not have he must take. He lives in a neighborhood that has drug wars, none of his friends attend school and his mother works the night shift so she is not able to be at the house when John comes home. They live in section 8 housing and certain things that John wants his mom is against him having at his age such as rings and jewlery. His sister who is 18 looks after him while the mother is at work.
Hirschi"s Theory Suggest that family breakdown is one leading cause of delinquency. If their is and authorative parent in the home chance are good for a young person not to become a statistic. Children without guidance are more likely to be in the system.Responsibility curbs the appetite for mischief in a child.
Hirschi"s Theory Suggest that family breakdown is one leading cause of delinquency. If their is and authorative parent in the home chance are good for a young person not to become a statistic. Children without guidance are more likely to be in the system.Responsibility curbs the appetite for mischief in a child.
Hirschi's general theory of crime is a developmental theory that demonstrates social control by taking concepts from biosocial, psychological, routine activites, and free will thoeries. Basically he says that "kids break the law when it promises rewards with little threat of pain. Therefore, the threat of punishment can deter delinquency. If the guardians are more involved in children's lives, and targets are well guarded, delinquency will eventually diminish." For example, Stacy Gallmon is now a 16 year old male. When he was little, his father abondened him and his mother to take care of his other family. Because of this his mother takes her anger out on him because he reminds her of his father. So, all of his life his mother never paid much attention to him, unless she was angry, and that's when she relieved her anger on him. Now, he is emotionally and mentally distraught because of his absent father and abusive mother. As a result, he establishes little emotion when encountering any relationship. Also as a result of being abused, he is prone to turning any positive situation into something negative.
Hirschi's general theory of crime draws a dichotomy between the offender and the act.He argues that deliquency is influenced by expectations like advantage,reward and biological disposition.As such, deliquents involve in their deviant acts due to the benefits they get from such acts.The level of social control is the bedrock of this theory.The more a child has social bonds with caregivers the better the level of social control and the less the level of parental connection and bonding the less the level of social control. Therefore, deliquent behavior is related to social control.
(part 2)
Mary Robinson is a sixteen year old girl who refuses to attend school. She is a notorious truant, and has been to boot camp four times in five years. She is highly active and engages in acts of grandiosity for self gratification.She recently stole the badge of honor from a fellow student's bag and displayed the badge everywhere she went,claiming to be the best all round student in the school. Deficient in skills and socially phobic, she hardly participates in class or intellectual debates, but always forges her report cards. The last forgery was detected by her mother but Mary had no regrets for her behavior. Infact she became increasingly aggressive with her mother to the extent that the juvenile program was invited to handle the situation.Mary's mother confessed to the social service agency how she had very little time with her daughter and the periods she spent on prostitution to raise money for the family.The mother rgeretted the neglect that Mary had suffered since childhood and was highly remorseful of the effects it had on her daughter. Mary has since been placed with a Juvenile rehabilitation program and making gradual progress.
Hirschi’s General Theory of Crime was developed from using the combination of biosocial, rational choice, Social disorganization, Strain/Anomie, and cultural deviance theories; and implementing one focused theory of why juveniles commit deviant acts. Juveniles engage in deviant activity for the adventure, if they don’t get penalized for the bad behavior. According to Hirshi, it is common for juveniles to engage in deviant activity especially if they are given a significant amount of unsupervised free-time.
There is a boy named Joe who is 15 years old and comes home from school every day to an empty house, because his mother works in the evening. So after school, Joe has at least 5-6 hours alone in the house. He knows his mother won't be home for a while, so one evening he decides to invite his friends over for a few hours. His friends come over, and they have a good time playing video games. Joe goes in the refrigerator and finds a case of beer his mother bought for herself and her friends that come to visit. Joe knows he is under the drinking age, but he is tempted to take a few beers to share with his friends. He didn't think his mother would notice if a few bottles were missing, so he took them and shared a drink with his friends. He took a big risk by taking his mother's beer, but since she wasn't home he thought that he wouldn't get caught. Joe took advantage of the freedom opportunity, and took a risk of getting into trouble.
Hirschi's General Theory of Crime intergrates the concepts from a biosocial, psychological, routine activity, and rational choice perspective. Hirschi believes that certain actions are deemed attainable as long as there is a form of communication between the act and the offender. He also believes that some of the causes for delinquency are from people with control problems and power issues. In addition to one perspective, Hirschi also makes evident that relationships between people are essential, especially between families and peers. The stronger the relationship, the lesser a delinquent is prone to commit a crime.
Lamont Williams is a fifteen year old male born and raised in the notorious streets of North Philadelphia. Once time reaches 9 PM, 29th and York is no place to for anyone to be. Lamont is fully aware of his neighborhood's current status, because he has been the number one contributor. Though, he was not always this way, but what is young man like himself to do? He was originally brought up in a dual family household with two older siblings: Lamar and Lamaiya. Mr. and Mrs. Williams made sure their children recieved the best of everything; even if they strived to get it done. Until one day, all that ended. While Lamont and his two siblings were at school, the police raided their home. It turned out his parents were secretly selling drugs out of the home for their survival. Both parents were sent to jail ready to do a 7-15 year bid and Lamont, Lamar, and Lamaiya were split up between relatives and foster homes. The closeness Lamont once had with his family had vanished. The mother he had for another three years will never take the place of his own. He realized that she didnt care about him, he was just there for her monthly check from the government. She made it known that she could care less about what he did with his everyday life. Lamont no longer recieved the special attention, moral support, and guidance from the family he loved and missed so much. So, the daily robberies, weekly burgularies, and hourly drug sells became a part of his yearly agenda.
1) Hirschi believes that delinquent will break the law if they know they will have no punishment. If parents give them a serious punishment the delinquent will not do it again.
2)Sandra is 18 years old girls,and she lives in a bad neigborhood in Philadelphia. She dropped from high school, and now she works in a Dollar store, but she does not have a goal for the future. She has been working in the Dollar store for two months. As a result, she is very impolite to the customers. For example, she does not care if she gives the customers a proper change or not. However, when she sees a eldery she tries to cheat the eldery. Moreover, when customer asks her where the product is she yelled at them instead of helping them. One day the manager talked toher , and she yelled at the manager, and the manager told her next time, if she did that again she will get fired. She didn't stop yelling tothe the manager and she gots fired from her job. When she got home she told her parents she got fired from her job. Her parents told her to look for another jo. She didn't look for another job. She took the newspaper with the job advertising, and she went to the bar, she was driking, smoking while she's looking for the job. One of her friends come, and asks her for invite to drive his car to go the Atlantic city. Sandra said lets go" she was driving very crazy in the Atlantic expressway, and she was holding her boyfriend hand, and she was driving with the other hand, without seatbelts. After half an hour the state police stop her. They ask her for her license. She cursed at the police," get of my face! The police arrest her at the police station, they gave her a driving test and she failed it.
Part 2 Hirschi's theory has some general points that we all understand. If you come from a good background chances are that you will become a responsible person. In his theory he says that some people are born with a master trait to determine their delinquency.To weigh the options and choose delinquency over nondelinquency I think that has something to do with your psychological being. Latent theory has been proven that the master trait is at birth.
Post a Comment
<< Home