Gangs and Social Change/Martin Sanchez Jankowski Reading 11 in Chapter 5 Social Structural Theories. The article was by Martin Sanchez Jankowski which focuses on some of the recent researchers have observed gangs. Gangs are an organized group of criminals. He describes it two ways by the most recent research and they stated that gathering of individuals with a specific negative set of personal attributes or a group of individuals who act in a deviant and criminal manner. (Introduction to Criminology, pg.
Introduction Monster: an Autobiography of an L.A. Gang tells the story of Kody Scott and how he joined and left the gang life. Kody Scott grew up in a world of violence, gangs, suffering, and in a life of struggle during the nineteen sixties and seventies. Kody was born into the gang life in South Central Los Angeles whether he liked it or not because of the corruption going on there at the time. Kody’s life would be greatly affected by the outnumbering gangs growing around the area where he lived.
Another possible answer comes from a facilitation model (Thornberry et al., 1993) in which the norms and the group processes within the gang encourage involvement in violence and other delinquency. If norms within gangs are favorable toward violence and delinquency, members would be expected to adhere to those norms and commit delinquent acts while they were a part of the group. "Once a person enters a group, reciprocal processes lead to further commonalties in activities, including deviant ones. There is a transmission of values and, for some networks, a contagion of social problems" (Cairns and Cairns, 1991:273). A third possibility is that both processes are in effect, operating in an enhancement model, as suggested by Cairns and Cairns (1991), Esbensen and Huizinga (1993), and Hill et al.
As argued, social disorganization and organized crime possibly will result in having similar economic, political and social objectives. As a matter of fact, street gangs may perhaps be ultimately evolution to something huge as organized crime and corrupt political objectives go into its development. With that being said, thoughtful organized crime from the judgment of corrupt political machine and well-known social disorganization may perhaps be significantly soothed to comprehend detailed characteristic concerning
Different sociologists have presented different theories and concepts to explain what drives a person to commit a crime, and research and statistics give us an idea of the type of crimes committed and the places that they’re most likely to occur. However, these statistics can prove to be misleading as not all crime is reported to or recorded by the police. This can be referred to as the ‘hidden figure’, and it differentiates between the official crime rate and the real rate. Despite this, they do prove to be worthwhile in the fact that they display trends and patterns of crime. Sociologists use three different methods to measure crime; each method provides us with particular information and as in all systems of data collecting, there are strengths and weaknesses to the method.
3. What role do research and experimentation play in theory building in criminology? How might a good research design be diagrammed? What kinds of threats to the validity of research designs can you identify? How can such threats be controlled or eliminated?
Hence, when we study crime, it is vital to keep in mind that there are differing viewpoints within the field of criminology as to the fundamental nature of the subject matter itself. 2. How can theories help us to understand criminal behavior or to design strategies intended to control such behavior? Theory helps us to understand the world because it provides us with a fundamental pattern, which explains a variety of
My objective for this paper is to make use of criminologist theories to explain why these three individuals made the decisions to pursue a criminal career and what factors influenced them in following this path. Social Disorganization Theory Criminologists, look at many things when trying to negate what causes people to deviate from social and group norms with regards to their criminal behavior. It follows that sociologists have
City Demographics and Crime Profile Heide M. Banks, Shayla Blair, Neil Lammons, Daniel Stevens, Maria Torres AJS/542 April 14, 2014 Marcela Morales Abstract The effects of crime are serious for a society. Unfortunately, most cities and towns in the United States experience some form of illicit behavior by their citizens. Information concerning the number of vandalisms, burglaries, assaults, and murders of an area can sway prospective buyers from purchasing homes or businesses from settling in a select community. Some believe that urban areas struggle with higher crime rates than suburban areas. Historically, crowded, low-income neighborhoods were thought of as crime capitals.
Prison Term Paper The cause for this paper is intended to give various reasoning on what sanctions are made and the reasons for implementing them. Whether the reasoning is beyond the opinions of viewers and legislature, as a criminologist I can give my professional opinion as well as my personal opinion on what is needed to be done to reduce the crimes of armed robbery. The definition of robbery would be for Robbery would consist of one or more persons forcefully taking valuables or personals without ones permission by over powering them. While conducting research have to make a professional judgment that will better the criminal justice system. Although this new bill maybe intended to pass criminologist and legislatures need to view the outlooks of this situation and view it from different standpoints in life.