Sociology Of Delinquency Research Paper

2. What Is Delinquency?

Delinquency is generally thought to mean criminal behavior committed by juveniles under the legal age of adulthood. A widely used definition was proposed by Hirschi (1969, p. 47), ‘[D]elinquency is defined by acts, the detection of which is thought to result in punishment of the person committing them by agents of the larger society.’ Although the notion of juvenile delinquency is now ubiquitous, prior to the late nineteenth century few legal distinctions were made between juveniles and adults. Even childhood itself is a relatively modern concept.

Breaking from the tradition of treating children as ‘miniature adults,’ the start of the twentieth century witnessed a group of reformers in Chicago create the first juvenile court. The motivating idea was that children had special needs, and that to treat them like adults violated American ideals of fairness. The juvenile court was to act as a ‘parent’ for troubled youth whose own families could not, or did not, control them. The doctrine of ‘parens patriae’ led to profound changes in how juveniles were treated, not only for the commission of crimes, but also for a range of so-called ‘status’ offenses (truancy, use of profanity, sexual precocity, tobacco use, running away, and curfew violations). Although most theories of delinquency focus on criminal rather than status offenses, versatility is the hallmark of adolescent misbehavior.

3. Multifactor Correlates Of Delinquency

In the early part of the twentieth century, disciplines such as biology, psychiatry, and psychology were major players in delinquency research, along with sociology. In what was then known as a ‘multifactor’ approach, research proceeded in a purely empirical fashion by identifying all possible correlates of delinquency. Many factors were identified, such as poverty, being male, lack of parental discipline and supervision, poor school performance, peer delinquency, large family size, parental criminality, and immigrant status. Scholars also established a sturdy array of individual characteristics associated with delinquency, including hyperactivity, early conduct disorder, impulsiveness, and low measured intelligence. Moreover, research showed that a small group of juvenile delinquents became repeat offenders and adult ‘career criminals,’ reinforcing the belief that the State needed to identify and treat troubled youth at an early age. The basic correlates of delinquency have held remarkably consistent over time, as has the belief in a small group of chronic offenders that commits the majority of delinquent acts (Laub 2001).

4. Classic Sociological Theories Of Delinquency

Beginning in the 1920s, the sociological study of delinquency began to take a different tack than other disciplines. Against the multifactor approach emerged a shift in attention away from the individual offender and toward the social milieu thought to produce the delinquent. Indeed, as Matza (1964) has argued, the two major contributions of sociology to the under-standing of delinquency are that deviance has a history in particular locales and that delinquency best flourishes when it has group support. The ‘Chicago School’ provided the intellectual breakthrough that spawned this twofold contribution.

4.1 Social Disorganization

Steeped in the tradition of urban sociology pioneered by Park and Burgess at the University of Chicago, Shaw and McKay (1942) proposed a community-level approach to explaining delinquency. In their classic work, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas, Shaw and McKay argued that three structural factors—low economic status, ethnic heterogeneity and residential instability—led to community social disorganization. In turn, delinquent gangs and the age-graded trans-mission of delinquent traditions ensued, accounting for the ecological concentration of delinquency. Delinquent traditions and high crime rates persisted in the same communities over time, Shaw and McKay maintained, regardless of the racial or ethnic groups passing through. Social disorganization was later reconceptualized by Kornhauser (1978) as the inability of a community to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls. The social-disorganization approach is noted for its focus on the explanation of rates of delinquency rather than on factors that distinguish offenders from nonoffenders.

4.2 Differential Association

A related intellectual development was linked to one of the most dominant theories of the twentieth century—differential association. In 1934, Suther-land’s Principles of Criminology was published (Sutherland 1934). As described by a leading student of the theory, ‘The balance of learned criminal and anticriminal definitions determines whether one will be conforming or deviant with respect to a given legal code. If the balance of definitions is favorable to abiding by the law, the outcome is conformity; if violative definitions are in excess criminal behavior is the result’ (Akers 1998, p. 27). Burgess and Akers (1966) revised the theory to argue that an individual is more likely to commit a violation when he she differentially associates with others who commit, model, and support law violation; the violation is differentially reinforced; he she is exposed to more deviant than conforming behavior; and his her own learned definitions are favorable to committing deviance (Akers 1998, p. 51). Differential association theory thus turns on the idea that delinquency is learned, and that exposure to delinquent definitions (the ratio of definitions favorable to law violation over definitions unfavorable) is the key to explanation.

4.3 Anomie And Subculture

Merton’s seminal article, Social Structure and Anomie, (1938) set the stage for another dominant strand of sociological inquiry. Merton claimed that there was a disjuncture in American society between the materialist goals to which all aspired (the ‘American Dream’) and the opportunities to reach them. In a stratified or unequal society coupled with a common value system that stresses material gain, strain, or ‘anomie,’ is inevitable. Merton developed a typology of adaptations to structurally induced strain; crime, he reasoned, was the innovative response to blocked opportunities. Merton took it for granted that anomie and crime were greatest in the lower socioeconomic strata of American society.

It fell to Cloward and Ohlin (1960) to carry Merton’s theory to its logical conclusion for youth, especially adolescent males in lower-class areas of American cities. Finding routes to conventional success blocked, Cloward and Ohlin argued that deprived adolescents formed delinquent subcultures. But the opportunities for crime also varied, with some youth joining criminal subcultures, others conflict (fighting) subcultures, and still others found themselves in retreatist subcultures characterized by drugs and alcohol. Another class-based subcultural theory was proposed by Miller (1958), whereby the focal concerns of lower-class culture—especially an emphasis on ‘toughness’—were argued to spawn a generating milieu of juvenile delinquency.

Cohen (1955) also wrote an influential treatise on delinquent subcultures, but his focus was on the status frustration of lower-class boys in an educational system dominated by middle-class standards. The motivation to join delinquent subcultures was not economic in origin, according to Cohen, but frustration borne of educational inadequacy and humiliation in school. The result was ‘negativistic’ delinquency (e.g., vandalism).

4.4 Control Theory

Rather than looking at ‘push’ factors to delinquency, such as blocked opportunities and subculture, control theory reverses course and sees delinquency as a lack of restraint. At the heart of control theory is the assumption that delinquent acts result when an individual’s bond to society is weak or broken. Delinquency is viewed as a natural outcome of unrestrained human motives, and hence a ‘pull’ factor. Although there are several versions of control theory that share this basic viewpoint, by far the most influential has been that of Hirschi in Causes of Delinquency (1969). Hirschi posed the now-classic question about delinquency, ‘Why don’t we do it?’ His answer is that most juveniles are bonded to society through attachment, involvement, commitment, and belief. Hirschi (1969) showed, how-ever, that these elements of social control varied widely across adolescents and were strongly related to lower delinquency regardless of social status or class back-ground.

4.5 Labeling And Societal Reaction

Unlike theories that explain the origin of delinquency, the innovation of labeling theory was to focus on official reactions to delinquent acts. In Becker’s famous dictum, deviance is not a quality of the act a person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions. ‘The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label’ (Becker 1963, p. 9). The insights of labeling theory led to two strands of research, one on the sources of juvenile justice sanctions, and the other on the consequences of labeling. The latter is most relevant for understanding delinquency causation in the traditional sense. Lemert (1951) maintained that stigmatizing reactions to primary (or original) deviance created what he termed secondary deviance. In other words, whereas primary deviance arises for a wide variety of reasons, Lemert argued that secondary deviation is an adaptation to problems of adjustment created by official societal reactions. The original causes of deviation thus give way to the disapproving, degradational, and isolating reactions of society, leading to exclusion from conventional opportunities and increased contact with deviant subgroups, and finally to secondary patterns of delinquency. According to Becker (1963 pp. 24–39), delinquent careers are sustained by official labeling and sanctioning processes.

5. Recent Currents In Delinquency Research

Social disorganization, differential association, anomie, subcultural, control, and labeling theories have generated a plethora of empirical studies that are beyond the scope of this review. It is fair to state that in some form or another, all these theories remain viable competitors in the current explanation of variations in delinquency. However, a number of developments have taken place to complicate the theoretical story laid down by the classic perspectives.

5.1 Measuring Delinquency

Debates have raged for the last few decades on the proper way to measure delinquency and test the classical theoretical perspectives. There are three major sources of data that have been used, self-reports of delinquent behavior, victimization surveys, and official accounts (e.g., arrests, court records). Unfortunately, these sources of data do not always agree. In general, survey-reports of delinquency show weaker associations between social status (e.g., poverty, race, gender) and delinquency than official records. Whether or not the differential correlations of social factors with official records and self-reports reflect bias by the State or methodological weaknesses in survey research is still subject to debate. There has emerged a consensus, however, that the two sources of data yield reasonably similar patterns when the object of inquiry is serious and persistent delinquency (Hindelang et al. 1981).

5.2 Peer Influence

One of the sharpest disagreements in the sociology of delinquency centers on the fundamental insight (Matza 1964) that (a) most delinquency is group behavior, and (b) most delinquents have delinquent friends. Differential association theory claims, of course, that peers influence delinquency. But the hypothesis that ‘birds of a feather flock together’ (Glueck and Glueck 1950) was offered as a direct challenge to this interpretation, and there has been dispute ever since. It is not an exaggeration to say that after decades of research on the matter, we do not know for sure whether peers cause delinquency or delinquent adolescents choose delinquent friends. Although peers remain one of the strongest correlates of delinquency, empirical attempts to identify the causal mechanism thus continue to be paramount. One of the ways in which the mechanism is likely to be identified is through social network analysis, whereby the delinquency patterns of peer groups are independently assessed through sociometric methods.

5.3 Routine Activities

The ‘routine activities’ perspective (Cohen and Felson 1979) was built on the insight that predatory crime involves the intersection in time and space of motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the absence of capable guardians. Because illegal activities feed on the spatial and temporal structure of routine legal activities such as transportation, work, and shopping, delinquency cannot be understood apart from the ecology of everyday life. For example, the increased availability of lightweight, durable goods (radios, cell phones) and the location of stores, entertainment, subway stops, and unsupervised play spaces near schools are opportunities hypothesized to induce delinquency independent of the pool of motivated offenders. Routine activity theory represents a major shift in thinking that shapes current research.

5.4 Age Invariance And Self-Control

With much controversy, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) introduced the concept of ‘self-control’ and argued that the age–crime curve (with delinquency peaking in late adolescence) is invariant across social conditions. They proposed that low self-control causes crime at all ages; self-control differs between individuals but remains constant over the lifetime of a person. In this view, delinquent behavior is generated by heterogeneity across individuals in an underlying propensity to pursue immediate self-gratification. Be-cause differences in self-control are alleged to emerge early in adolescence and remain stable thereafter, Gottfredson and Hirschi (1990) argue that the distinction between delinquency and adult crime is not meaningful theoretically. Attempts to test age-invariance and low self-control represent a major stream of research.

5.5 Life-Course Approaches

Sociologists have typically addressed the problem of delinquency by studying why some adolescents commit crimes and not others, leading to between-individual analyses and attribute-based correlates (e.g., sex, family background, personality). The life-course framework proposes a different strategy. Taking a developmental view on changes within persons, life-course criminology is motivated by an apparent paradox: although adult criminality is nearly always preceded by antisocial behavior in childhood, most antisocial children do not become criminals as adults. There is marked variability in adult outcomes even among serious and persistent juvenile delinquents. For example, Sampson and Laub (1993) found that none of the static variables measuring family background, such as poverty, parental criminality, and child super-vision, predicted trajectories of adult offending among formerly incarcerated delinquents. Measures of child-hood extroversion, egocentricity, aggressiveness, and difficult temperament also failed to distinguish persistent offenders from desisters. Looking forward from youth thus reveals troubled adolescents who desist, yet, apropos the paradox noted above, looking back over the careers of adult criminals exaggerates the picture of stability.

In short, background variables are surprisingly weak in the prospective explanation of trajectories of delinquency over the life course. Sampson and Laub’s (1993) life-course theory argues that the reason is because within-individual changes in delinquency are mediated by proximate and time-varying social processes grounded in life transitions, situational inter-actions, routine activities, and turning points. They propose an age-graded theory of informal social control, where the manifestations of social bonds vary by developmental phases of aging. According to this perspective, theories limited to time-stable factors are incapable of unpacking the temporally variable pat-tern of individual trajectories of delinquency. Efforts to explain stability and change in delinquency over the life course, along with controversy over whether a small group of persistent offenders comprises the heart of the delinquency problem, dominate recent research and policy debates in delinquency (Laub 2001).

5.6 Community Variations And Social Process

A final move concerns the social mechanisms that account for the association of community-level back-ground characteristics with rates of delinquency. A renewed tradition of ecological research has focused on the increasing concentration of poverty in cities worldwide and its implication for delinquency. If ‘neighborhood effects’ of concentrated poverty on delinquency exist, as hypothesized by Shaw and McKay (1942), presumably they are constituted from processes that involve collective aspects of community life (e.g., social disorganization, reduced collective efficacy). Yet studying these processes has proven difficult for a host of reasons, such as reciprocal causation (crime can cause concentrated poverty) and the differential migration of individuals into and out of communities. Moreover, neighborhood-level re-search has been dominated by the cross-sectional study of poverty and other demographic characteristics drawn from government statistics that do not provide information on explanatory mechanisms and dynamic processes. A growing body of research in criminology has thus committed to analyzing both structure and process at the community level (Sampson et al. 1997).

6. Whither Sociological Delinquency?

There is good reason to believe that the multilevel study of dynamic social processes will be at the forefront of future sociological inquiry in delinquency. Harnessed to the rich tradition of sociological theory on structured inequality, the prospects appear bright for better understanding of social processes of stability and change, within both individuals and communities.

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