Strain Theory and Crime

Crime and Its Impact on Youth

Crime impacts children differently than it does adults. This paper examines the differences and the reasons children are affected uniquely by crime. It looks in particularly at the multiple theories that can be used to explain these impacts, such as Strain Theory and Social Control Theory. It also identifies the unique challenges that children and adults face as they struggle to cope both with the environments in which they live and the criminal justice systems that confront them. The paper concludes that children are uniquely impacted by crime because they are still in their developmental stage, wherein their psychology and physicality are still highly susceptible to external influences.

Introduction

Children suffer from the effects of crime in different ways from adults. This is primarily due to the fact that children are still developing, both cognitively and physically, whereas adults are already developed. Crime thus impacts the development of the child/youth, altering the likely outcome of that child's adolescence and setting the stage for a troubled adulthood if no intervention is adequately employed to re-route the course set by crime's effect. This paper will discuss the impact of crime on youth and show how theories and concepts of juvenile delinquency can be used to address the issue more fully.

Social Theories

There are several theories that can be used to explain the behaviors of developing youth. Strain Theory, Social Control Theory and Social Learning Theory all point to how issues outside the individual impact the developmental course of the psyche. When combined with the physical changes and needs that a growing person needs, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, the impact of crime on youth can be analyzed in a way that produces positive results. As Werner and Silbereisen (2003) note, the cause of most delinquency in youths stems from problems that arise in the youth's home life -- it can be the result of a broken home, divorce, abuse, or other types of negative surroundings that push the child into seeking relief, identity, kinship or retaliation via delinquent behavior. In their study on how "harmonious" families are more likely to produce positive outcomes in terms of child development, Werner and Silbereisen (2003) show that there is a correlation between trust, autonomy, prosocial experiences, and family cohesion, while a lack of these elements is consistent with juvenile delinquents and the homes from which they come. In other words, stable homes tend to produce stable youths who develop into stable adults. Unstable homes tend to be impacted by criminal activity (substance abuse, domestic abuse, etc.) and lead more to unstable youths who develop into unstable, criminal adults absent adequate intervention.

The Development Factor

Thus, the impact of crime on youths is a direct blow to their sense of self as a positive force in the home and in society. As Agnew (2008) points out, environments impact juvenile behavior -- this is the essence of Strain Theory. Strain Theory holds that criminality stems from negative states in which the criminal is immersed for a long duration of time. Rather than suggesting that criminal behavior is "learned" as Social Learning Theory posits, Strain Theory argues that criminal activity and juvenile delinquency is the result of the individual's core suffering from the strain of living in a negative state. This would help to explain why troubled homes tend to correlate most commonly with juvenile delinquency. The negative states of the home life place undue strain and pressure on the child so that he or she acts out in a negative manner. The child essentially articulates through his or her actions that nothing around him or her is positive, that the society in which he or she finds themselves is intolerable, and that the only logical thing to do is to lash out -- to get back at society. The impact of crime on youths in this sense is evident: the child who should be receiving nurturing, care, shelter, proper diet and education is instead immersed in a world where Maslow's hierarchy of needs is upside down. The child retaliates by acting as the aggressor: the victim becomes the perpetrator. It is an attempt at asserting power against what is perceived to be an unjust reality.

From the standpoint of Social Control, the actions of the juvenile delinquent can be explained as the result of the child's desire to control society and benefit himself through criminal acts. It is more focused on the selfish motivation behind delinquency rather than the external forces putting pressure on the child (Schreck, Hirschi, 2009). The child's actions are viewed as having a root in a fundamental, innate disposition towards negative behavior. According to Social Learning Theory, this behavior is learned from peers and/or parents.

Children who suffer from crime are also more likely to be impacted in terms of how their family structure is situated. Children who are victims of crime or commit criminal activity are typically uprooted from their familial environments and either placed in the care of a foster family or taken into custody by the state in the form of juvenile corrections facilities. Children's orientation is thus highly impacted at a young age by crime. Adults, on the other hand, are in a much different place in terms of family associations. Adults are not as dependent upon family structures for having their needs met. Maslow's hierarchy of needs may still apply to them but not in the same developmental sense as is the case with children.

In any case, the child is negatively impacted by crime precisely because the child is in the midst of developing into an adult and the environment in which the child is situated can have a negative effect on the child's psychology and/or physical needs -- pushing the child into a negative state wherein crime is the likely outcome. For an adult, the environment is more likely to already be to some extent in the adult's control. That is, if the adult does not like the environment in which he or she is in, he or she is more likely than a child to have the power to change that environment or at least remove him or herself from that environment and seek out a more positive situation. The child is not in a position wherein this is always possible and thus the only recourse the child has is to mimic the negative behavior that exists in the environment or to lash out at the negative environment. The motives may be different depending upon one's theoretical perspective, but the outcomes are similar.

Child and Adult Differences

Likewise, for an adult, crime can be addressed or overcome through punitive measures -- but for a child, the same punitive measures can in fact be harmful: a juvenile delinquent who is tried as an adult in the courts is set on a course in which the child is earmarked as a trouble-maker for the rest of his or her life. The designation follows them everywhere and impacts their ability to grow, develop, get jobs, maintain meaningful relationships or alter their identity/environment as they age. Additionally, the child is at a particularly vulnerable stage of development where additional pressures or negative treatment can set the child on an irreversible course that could only be changed with substantial counseling and therapy that can take many years (Barrett, Ju, Katsiyannis, Zhang, 2015). Negative pressures whether from courts or from homes and environments can exacerbate mental health conditions that are also commonly found among juvenile delinquents, as Barrett et al. (2015) show in their study of female delinquents. The largest contributors to delinquency according to their findings are poor mental health, dysfunctional family life, broken homes and substance abuse. The cumulative effect of these elements is more criminality. The earlier these elements are foisted upon a developing child, the more likely that child is to develop into one that shows signs characteristic of delinquency.

This same finding is supported by the study by Pryor-Kowalski (2013) who explores the relationship between "intensive parenting" and juvenile delinquency. The researcher found that empathetic environments are more supportive of positive childhood development whereas environments wherein parents are not actively taking an empathetic role in the growth of their children tend to correlate with delinquency.

All of this is not to suggest that adults are not subject to the same environmental pressures, of course. The relationship is substantially different, however. For children, environmental aspects such as a prevalence of criminality is enough to alter the course of a child's future, whereas for an adult who is impacted by crime, their futures are more impacted by a criminal justice system that tends to lead to recidivism (Tiley, 2014). This occurs in a number of ways, but primarily through laws that are in place that criminalize behavior common among groups of people -- such as drug use laws. Prosecution of adult violators of drug use laws is related to prison overcrowding -- and stays in prison, wherein adult prisoners are put to work for companies at slave wages and indebted for materials such as phone calls, shoes, etc. to an extent that when they leave prison they are extremely in debt, tend to lead to increased rates of recidivism. In fact, a vicious circle emerges, according to the findings of Benns (2015).

Children are not yet at the age wherein they are likely to be recycled into the system again and again once they are swallowed up by it. However, if as juveniles they are tried as adults or kept within a juvenile corrections system without any proper interventions or counseling to help them through this difficult time in their lives, they are likely to become the type of adults who do suffer from recidivism and constant return and recycling through the prison system.