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Sociological theory of gang violence
Sociological theory applied to gangs
Sociological theory applied to gangs
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The labeling theory proposes deviance is socially constructed through reaction instead of action. In other words, according to this theory, no behavior is naturally deviant on its own. Instead, it's the reaction to the behavior that makes it deviant or not (Long-Crowell, 2003). Labeling theory helps to explain why a behavior is considered negatively deviant to some people, groups, and cultures but positively deviant to others. The sheriff deputies working for Manitowoc County at a very young age considered the entire Avery family as a bunch of no good trouble makers (Long-Crowell, 2003).
Victor M. Rios was born in Mexico. When he was two years old he immigrated with his mother to Oakland, California. He went through a tough childhood and he and his mother moved several times throughout poor neighborhoods such as West Oakland, The Fruitvale District, and Elmhurst. As a result of growing up in this kind of environments he was forced to be part of Latino East Oakland gangs. Stealing cars, selling drugs, getting into street fights and having problems with police was all he would do until he was 15 years old.
“The Gangs of New York Assignment” “The Gangs of New York” interpreted many aspects of the Gilded Age including politics, immigration, and racism. When the immigrants, which were mostly Irish, came to New York they were treated very poorly. When arriving to America the immigrants were shouted at to go back home and had items thrown at that them when departing the boats that they arrived on. When the Irish came to America a countless amount of them had an illness, this then led to New York being called a “City of fever.” If you had an illness as an immigrant you were put back onto a ship and you were sailed back to where you had came from.
Criminal and conflict gang whose primarily intent of crimes for tangible gains. Social structure theorists consider that the main components to illegal behavior are the ascendancy of social and economic influences that are distinguished in rundown communities where the population is predominantly lower-class citizens (Siegel, 2010). This following theory goes into helping us comprehend ways the human behavior, is the result of physical
The labeling effect is very important because it is determines people’s way to deal and understand things. The people who live outside of the so-called “poor/crime zoon” are hard to understand the people who live inside of these zoon, that is because the other function of the labeling effect, to create gaps between people from different social groups. When people who labelled by the same environment live together, they can create their own rules which are suitable for the corresponding environment. Most of people will qualitative some behaviors as criminal behaviors however, for the people who come from the “crime zoon” these
The labeling effect is when somebody comes out of prison or jail, but are still seen as a criminal because they went to prison or jail. The law allows former criminals to be deny for housing or jobs on the basis that they were in prison or jail (144). This leads to people who are labeled to have a hard time getting jobs, a home, and being part of the community as they are seen as bad people (141). Since the War on Drugs puts so many poor black people in prison, we have make people with already difficult lives, lives more difficult. This could potentially lead to the person doing more crime as they may feel like they have little choice on what to do since everyone sees them as a
CHICAGO TRIBUNE - From Streets to Power: Chicago's Gangs. By: Mia Arroyo. In the bustling streets of Chicago, gangs are both feared and deeply ingrained in society.
Briana: Gangs have had such a negative impact to the city of Norwalk. A gang is an organized group of criminals. These group of people are in ways are deviant to the society. Deviance is the construct that refers to any action, belief or human characteristic that associates of society or a social group consider a violation of a group norm from which the violator is to be punished. For example, in the city of Norwalk we are being constantly looked at as members of the city who might be gang affiliated.
The 1960s and the growth of population within urban inner-city neighborhoods introduced the gang culture to society, typically representing the African American and Latino people. Individuals from all walks of life did not understand the motives of these unorganized groups of people, nonetheless, the hip hop culture saw the prominent influence of gang life. These gangs created a foundation for this culture by focusing on three elements called the “Three R’s”: reputation, respect, and retaliation. The reputation aspect of gang culture was not only important to the gang as a whole, but also the individual gang member. In order to obtain and maintain a reputation, dominance and power need to be shown during an initiation process, as well as defending
Labeling Theory In general, labeling theorist focus on how and why certain acts are defined as criminal. Under labeling theory, nit everyone who commits an offense is punished for it. Becker (1963) stated that social groups create deviance by creating the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling as outsiders. As a result, once a certain label is placed on an individual, he or she eventually accept the label as personal identity.
Have Gangs Changed for the Better or Worse Over the Past One Hundred Years? Chicago gangs in the 1920s were notorious for prostitution, committing robberies, drug usage, and for selling alcohol during prohibition. However, they never had as much violence as the gangs in Chicago now. Al Capone was the top crime lord of the 1920s; he was never convicted for any of the crimes he did, and ended up going to jail for tax fraud. Even though Capone and other gangs did still kill, it was only rival gang members and was not nearly as often.
Labelling theory is the most important approaches to understanding deviant and criminal behaviour. The labelling theory is rooted in the idea of social construction and how people view one another and is one of the most focused field in sociology thanks to Howard Becker. The labelling theory begins with the assumptions that no act is initially criminal. The definition of criminality is established by the those who are in power which is done through the formation of law. To be able to understand the work of H. Becker one must understand that deviance is not a set of characteristic or a group of people, but it is the process of interaction of the deviant and the non-deviant and how the law may interpret this interaction.
His theory focuses largely on society’s reaction to behaviour as opposed to the individual them self. For labelling theorists, deviance is a social construct which therefore must be socially controlled. ‘Social groups create deviance by creating rules and applying them to particular people whom they label as ‘outsiders.’ In other words an act is not seen as deviant until it is labelled by others. Some argue that social control agencies such as the police force, education system and the courts label certain social groups based on stereotypical themes such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, attitudes (Becker 1963).
The definition of a gang as most of us know it, is an organization or group of criminals. A violent group that comes in many different types’, race, age, and geographic background. However, most gangs reside in urban areas and in poor community. The most recognizable gangs that the American media, culture, and justice system look at frequently is African American gangs. Those are the at-risk gangs or thugs that is frequently said to African American gangs.
Basically it is a sociological theory which describes individuals in terms of behavioural characteristics. Usually it is linked with stereotyping. And one of the most common labelling is for diagnosis of a mental disorder. Labelling theory of mental illness is an important framework for understanding the effects of stigma associated with the devalued status of person with mental illness (Lemert et al., 1951). Labelling affects individuals to really understand the mental disorder and their consequences.
