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Social Disorganization And Labelling Theory

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The paper will address the reasons why youth join gangs. Social disorganization theory is relevant to the topic of why youth join gangs because it looks at the techniques of learning criminal behaviour. Labelling theory is also relevant because it focuses on social structures that may enable individuals to a life of youth gang membership. In this paper, I argue that social disorganization theory can explain poverty and neighbourhoods with a high gang presence, while labelling theory can explain neighbourhoods with a high gang presence as reasons why some youth join gangs. This paper compares the relative strengths and weaknesses of social disorganization and labelling theory. I argue that social disorganization offers the most compelling theoretical …show more content…

Labelling theory emphasizes the ideals of public perceptions, which leads to labelling others amongst society, which in turn, leads to a life of deviance (Super 2017; Tutorial 2017). Nobody in society claimed that the youth of low socio-economic status would lead them to a life of crime, in this situation labelling theory cannot account for why the action took place before the label (Super 2017; Tutorial 2017). Although labelling theory demonstrates that forceful state intervention can lead to criminality, it cannot account for the ways in which the state can intervene to prevent such outcome (Tutorial 2017). Youth of low socio-economic status need to be provided with the funding to potentially enable success, labelling theory does not emphasize other means of less violent enforcement that may properly protect these youth from a gang and a criminal label (Super 2017; Tutorial 2017). Youth can also be drawn towards a gang as a step for financial independence and freedom from their families, labelling theory disregards the notions of forgoing a criminal career rather than being labelled into one (Tutorial 2017). For this reason, labelling theory is unsuccessfully able to explain low socio-economic status as an influence for youth to join gangs. It is unable to provide a broader macro-level reasoning as to why low socio-economic status might influence youth to join gangs and partake in criminal behavior (Tutorial 2017). Consequently, labeling theory only asserts the idea of societal reactions, and cannot distinguish the influences in youth gang membership (Super 2017; Tutorial

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