CRIM5: Juvenile Delinquency w/ Juvenile Justice System

2nd Semester, S.Y. 2020-2021

HANDOUT No. 3 : Theories on Crime and Delinquency

I. LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this lecture, the students should be able to:

1. Identify the theories involved in Juvenile Delinquency

2. Discuss the concepts and theories that attempted to explain the emergence of a
criminal behavior

II. CONTENT

EARLY EXPLANATION OF DELINQUENCY

Classical Theory (Cesare Beccaria)

This theory was consistent with the utilitarian view that people weigh the benefits and
costs of future actions before they decide how to act. This was based on the assumption
that people are rational, have free will and therefore able to choose how to act.

Neo-Classical Theory

This theory believes that children and lunatics should not be punished because they do
not know what they are doing.

Demonological Theory

This theory was based on the belief of primitive people that every object and person is
guided by a spirit. According to this theory persons should not be held liable for their
actions because their body is possessed by evil spirits.

Positivists Theory (Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and Rafaele Garofalo)

This theory that crimes are results of biological, psychological and sociological factors.
Thus this theory promoted determinism as a way of explaining crime. This theory
believed that every act has a cause that is waiting to be discovered in the natural world.

BIOLOGICAL THEORIES

Lombrosian Theory (Cesare Lombroso)

This theory believes that criminals have many stigmata (dinstinctive physical features)
such as symmetrical faces, enormous jaws, large or protruding ears, and receding chins.
General Inferiority Theory (Earnest Hooton)

This theory suggests that crime is the result of the impact of environment upon low-
grade human organisms and that criminals were originally inferior people and Criminals
should be permanently exiled to self-governing reservations, isolated from the society,
sterilized to prevent future offspring.

PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORIES

Psychoanalytic Theory (Sigmund Freud)

This theory claims that when abnormalities occur in the person's basic drive the person
is more likely to experience conflict and delinquent behavior is the result of a defective
superego.

Low IQ Theory

This theory believes that people with low intelligence are easily led into law-breaking
activities by the wiles of more clever people and people with low intelligence are unable
to realize that committing offenses in a certain way often leads to getting caught and
eventual punishment.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Theory

This theory claims that juvenile delinquency is caused by immaturity and hyperactivity
and grade schoolers usually experience attention

Frustration Aggression Theory

This theory claims that people who are frustrated will act aggressively and people who
engage in aggression are frustrated first.

SOCIAL CLASS THEORIES

Social Disorganization Theory (Clifford Shaw and Henry Mckay)

Disorganized areas cannot exert social control over acting out youth, these area can be
identified by their relatively high level of change, fear, instability, incivility, poverty and
deterioration and these factors have a direct influence on the area’s delinquency rate.

Anomie Theory (Emile Durkheim)

Anomie is normlessness produced by rapidly shifting moral values, this occurs when
personal goals cannot be achieve using available means

Strain Theory (Robert Merton)

According to Robert Merton, although most people share common values and goals, the
means for legitimate economic and social success are stratified by socio-economic
economic class. Consequently, youths may either use deviant methods to achieve their
goals or reject socially accepted goals or substitute deviant ones.

Differential Opportunity Theory (Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin)

Delinquent subculture flourish in the lower-class and take particular forms so that the
means for illegitimate success are no more equally distributed than the means for
legitimate success.

Class Conflict Theory (Richard Quinney and William Chambliss)

Based upon the view that the fundamental causes of crime are the social and economic
forces operating within the society. The criminal justice system and criminal law are
thought to be operating in behalf of the rich and the powerful social elites, with
resulting policies aimed at controlling the poor.

Differential Oppression Theory (John D. Hewitt and Robert Regoli)

Juvenile Delinquency is a product of the oppression of children by adults, particularly

within the context of family. The maltreatment of children has been found to be highly
correlated with both serious and moderate delinquency.

INTERPERSONAL THEORIES

Differential Association Theory (Edwin Sutherland)

Criminal Behavior is learned primarily within the interpersonal groups and that youths
will become delinquent if definitions they have learned favorable to violating the law
exceed definitions favorable to obeying law within the group.

Social Learning Theory

Behavior is modeled through observation, either directly through intimate contact with
others, or indirectly through intimate contact with others, or indirectly through media
interactions that are rewarded are copied, where as those that are punished are
avoided.

SITUATIONAL THEORY

Drift Theory (David Matza and Gresham Sykes)

Delinquency hold values similar to those law abiding citizen but they learn techniques
that enable them to neutralize those values and drift back and forth between legitimate
and delinquent behaviors.

Social Reaction Theory

Labeling Theory(Howard Becker)

This theory views that youths may violate law for a variety of reasons and it can give
them a label that they may carry throughout life. These labels include “troublemaker”,
“juvenile delinquent”, “mentally ill”, “junkie” and more.

CONTROL THEORIES

Social Control Theory(Travis Hirschi)

This perspective states that members in society form bonds with other members in
society or institution in society such as parents, friends, schools, teachers etc. The social
bond includes the ties and affection that develop between children and key people in
their lives; commitment to
social norms of behavior and to succeed in regards to such values as getting good
education, a good job and being successful, involvement in activities and finally most
persons are brought up to believe in and respect the law.

Self-Derogation Theory

Our self-esteem, motivation to conform will be minimized by family, school and peer
interactions that devalue our sense of self interactions and behavior may be self-
defacing or self-enhancing.

Interactional Theory (Terrence Thornberry)

Viewed that weakening of a child’s social bond as the fundamental cause of

delinquency. Self-Control Theory

Argued that the absence of self-control rather than the presence of some force or factor
such as poverty, anomie, opportunities for deviance, delinquent peers, and exposure to
definitions favorable to deviance, etc. that leads to deviance.

OTHER THEORIES

Culture Deviance Theory

Links delinquent acts to the formation independent subcultures with a unique set of
values that clash with the main stream culture. This theory argue that children learn
deviant behavior socially through exposure to others and modeling of others action.

Structural Functionalism Theory

Some social structures exert a definite pressure upon certain persons in society to
engage in non-conforming rather than conforming acts. These structural and ideological
dreams can cause great distress for those who cannot reach these goals.

Rational Choice Theory

Deviance is a result of highly calculation of risks and awards. Prospective deviants weigh
their own chance of gain against the risk of getting caught and thereby decide a course
of action. Juveniles however do not always choose the most rational actions.

Routine Activities Theory (Lawrence Cohen and Marcus Felson)

This theory viewed that crime is a normal function of the routine activities or modern
living; offenses can be expected if there is a motivated offender and suitable target that
is not protected by capable guardians.

III. KEY POINTS FOR REVIEW

● The early explanations of delinquency can be divided into biological, psychological,

sociological theories. These theories attempted to explain the factors that
contribute to the development of criminal behavior.

IV.READINGS AND REFERENCES

● Hagan, Frank (2008), Introduction to Criminology: Theories, Methods, and
Criminal Behavior, Thousand Oaks, Calif. SAGE Publications.
● Manwong, Rommel (2008), Fundamentals of Criminology, 3rd Ed. Wiseman’s
Book Trading, Inc
● Seigel, Larry (2007), CRIMINOLOGY: Theories, Patterns and Typologies, 9 th
ed. Thomson/Wadsworth
● Jewkes, Yvonne (2007), Crime Online, Devon Cullompton UK, Protland, Ore:
Willan ● Treadwell, James (2006) Criminology, London; Thousand Oaks, SAGE