Delinquency Thesis

Middle-Class Delinquency’s Relationship to Gangs: A Persuasive Thesis Statement on a study of whether middle class delinquents more susceptible to committing crime and joining gangs. Although many gang members are now coming from middle class neighborhoods, not all delinquent teens turn to crime or gang life, so how are middle class youth influenced into becoming gang members? The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local law enforcement agencies estimate 1.4 million gang members are in the United States today, with a growing number coming from middle, socio-economic communities. Why are delinquent, middle class teens ostracized by social controls to the point they actively feel a need to pursue a gang membership to fulfill a bizarre
Each year an untold number of teens, from seemingly well-grounded families, have become criminal statistics as they migrate from disassociated youths, to delinquency, to criminal activity. The common thought is middle-class young people are being pushed to gang life out of a need or desire to fill an emotional or physical void and these underlying desires have permeated the subculture and have become the norm instead of the exception. There are several theories which have attempted to explain the reason teenagers turn to deviant behavior, however, for this context we will be discussing only two; the first is the theory of Social Control, which is the way a society attempts to prevent and discourage behaviors that violate norms or laws. People tend to comply with social controls because we dread negative reactions from other people, and these reactions can include, anger, frustration, disappointment, pity and contempt, and if the deviant activity is extreme, then negative reactions may generate from the legal system, to include law enforcement, the courts, correctional and probationary systems (Barkin, S., 2012). The second theory, Strain Theory and Cultural Deviance, is the concept which advocates the values and moral of the middle-class, with a focus on financial success. Violations of this strain theory occur
Female members are usually admitted into the gang by participating in sex with the established male members. Criminal activities of these groups can vary from region to region or can be based on a mutual agreement between two or more gangs, creating a reciprocal benefit for all the groups involved. Crime committed by the stereotypical or “main stream” street level gangs, such as the Bloods, People Nation or Nazi Lowriders, usually involve the sale and distribution of narcotics, assaults, robbery, theft, burglary, prostitution, extortion and murder. The illegal actions taken by these groups often brings them into direct conflict of with other gangs, typically when attempting to engage in business in the opposing groups perceived or claimed territory; these conflicts will usually result in extreme violence, and while these attacks may result in the deaths of gang members on both sides, collateral damage usually occurs to outside parties. Oftentimes, it is the neighborhoods in which the gangs reside which is impacted the most, with destruction of personal property, injuries and non-combatant deaths. Because of the skewed values of these disassociated youth and the violence that follows them, several law enforcement agencies have created anti-gangs task forces or violent crime suppression units to counter these