Masculinity Among Scottish Teenage Offenders: Article Analysis

This article explores the link between masculinity and how it has affected the violent behaviour among Scottish teenage offenders. This article refers to many different criminological theories, such as Social Strain Theory by Robert Merton, Subcultural Theory by Albert Cohen and aspects of Techniques of Neutralization by Gresham Sykes & David Matza as well as Differential Association by Edwin Sutherland. The authors, Chris Holligan and Ross Deuchar, carried out this investigation to, “document critically the constructions and practices of masculinity” (Holligan and Deuchar, 2014: 362) and of Scottish teenage offenders and to why they commit crimes. The authors would ask the interviewees different questions by visiting “Scotland’s largest young offenders’ institutions” to interview different offenders who committed different crimes
The author’s compares the different interviewees statements and applies them to their own findings as evidence to their conclusion.

Throughout the article there are three main themes running through the article. These themes describe to us what their background was, leading them to commit the crime, was their crime ‘courage under fire’ (Holligan and Deuchar, 2014: 368) and whether it was to do with proving the masculinity to others and for society. This links to criminological theory of masculinity by the authors Richard Collier, Tony Jefferson and James Messerschmidt. They believed that the hegemonic masculinity of power, dominance, aggression and other aspects society displays what masculinity is, can cause men to commit crime to achieve this status of true masculinity. This is seen in the article by an interviewee Davie, it said that he got “kicked out for seven weeks for fighting” using either “a bit knife or a chopper” whilst taking this to school (cited in Holligan and Deuchar, 2014: 368). The article also clarifies why Davie committed these acts of violence, stating that