Law Homework Help

Discuss/debate with your classmates your position on which factors you feel play a greater role pertaining to middle-class delinquency and its relation to gangs: Criminal Subculture, Unspoken Alliance, or Delinquent Gang. 

-Post must be 500 word minimum with two sources.

– Must also respond to two peers of 150 word minimum and 1 source

PEER 1:

They are two perspectives that have been adopted in parenting literature: a dimensional approach that focuses on individual dimensions of parental behaviors, like responsiveness (warmth) and demandingness like control, and a categorical approach that categorizes parents (Pinquart, 2017). About central parenting dimensions, high levels of parental responsiveness (warmth) can be defined as being accepting, nurturing, supportive, sensitive, and warm while low levels indicate insensitive, unresponsive, and rejecting parental behavior. While behavioral control has often been linked to positive outcomes for the child, harsh control for example like physical or verbal punishment and intrusiveness, has often been related to negative developmental outcomes. This kind of control is defined as parental attempts to manipulate their children’s psychological experiences, for example by using guilt induction, shaming, and conditional loving to pressure their children. Those youth join a delinquent gang for a sense of belonging, wishing to build social bonds. Other youths seek a means to achieve a sense of protection in that some inner-city neighborhoods are extremely violent and those who are not members of a gang may be victimized by gang members. This can also lead to youths to join a delinquent gang especially when both parents are rooted in the gang culture whereupon gang membership, becomes an expectation passed from parent to child. In some delinquent youth gang subcultures, a youth being sent to juvenile detention is considered a rite of passage to gang membership.

Subculture is about belonging and alliance building among peers within a larger group. A subculture’s members are usually expected to have more loyalty to its members than others within the larger society – even if it means being unethical or criminal. Those who subscribe to the values and beliefs of the subculture are expected to look out for each other’s welfare, best way to describe it as “have each other’s back”, no matter the consequence. They are typically described using various titles or terms that reflect an association to a larger society. As an example, terms such as brotherhood, chapter, or sets are a few of the terms that are used. A subculture does not necessarily denote a criminal connotation; however, subcultures, criminal or not, do signify a discontinuity of sorts or a difference in the norms, beliefs, and values of the larger group.

One of the assumptions about “subculture” is the lower, subordinate, or deviant status of social groups, being labelled as such. They are distinguished by their class, ethnicity, language, poor and working-class situations, age, or generation (Nwalozie, 2015). Delinquency is not about something individualistic but refers to gangs of boys doing things together, their actions deriving their meaning and flavor from the fact of togetherness and governed by a set of common understanding, common sentiments, and common loyalties. Street youths are motivated to commit crime by the desire to achieve ends, status, or conditions which are valued, and to avoid those that are disvalued within their most meaningful cultural milieu, through those culturally available avenues which appear as the most feasible means of achieving those ends (Pinquart, 2017).

PEER 2:

Subculture is a subdivision within the dominant culture that has norms, beliefs, and values. Those who decide to partake in this subculture are usually seeking a way to belong or an alliance build among their peers within a larger group. In regards of this being true, this also relates to delinquents and would explain why they join gangs in correctional facilities. Those youth join a delinquent gang for a sense of belonging, wishing to build social bonds. Other youths seek a means to achieve a sense of protection. With the use of this information we can determine that delinquents might join these gangs to build a bond they’ve never experienced whether they never had with their family or friends. Those who joins a gang are expected to have more loyalty to its members than others within the larger society even if it means being unethical or criminal. Regardless of the situation gang members may stumble upon, they are expected to have each others back even if it means breaking the law. I believe gang members do this because it’s like a family. When you see a member of your family in a troublesome situation, you would do anything to assist them even if you have to do anything rational because it shows that you truly care for them. It’s the same with gang members. Those who subscribe to the values and beliefs of the subculture are expected to look out for each other’s welfare no matter the consequence.

The youth may also join gangs for a sense of purpose or for a sense of class. Once the youth are exposed to gangs wearing expensive clothing and criminal lifestyles, they will view this as the only means to obtain status and acquire similar material wealth. People would do anything to get known by the world even if it means taking the criminal route as a last resort. There are gangs that will convince and recruit new members by informing them that by joining them, they are a member of their family. They will protect them even if it means with their own life as well as give them what they desire, all they have to do is join. It’s very persuasive because it’s what anyone would want, their desires, a family and a sense of protection. This is what the middle-class would want in their lives especially those who’s been having hard times.