Dr. V.K.Maheshwari, M.A(Socio, Phil) B.Sc. M. Ed, Ph.D
Former Principal, K.L.D.A.V.(P.G) College, Roorkee, India
Generally, three major approaches are Biogenic Theory, Psychogenic and Sociogenic. Biogenic views stress faulty Biology for Juvenile misconduct. Psychogenic approaches are varied in character, but in general stress the psychological pathology of the delinquency. The Sociogenic theory explains delinquency in terms and conditions of social structure. Likewise, Sociological explanation deals with Sociogenic theory. Some of the theories are briefly discussed below.
( A) Biogenic Theory
Biological determinists maintain that the physical qualities which people inherit or develop may cause them to violate the law. Physical make-up separates the deviant from the non-deviant.
Ceases Lambroso is regarded as the profounder of this theory. He declared “a criminal to be an atavistic phenomenon, a biological throwback since the somatological characteristics of criminals resemble those of primitive men. According to Cessare Lombroso, a biologist with an outstanding contribution to the science of criminology, “there exists a group of criminals born for evil, against whom all social cures break as against a rock.” Criminality according to him is in-born. A typical criminal, says Lombroso, has certain physical characteristics as low forehead, hairy body, red eyes, ear deformation, receding chin, big and protruding jaws, and an extreme sensitivity or nonsensitivity to pain.
Gall was a Viennese physician, “noticed that some of his fellows with pronounced characteristics had certain head configurations. He asked himself why people had “such different faces and such different natures; why one was deceitful, another frank, a third virtuous”. In attempting to answer these questions he made it a point of his life to examine every head he could find. He haunted medical laboratories, he visited prisons and lunatic asylums, his fingers fairly “itched” to measure the bumps and inequalities of the skulls he found. He thought he discerned a relationship between head “Knobs” and certain propensities and character traits, to which he gave fancy names. In this manner phrenology launched itself upon a world eagerly waiting toreceive it.
(B) Psychogenic Theory
These theory stresses the psychological pathology of the delinquent. There are many researchers who have stressed the Psychological and Psychiatric variables to be highly related to delinquency
Glueek and Glueek Theory of Social Condition
Held that physically a delinquent is mesomorph in constitution. In attitude he is hostile, defiant, resentful, suspicious, Stubborn adventurous, unconventional and non submissive to the authority.
The criminal is a product of society. The impact of sociological factors is so great on individuals that they either shun criminality or embrace it, depending upon their environment and immediate social conditions
Sutherland and Cressey Theory of Differential Association.
Felt that criminal behaviour is not inherited and one who is not already trained in crime does not indulge in criminal behaviour. Rather, criminal behaviour is learned in interaction with other person especially within intimate personal groups. This, would mean that impersonal agencies such as movies and News papers play a relatively important part in the genesis of criminal behaviour. “Differential association” varies in frequency,duration, priority and intensity.
Akers’s differential reinforcement theory
Akers’s differential reinforcement theory integrated differential association and the learning theory of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning holds that behaviour is controlled by the consequences of that behavior.
Everyone receives positive and negative reinforcements for behavior. According to differential reinforcement theory, a positive reinforcement is a reward and is designed to increase the behavior being rewarded. On the other hand, a negative reinforcement is a punishment designed to decreasethe behavior.
Therefore, behavior is controlled by the rewards and punishments people receive for their behavior. If a positive reinforcement is given after a person commits a delinquent act, the person has received a reward for that behavior. It is to be expected that the person will continue the behaviour.
Learning theorists argue that rewards are more powerful than punishments in shaping behavior. However, in some cases, a juvenile may be expecting to receive a reward (positive reinforcement) for behavior, but the reward is withheld. If this occurs, the person has received an indirect punishment for the behavior, and the behavior is less likely to continue. For example, if a young male commits a robbery but fails to obtain any money or valuables, he has received an indirect punishment, and he is less likely to continue the delinquent behavior.
A juvenile may also receive negative reinforcement for a behavior. If this occurs, the juvenile has received a direct punishment and is less likely to continue the behaviour.
If a juvenile receives rewards from his or her peer group for committing delinquent acts, that delinquency may continue—even with punishment by the juvenile justice system. A juvenile may also anticipate that a punishment (negative reinforcement) is going to occur after delinquent behavior. If no punishment follows, the juvenile has received an indirect reward for the behavior and is likely to increase the behavior.
Sykes & Matza Theory of Social Interaction
Delinquent behaviour like most social behaviour, is learned in the process of social interaction. Both feel that the family of the delinquent will agree with respectable society that delinquency is wrong even though the family may be engaged in a variety of illegal activities. They say that a delinquent is partly committed to the dominant. Social order in the he frequently exhibits, quilts or shame when he violates its prescriptions, accords approval to certain conferring figures and distinguishes between appropriates and inappropriate targets for his deviance.
(C) Psychoanalytical and Psychiatric Theory
Airchorn asserted that there must be something in child himself which environment brings out in the form of delinquency. Delinquents behave as they do because they are in some way “Maladjusted” persons. Airchron’s statement indicates further that the environment may function as a precipitating force, but never as primary force in causation.
(D) Medico-Biological Theory
This theory has been advanced at many times and in many ways and often in combination as “Medico biological” thesis of causation. Here this theory would include the hereditary factors, chemical balances within the physical organism, and certainly the influence of physical illness on behaviour. The biological explanation, concerned primarily with inherited characteristic.
(E) The Classical Theory
The classical theory of free will advocated that man is a free moral agent who chooses to do wrong. On the assumption of free will, the Classical theorists maintained that the criminal is morally guilty and responsible, he should; therefore, receive a punishment proportionate to that moral guilt. Thus, there were set penalties according to the moral turpitude involved in the offence
Some have looked for explanations in physical and mental health, others in emotional attitudes and still others in general social environment. The Classical theory was attacked since it treated all men as mere digits ignoring their individual natures or the circumstances under which they committed the crime. It subjected to the same punishment the hardened criminal, the accidental and the habitual.
(F) Multi-causal Theory
According to Abrahamsen, “a criminal act is the sum of a person’s criminalistic tendencies plus his total situation divided by the amount of his resistance.” He rendered the multiplicity of causal factors into a mathematical formula.
This shows that the root of the delinquency lies in both in nature and nurture.
Recent sociologists, psychiatrists and criminologists agree that delinquency is a result of a number of factors. Burt enumerated no less than 170 causes which were conducive to delinquency.
According to him, “crime is assignable to no single universal source nor yet to two or three: it springs from a wide variety, and usually from a multiplicity of alternative and converging influences. So violent a reaction, as may easily be conceived, is almost everywhere the outcome of a concurrence of subversive factors: it needs many coats of pitch to paint a thing thoroughly black.”
No one factor is the sole cause of delinquency. It is a result of the interaction between the individual and his immediate and economic factors like poverty, slums etc. The natural factors are biological, mental and emotional. Geography and climatic conditions are indirect contributors to delinquency.
(G) Subculture theories
A subculture is a set of values, norms, and beliefs that differs from those within the dominant culture. According to subculture theory, delinquent youth hold values, norms, and beliefs in opposition to those held in the dominant culture. Therefore, youths who behave in a manner that is consistent with the values, norms, and beliefs of their subculture will often be in conflict with the law.
Three subculture theories are: Cohen’s delinquency and frustration theory, Cloward and Ohlin’s differential opportunity theory, and Miller’s lower-class focal concern theory.
(I)Cohen’s delinquency and frustration theory,
Albert K. Cohen believed that individuals from the lower class had different values, norms, and beliefs than those held by the middle class. The goal of lower-class youths is middle-class membership. However, lower class youths face developmental handicaps that place them at a disadvantage in obtaining their goal of middle-class membership. These developmental handicaps include the lack of educational preparation and inability to delay gratification
The primary means of becoming a member of the middle class is education. These youths, who have been socialized to be part of the lower class, frequently have difficulty in school because teachers and administrators are members of the middle class and hold the values, norms, and beliefs of the middle class. The standards and values used in school to evaluate youths, which Cohen calls middle-class measuring rods , include ambition, responsibility, deferred gratification, courtesy, ability to control aggression, constructive use of time, and respect for property. Essentially, lower-class youths are being evaluated by measures grounded in middle-class values and norms to which they are not accustomed. These middle-class measuring rods make it difficult for lower class children to succeed in school.
If lower-class students fail at school, they will not be able to attain their goal of middle-class status. Inability to fulfil this goal is known as status frustration . Frequently, students who are not performing well in school seek others like themselves with whom to associate. In other words, these young people may associate with others like themselves who are failing in school and are facing status frustration. These young people form delinquent subcultures and gangs. In gangs, youths develop new norms, values, and beliefs; they also establish new means to obtain status.
This delinquent behavior is actually a protest against the norms, values, and beliefs of the middle-class culture.
(II) Richard Cloward and Ohlin’s differential opportunity theory
Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin focused on serious delinquency committed by urban, male gang members. Status frustration Occurs due to a person’s inability to obtain the goal of middleclass status. Youths who had little ability to achieve these goals through legitimate means would form delinquent subcultures/gangs in an effort to obtain the goals.
Cloward and Ohlin believed that illegal opportunities, like conventional opportunities, are stratified unequally. This means that there is an illegitimate opportunity structure just as there is a legitimate opportunity structure for success. The legitimate opportunity structure involves education, hard work, and a good occupation, and not everyone has access to this opportunity structure to obtain economic success. Not everyone has access to the illegitimate opportunity structure, either.
The illegitimate opportunity structure includes criminal enterprises in neighbourhoods where there are criminal mentors to assist youths in becoming successful criminals. Although there are illegitimate opportunity structures in many neighborhoods, not everyone has equal access to these structures.
Neighborhood structures such as established criminal enterprises and criminal mentors that lead youths to become criminals. When delinquent subcultures/gangs are established with a different set of values, norms, and beliefs, the type of delinquent gang that develops will depend on the neighbourhood in which the youths live and whether they have access to illegitimate opportunity structures.
(III) Miller’s lower-class focal concern theory
Walter B. Miller basic tenet was that society is composed of various social groups, each with its distinctive subculture.
Miller identified six focal concerns that describe six values of a lower-class subculture. These focal concerns differentiate the lower class from the middle and upper classes.
1. Trouble —value by which people are evaluated on the basis of their involvement in trouble-making activity
2. Toughness —value of physical strength, fi ghting ability, and masculinity
3. Smartness —value of the ability to be streetwise and to con people
4. Excitement —value of thrill-seeking through gambling, fi ghting, and getting intoxicated
5. Fate —value or belief that most things that happen to people are beyond their control
6. Autonomy —value of personal freedom resulting in an active disdain of authority.
(H) Walter Reckless Containment Theory
Walter Reckless believed that both internal and external forces operate when juveniles make decisions to avoid or commit delinquent acts. Some internal forces inhibit people from committing delinquent acts while others encourage delinquent behavior. The same is true for external forces; some inhibit while others encourage delinquent acts.
Reckless identified four motivating and restraining forces for delinquency.
1. Inner pressures and pulls lead juveniles toward committing delinquent acts. Inner forces include an individual’s desires, needs, and wants. These include feelings of restlessness, hostility, and the needfor immediate gratification.
2. Inner containments inhibit delinquent behavior. Inner containments are internal personal controls that lead someone to not commit delinquent acts. These include self-esteem, strong sense of responsibility, internalized moral codes, tolerance of frustration, and positive goal orientations.
3. Outer pressures may lead to delinquency include the influence of one’s peer group, unemployment, and living conditions. External forces also include the rewards for committing delinquent acts such as status and financial gain.
4. Outer containments inhibit delinquent behavior. These include forces that provide discipline and supervision including parents, police, schools, and the juvenile justice system.
Inner containments are more effective at inhibiting delinquent activity than are outer containments. Outer containments are not always present prior to the commission of delinquent acts, while inner containments such as internalized moral codes are. An individual’s self-image and self-esteem are also major predictors of which of these forces will dominate behavior.
(I)Travis Hirschi Social Control /Social Bonding Theory
According to Travis Hirschi, people usually do not commit delinquent acts because they fear that this behavior will damage their relationships with their parents, friends, families, teachers, and employers; thus, individuals do not commit delinquent acts because they are bonded to the larger society. When these social bonds are broken or diminished, delinquency is likely. Hirschi stated that there were four elements of the social bond including attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.
• Attachment describes the emotional and psychological ties a person has with others. It includes sensitivity to and interest in others as well as a sense of belonging. Hirschi believed that attachment to parents is more important than attachment to peers and school. Attachment is the most important element of the social bond.
• Commitment involves the time, energy, and effort expended in conventional action. Therefore, the more conventional assets people have—such as an education, job, and home—the less likely they are to commit crime.
• Involvement means significant time and attention spent in conventional activities, which leaves little time for illegal behavior. People who are busy working, going to school, are far less likely to commit crime. They do not have the spare time to indulge temptations to commit crimes.
• Belief describes the acceptance of moral legitimacy of law and authority, with an understanding that the law should be obeyed
Referance:
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1969.
Eaton, J. W. and Polk, K., Measuring Delinquency. Pittsburg; university Pittsberg Press,1961.
Hirschi, Travis. Causes of Delinquency,
Hirsh, N., Dynamic Causes of Juvenile Crime. Cambridge; Mass, Sci-Art Publisher, 1937.
K. Kusum, ‘Juvenile Delinquency- A Socio-legal Study’(1979) Published by KLM Book House, New Delhi 22
Kvaraceus, W. C. and Miller, W.B. Delinquent Behaviour; Cultuer and The Individual.
Sellin, T. and Wolfgang, M., The Measurement of Delinquency. New York; John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964.
Washingoton; National Education Association,1959