Age-Crime Relationships and Motivations Essay

Outline

The occurrence of criminal activities can be explained in terms of the age in which high rates of crime commission are experienced. In this case, mid-adolescence is the age where most young people engage in criminal activities but it tends to decline as they approach early adulthood. This behaviour as well as its trend is explained through a number of theories including structural theory. Structural theories show various ways in which young people develop deviant behaviour during their adolescence and in some cases before adolescence which declines later in life at the time when they approach early adulthood.

Introduction

Extensive studies in Australia, as well as other overseas jurisdictions, shows that the age bracket at which most criminal activities take place is from mid-adolescence all the way to early adulthood. Young people in this category have been found to dominate the crime arena whose reasons can be explained by structural theories. Basis theory which concerns itself with routine activities is one of the structural theories that explain this situation of the relationship between youths and crime. Basis theory takes into account several factors that influence deviant behaviour in youths as well as their implications in society. Among the influential factors is the availability of potential criminals in the age bracket of adolescence and youths approaching adulthood. Other factors include the availability of opportunities in which youths commit a crime and the reduction of surveillance. Of the three major factors outlined by basis theory, opportunities availability is the most determinant factor of crime commission among the youths as lack of jobs makes them engage in criminal activities in order to sustain themselves. Also, the rebellious feeling experienced by adolescents drives them to engage in criminal activities from which they get pleasure. (Hickey, 2003)

Structural Theory

According to (Colvin, 2008), the basic theory which focuses on routine activities experienced in criminology is a structural theory used in explanations of criminal behaviour among young people. This theory argues that there are basic factors that can be used to explain the relationship between criminal activities and the youth. The presence of potential criminals is one of them who in this case are the youth in the age bracket between middle adolescence and the stage of approaching adulthood. Basis theory outlines the next factor to be opportunities for criminal activities which attracts the youth to the crime commission. It argues that, if there are no criminal opportunities, potential criminals cannot accomplish their mission of committing crimes. The third factor is the situation where surveillance is absent giving opportunities for crime commission. The presence of potential criminals is explained by demographic irregularities where public policy has failed in the provision of enough legitimate avenues in which the youth can apply their skills. The number of young people is continually increasing by the day as employment opportunities continue to decrease since those available are taken up leaving a large number of youths jobless but needy. (Cohen, 2007)

(Pierce, 1996), argues that, demographic studies used in basic theory show that the opportunity to become a criminal does not present itself equally to all youths in the society. Some youths are more susceptible to crime commission than others depending on the nature of their backgrounds. The area in which one lives, the manner in which he/she lives as well as other individual related characteristics like age are major determinants of opportunities that make young people potential criminals. Participation in criminal activities is found to reduce with a corresponding decline in an age where adolescents are involved in more criminal activities than the youth in the age bracket of approaching adulthood. For instance, property crime registers high levels of commission at sixteen years of age but drops as the youth approach twenty years. This is because there are about less than a half of those youths involved in property crime at the age of twenty years when compared to the ones engaged in a similar crime at the age of sixteen years. On the other hand, violent crime registers high occurrence at eighteen years of age after which it drops as the youth approach early adulthood. However, those adolescents who become criminals at very early ages particularly at fourteen years and below, happen to be very persistent criminals which extend for a longer period compared to those who engaged themselves in criminal activities at a later age.

(Hartup, 1997), found out that, in Australia, most young people do not commit crimes individually but in groups, which shows that criminal activities are primarily driven by peer pressure. Crime commission due to peer pressure is necessitated by adolescence which is the stage where the youths are normally very active, wanting to explore almost everything and therefore tend to become influenced so easily. Boys engage more in criminal activities than is the case with girls which is depicted by the lower number of girls held behind bars. Among the youths held in jails as well as rehabilitation centres, the representative percentage of girls is ten percent while boys take the rest. This can be explained by the nature of most criminal activities which expose offenders to very threatening situations like being shot or having to apply force in order to get what one wants of which a high percentage of girls cannot stand.

This theory also explains reasons as to why young people are mostly involved in criminal activities through demographic factors like family dissolution. In this case, families with single parents have been found to be on the increase in Australia as well as in other overseas countries. This situation is caused by a lower rate in which people are getting married as most of them prefer to remain single. Also, since most people in Australia, as well as other countries, are getting married when they are very young, they become unable to stand the challenges that come with family life and more so parenthood at their tender age which makes them give up after a short period in marriage contributing to the higher rate of divorce than ever. Another factor that is contributing to single parenthood is the increasing rate of immorality which is resulting in more children who are born outside marriage where these births increased from eighteen percent in nineteen eighty-seven to twenty-eight percent in nineteen ninety-eight. As a result, a larger number of youths are being affected by the situation of single parenthood making them susceptible to crime as divorced and single parents provide less supervision to their children. Also, those parents who are available cannot afford to continually supervise their children since most of their time is spent at their places of work which increases opportunities during which young people commit crimes at the better portion of the daytime. (Finley, 2007)

Mental health is a contributing factor to the crime commission and about a quarter of the total number of youths in modern societies is found to suffer from mental disorders. A study that was conducted in nineteen ninety-eight by the commonwealth department promoting mental health in Australia, found out that about twenty percent of youths aged between eighteen years and twenty-four years have mental disorders. Mentally deficient youths are highly vulnerable to crime commission which is even worse when they happen to combine their situation with drug abuse. Most youths suffering from mental disorders are drop out from their learning institutions and a large portion of those who remain to register very poor performance which makes them less competitive in the cooperate world. These youths become frustrated and end up engaging in drug abuse to hide from the realities where they are discriminated against by community members which result in crime commission as a way of rebellion. (Dressler, 2002)

According to (Archer, 2007), a lower rate of job retention is the main cause of crime among the youth where most of them are not qualified enough to secure employment while others are qualified but cannot still find jobs. Youths are mostly affected by economic recession where employment has shifted from full to part-time and from permanent to casual. Employment opportunities are also becoming more open to young women than men due to the high level of competency being portrayed by women excluding young men from most economic activities as well as benefits that are associated with employment. The unemployed group is more vulnerable to crime commission as they spend most of their time idling around and in the process, they engage their minds in dangerous thoughts such as those directed to the crime commission. Population mobility where most people especially in Australia are moving to distant places to look for employment has also made young people engage more in crime. This is because of the restructuring occurring in the economic sector as a result of population mobility and globalization. In the process, losers, as well as winners, are created in modern society which is greatly affecting trends in which youths engage in crime. Winners include the category of the youth with competitive skills who are able to adapt to the existing changes and those that can be transferred to other places and still be in high market demand. On the contrary, losers serve as structural change victims since they tend to be demographically isolated. The dominant group in the category of losers is the youth who have no skills since they are not in a position to adapt to economic changes which makes them turn to substance abuse leading to crime commission. (Ernest, 2005)

Conclusion

It is therefore clear that there exists a relationship between crime and youths as explained by basis theory. It explains how the structural changes in society influence crime commission by the youths when their needs are not met. Changes in family structures greatly affect adolescents as most parents break up at the time when their children reach this stage as they become unable to control their adolescent children which leads to intensive disagreements between them resulting to divorce. This disintegration of families makes adolescents lose focus in life especially when their parents have failed to become good role models. In these situations, most parents disagree on children’s custody which leaves most of them in between providing an open opportunity for them to engage in criminal activities. However, even those youths in stable families experience the same shift of behaviour as parental supervision reduces when children reach adolescence as they are given some freedom to shape their lives. Since adolescents were not previously used to this freedom; they tend to go beyond the boundaries by trying out their potential in criminal activities. (Fox, 2000)

References

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2. Colvin A. (2008): New directions in theory and research: New York, Taylor & Francis pp. 60-62
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