Introduction
Violation of the rules and regulations set to govern a certain region is called crime. Every crime is against the set laws but not every violation is a crime. Every crime calls for trial and conviction to ensure that people comply with the set rules and regulations. Crimes are of different types but many of them are observed to occur in adolescence and subside in early adulthood (Hayes & Tim, 2008). This theory though it’s old, it’s widely applied in criminology.
There are several reasons which try to explain as to why most offenses are experienced in adolescence and early adulthood. This essay is based on social learning theory as the cause of crime in the adolescence stage. This theory is based on the fact that young people are exposed to crimes by models, through reinforcement, and through beliefs that favor crimes.
Physical abilities which influence youths to crimes
Most crimes committed require physical abilities like body strength, energy, skills, and prowess for them to come out successfully. For criminals to protect themselves, be in apposition to follow up their contracts, choose and manage their counterparts, they also require physical abilities and skills. Some crimes are defined to call for more physical strengths than others thus, continuous engagement in crime leads to a way of life that is physically demanding and very risky. The crime becomes less successful when people with less physical abilities and energy get involved, especially in the cases where the competitors are young energetic people who are courageous. That is the reason why it’s argued that most offenses are done by adolescence and young adults.
The greatest percentage of adolescents lack interaction with adult institutions such as workgroups and family members (Hayes & Tim, 2008). These are the institutions from where they can receive the early correction of their developing bad behaviors. In any community, young people tend to learn from the previous or the events on progress. If offenders go unpunished from their offenses, the young people who are depending heavily on these examples will not fear doing the same offenses. Relationship among teenagers is very influential where the few who are already involved in crimes spoil the rest group. Teenagers also believe that getting involved in physically demanding activities like crime and the use of much energy will make their peers respect them.
Peer pressure
Moreover, the state of dependency among the youths protects them from the social and legal costs of the illegalities they engage themselves in (Akers, 2009). The cautiousness on the outcome of their behavior is limited by their stage of cognitive development. In addition, these youth have the physical power required to commit a crime. Some people assume that misbehaviors seen with teenagers are part of their development. Most young people at this stage get involved in drugs due to peer pressure, which in turn influences them to get involved in crimes like their fellow age mates.
The use of drugs calls for a need of some financial support which they cannot ask from their parents or guardian, and hence end up getting involved in crimes to gain extra money for supporting their increased needs. Youths are very active and much interested in watching crime movies, which they put into practice in the real life as a way of testing the outcome. This is also largely contributed by the need for discoveries among young people. It has also been noted that the possession of illegal objects like guns is mostly with the young generation, and they influence them much to get involved in crimes as they believe with them they have protection.
Crime reinforcement and unpunished criminals
In addition, in some cases within the communities, some committed offenses are likely to be reinforced and rarely punished. Some committed crimes end up receiving reinforcement of money, socially recognized, or some type of satisfaction. Once teenagers realize this, it also becomes their usual way of life. Some parents as well tend to reinforce crimes committed by their children to hide their embarrassment. Further, some youths live in a community with criminal models whom they copy from believing that they will as well become famous (Delisi, 2005).
Acquired knowledge about crimes
In teenagers, it’s the peak of youths to acquire new knowledge and skills in which they are in dire need to test their knowledge. The most tested knowledge is gained from novels, movies, and other forms of literature.
As they do this, they end up committing offenses knowingly or unknowingly (Siegal & Welsh, 2008). Some people in society who are supposed to be the role models of the young people in society set undesirable examples influencing them to be involved in crimes. As young people grow, they tend to adopt some behaviors from the people around them. If a teacher is a criminal, there is a high probability of a student becoming a criminal. Parents’ and guardians’ keenness on the behavior changes observed with a teenager is very crucial. These negative changes should be dealt with as early as possible to control them from becoming unbearable to society.
Bad role modeling
Some people tend to assume that these changes are normal during development. The parents’ disciplinary action is a good first stage of failure of undesirable behavior to a young person. Young persons have a diverse mind of joining diverse types of associations (Siegal, 2008). At this stage, they are not sure about decision-making. They tend to obey their peer groups than any other person. Here, it calls for the guardian or the parent to help the young person in making the right decision, especially in joining the associations which are of value to him as well as creating a relationship with morally upright people. For a parent or guardian to achieve this, they should also be admirable role models to their growing children.
When a young person commits an offense, and the parents outstand to defend him/her, the habit develops with the development of the teenager until he becomes a nuisance to the community to a point of facing a conviction. During the early adult stage, the person starts to realize that the habit is unhealthy to him and the whole community (Walsh & Beaver, 2008). At this stage, he can make wise decisions on his own on how to stop that habit as the consequences turn to be hard on him. This implies that the parents should be always against the odd behaviors observed instead of defending their teenagers.
Most young offenders are mainly involved in minor offenses or fights which develop into violent crimes if not corrected early enough. Research which was done in 1997 showed that only 25% of youth offenses were categorized as violent crimes but this percentage has tremendously increased with time due to lack of early corrections (Walsh & Beaver, 2008).
Neglected youth challenges
In every community, youths are faced with many challenges whereby, most of them are not able to solve as they need some financial assistance and other types of support that they cannot afford. Some communities have high personal security threats such that the burning issues concerning the youth and the children are not addressed. A community experiencing such a crisis, and with very few intervention support systems, imposes an enormous influence on the involvement of the youth in crimes.
Decrease in crimes in early adulthood
Research has shown that in early adulthood, there is a notable decrease in cases of criminal arrests due to the following reasons: at this level majority of the people have acquired reliable sources of material goods and entertainment, decent job, credit, and mature sex life (Gaines & Miller, 2008). In early adulthood, there is an age-graded rule whereby, in the external environment a person is expected to act maturely and responsibly, while in the internal environment one is looking forward to taking over the adult roles and setting a good example to the young siblings. Thirdly, in this stage, there is an issue of peer association whereby the idea of interaction of people of the same sex and same age is discouraged. Instead, these people are encouraged to interact with persons of the other sex with much knowledge and more maturity.
However, in the early adulthood stage, persons are independent, and in case of any legal or social costs for engagement in crimes, the victim is responsible for his deviant behavior. At the same time, the patterns of illegal occurrences change completely. As these people assume roles of the adults, the opportunities for offenses that are less risky like employee theft or gambling increase. This leads to these young adults getting involved with offenses that are more beneficial and less likely to lead to a conviction.
Informal social controls and full interaction with the society is increased by some factors like; joining the society soon after leaving high school, getting employed and started investing some funds in the society, getting married and celebrating the wedding ceremonies with the community, joining other learning institutions, and interacting with other people, among other activities. Moreover, in early adulthood, one changes his peer associations and way of life that leads to a decrease of opportunities for committing crimes. In addition, when there is an increment of the usual sanctions for law breakage, the potential legal sanctions also increase. The age curves of the age-crime relationship between females and males are very similar according to research done apart from the crime of prostitution (Allen, 2007).
Conclusion
In conclusion, when people are growing and becoming more mature, they develop their analytical skills, and the feelings of being self-centered and selfishness tend to decline. People start getting concerned about other people’s feelings, accepting social values of the community, enjoying social interactions, and start realizing the value of life and the roles to play in it (Allen, 2007). They start viewing their past youthful lifestyle as childish or foolish. When young people are about to enter adulthood, they find it wise to concentrate on making the society strong, as they expand their accessibility to work, acquire more education and skills, and high interest in getting settled develops.
Reference List
Akers, R.L. (2009). Social Learning and Social Structure: A General Theory of Crime and Deviance. Transaction Publisher.
Allen, C. (2007). Crime, Drugs and Social Theory: A Phenomenological Approach. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Delisi, M. (2005). Career Criminals in Society. SAGE.
Gaines, L.K. & Miller, L.R. (2008). Criminal Justice in Action. (5th Edition): Cengage Learning.
Hayes, H. & Tim, P. (2008). An Introduction to Crime & Criminology. (2nd Edition) Sydney: Pearson Education.
Siegal, J.L. & Welsh, C.B. (2008). Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law. 10th Edition: Cengage Learning.
Siegal, J.L. (2008). Criminology. 10th Edition: Cengage Learning.
Walsh, A. & Beaver, M.K. (2008). Biosocial Criminology: New Directions in Theory and Research. Taylor & Francis.