Yusuf Khan: A Product of the Environment or a Mere Offender? Essay

Background Information

Yusuf Khan is a 25-year-old Asian male living in the UK with his family. Despite not having an extensive criminal history, he has been sent to jail recently on an offense related to an armed robbery. Khan’s past physical and mental health records do not hint at any significant disturbances. Therefore, it may be essential to take a closer look at additional variables such as race, gender, age, and socioeconomic stance to spot the possible areas where Khan may be prone to erroneous beliefs or illicit behaviors. This analysis is important because it is most likely to help the researcher outline a possible strategy of approaching Khan, as the latter seems to be reluctant to the benefits of psychotherapy and counseling. Khan’s childhood records only seem to highlight several instances of delinquent behavior and do not represent specific evidence proving that he was a criminal since the earlier days. This paper intends to approach each of the variables mentioned above in rich detail in order to find whether Yusuf Khan could be a product of his environment and not a mere offender.

Intersectionality of Race, Gender, Age, and Class

Race

It may be rational to begin by stating that Khan is Asian, which does not associate him with any racial stereotypes related to criminal records. Nevertheless, he has been involved in a number of offenses of different degrees. Most probably, it led to the development of a unique image of a bully. As an Asian person, Khan could have experienced severe issues upon relocation as well due to being ‘not like others.’ The idea of outcasts becoming offenders is rather typical of criminological literature because it practically explains how an outsider could gain peer respect from performing illicit activities and bullying others (Attell, Brown and Treiber, 2017). Nevertheless, race alone could not be the key to Khan’s behavior because his skin color has never led him into criminal issues based on race, at least according to the case. On the one hand, it may be claimed that race is a trivial factor that was not the cause of Khan’s criminal development.

On the other hand, his ethnic background could have been a serious contributor to the development of illicit behaviors. Coming from Pakistan, Khan could have been addressed as a Middle Eastern terrorist or a herdsman. Such derogatory terms might offend him to an inappropriate extent and cause him to behave not in line with social expectations in order to create a better image for himself. Knowing that Khan was a well-known intimidator, it shall be noted that his ethnic background could have been the core contributor to the establishment of proneness to criminal activities (Aharoni et al., 2019). In a sense, he responded to the existing stereotypes by siding with them, even if not directly. No other race-related concepts seem to affect Khan or interfere with his everyday life to an extent where he could commit another crime worth putting him back in jail.

Gender

The existence of research on the topic of male criminality is another important contributor to the current analysis. For instance, Debowska, Boduszek and Willmott (2018) and Moffitt (2018) suggested that boys and men were much more likely to commit violent crimes than girls and women because they were curious about displaying their dominance and power. In the case of Khan, this could be a reflection of the desire to show that he does not need anyone’s help to make a living and exist as a normal human being. This faulty strategy is most likely to stem from Khan’s exceptionally male belief that there is no one to take care of him and that his stepfather is not a decent role model for him (Ceylan et al., 2019). Despite the presence of an older brother, Khan tends to engage himself in activities that might be seen as an attempt to become the ‘elder brother’ for at least some time.

This goes beyond a common male rivalry and creates problems for Khan because he does not know any other coping mechanisms since his biological father left a long time ago, and his mother does not seem to be involved in his life choices and consequences, such as a spoiled criminal record. Therefore, Khan most likely had developed the ‘I can do it all on my own’ mindset, and it led him to a jail sentence at the end of the day. Khan’s competitiveness created obstacles for him because he could not overcome the inherent need to show his brother and stepfather that he is just as good as them (Sommer et al., 2017). In an attempt to pursue his male interests, Khan caused himself to engage in bullying, overt violence, and outrageous crimes. Nevertheless, he does not use any excuses and realizes that he is the one who committed all of the crimes that had him experience a jail sentence.

Age

The age variable can be associated with gender, as Khan might have become an offender due to a significant predisposition to criminal behaviors. The existing literature suggests that it is not true that all men are potential offenders, but the general percentage of males committing crimes is statistically higher than that of females (Forsyth et al., 2018). Accordingly, Khan’s early exposure to sentences and criminal activities might have been the decisive factor that caused him to continue behaving wrongfully. Knowing that Khan is 25 now, he has a 10-year history of different offenses of varied gravity. It could be noted, though, that he did not engage in anything serious before 20. Thus, there should have been something crucial in Khan’s background that made him return to illicit behaviors after he had already experienced detention.

Based on the information presented within the framework of the current case study, it shall be concluded that there were no severe developmental issues experienced by Khan. Nevertheless, his parents divorced when he was 13, and it might have had a strong impact on his worldviews at that time (Wong, 2017). Correspondingly, there was an older, a ‘smarter’ brother, while Khan has always been perceived as mischievous. These two notions contributed to Khan starting to behave inappropriately at an early age in order to adhere to the image that has been created within the family. Being the youngest, Khan had to prove himself and have others pay more attention to him. The most evident way of attracting people to his persona was to develop a position of power and commit offenses (Craig, 2019). According to Edalati et al. (2017), this coping strategy is most likely to lead to negative consequences. This is what happens to Khan, as he has to assume responsibility for his prior actions.

Socioeconomic Stance

As the youngest member of the family, Khan had the opportunity to observe his biological parents work rather sporadically. This might have been the most probable reason for him to develop an outlook that it might not be required of a person to work if there were any illegal means of earning money (Savolainen et al., 2018). Even though Khan’s stepfather is a cab driver with no job issues, the former does not see him as a decent role model. Since the divorce of his biological parents, Khan seemed to have lost the willingness to earn money, study responsibly, and create a better future ahead of him. This type of crisis has been discussed in detail by Minh et al. (2017), who claimed that adolescents are most likely to replicate behavioral models of their parents during later periods in life. This is an essential finding because it shows Khan’s unconscious attempts to follow the ‘like father, like son’ behavioral model even though he most likely despised his biological father after the divorce.

The inability to find a decent job and create a family has led Khan to never-ending comparisons to his elder brother, who always seemed to be smarter and happier, with a family and a high-paying job (Newbury et al., 2018). Therefore, Khan chose to establish an image for himself by negating all the common benefits and engaging in activities that allowed him to feel as if he was on top of the world. Despite believing that it would make his life easier, Khan continued to struggle, trying to make ends meet but never ceased his illegal activities. It may be safe to say that Khan’s socioeconomic stance is directly related to his age and gender and is incidentally linked to his race and ethnic background.

Conclusion

The presence of a number of diverse factors has led Khan to develop a coping strategy that forced him into numerous illicit activities in order to have him compensate for the lack of love coming from the members of his family. As a child of Pakistani immigrants, Khan had to experience a rough period of accommodation. It was most likely affecting him in a negative way during early childhood. At the time when his biological parents divorced, Khan was also able to experience issues linked to his race and gender. As a 25-year-old Asian male, Khan has problems correcting his socioeconomic stance because he does not have either willingness or resources to restructure his well-being and make different life choices.

Reference List

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