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Critique the ways in which children and young people have been constructed…
Critique the ways in which children and young people have been constructed as problematic within debates about deviancy and crime.
Media
Social media advances means faster travelling news, and an increase in "Fake news", Trussler and Soroka (2014), study showing collectively people are drawn to bad news within articles.
Young people are portrayed negatively in the media, stereotyping them as deviant, and menaces within society. (Feast, 2011)
The impact of the media over dramatising news and blaming young people also causes greater fear, declining social cohesion, covering up the reality of what is actually happening. (Feast, 2011)
Emotive language declaring threat as imminent can make public call for police action (Klocke and Muschert, 2010)
Labelling/Education
Halls theory- Stereotyping is done through essentialising creating "lazy and untrustworthy" groups. Or naturalising suggesting qualities are inherent, making reform impossible. (Hall 2012)
Hall analysed how stereotyping is historically used by white people to reinforce ideas of racial difference, representing black people as lazy or untrustworthy.(Hall, 2012)
Stereotypes reinforce dominant social and political norms (Curran, 2002)
Funding within education is limited so young people or children with SENI are often left behind causing them to have outbursts portraying them as deviant.
Young people and children "left behind" by the educational system are likely to be excluded from school and seen as failures by teachers and peers, increasing the likelihood that they will continue to commit crimes.
Neurodiversity
Biological conditions such as ADHD, dyslexia etc that can alter how a child perceives knowledge which could make them act out in a deviant way (Shields and Beversdorf, 2020).
Howard Becker: An act is only perceived as deviant if other react to it negatively...the same act could be perceived as not deviant in the correct social setting..for example killing someone isn't okay apart from in war when it becomes socially acceptable (Becker and Free Press New York, 1973).
Moral Panic
Exaggerated outburst of public concern over the morality/behaviour of a social group/subculture. Young people are often used by media to represent deviant groups, victimising them. (Garland, 2008)
Creates friction between social groups, creating subcultures and social dissolution (Rieber-Mohn, 1998)
Goode and Ben-Yehuda , five features: concern, hostility, consensus, dis-proportionality, volatility
Results in distrust in policing system, riots, protests or political marches etc will occur forcing police to intervene reinforcing the oppression being protested, resulting in them looking untrustworthy.
Often after a protest new legislation, initiatives and laws are implemented to prevent re-occurrence.
An example of this is the risk of crime to children and young people on the internet, as there has been an increase of cyber crime and online grooming in recent years (Buil-Gil et al., 2020), forcing parents to be more vigilant in order to protect their children from modern threats, the covid-19 pandemic has also promoted new types of cyber crime as people (criminals) were stuck in lock down(Facer, 2012).
Society is to blame
Emile Durkheim 1897 (Didier Fassin, 2015), Robert Merton (Robert King Merton, 1936).
Durkheim stated crime was inevitable as not every member of society can be equally committed to the collective values/norms (the shared values and moral beliefs of society).
Societies have a structure that represent peoples values, norms and expectations.
Societies exert a “pull” , which makes us take or not take actions. A moral debate.
Social construct
Mods and rockers in the 1970s around theorist Stanly Cohen to coin the phrases "Folk devils" and "Moral panic". (Cohen, 1972)
Socially young people have been constructed as deviant compared to older generations. Due to media representations and self fulfilling prophecies young people develop as a result reinforcing the moral panic.
Creating a fragility of trust between young people and society as young people are often used as scapegoats in the media and society (Rocha, 2017).
Young people are often used as "folk devils" or "scapegoats" which could highlight some truth behind the accusations.
Scapegoats
give societal issues a cause making them more legitemisable to the public. Young people were blamed for spread of covid-19 during lockdown, however it could be argued young people and adolescents were the most affected by the pandemic (Andrews, Foulkes and Blakemore,2020)
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Risk
"Risk narrative"
Young offenders are more likely to be at risk and vulnerable within society (Bui and Deakin, 2021).
7 in 10 children aged 12-15 with an impacting/limiting disabilities or ACES struggle to complete daily tasks (Ofcom, 2021).
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Young people and children with SENI are more at risk within society, constructing them as problematic within modern life.
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Family
Biological deviance
Children from families with previously incarcerated parents are more likely to commit crimes or deviant acts.
Crowe (1972), Adoption study.
Socialization
Gender, race, location, school catchment area
Children and young people from poorer areas are more likely to commit crime as people around them peer pressure them into the act or they commit the act to fit in with the rest of the group, to gain resect (Anna Piil Damm, Dustmann and Rockwool Fondens Forskningsenhed, 2014).
Strain theory
Social inequality creates tension/strain during a misalignment of cultural goals, and the possibility young people and adults have to achieve these goals(Agnew, 2006).
Can pressure young people and adults into committing crimes, leading to deviance and criminal behaviour as young people try to contrast inequalities and injustices. (Brookes, 2021)
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