The Major Factor Influencing Delinquency - Essay Example

Social disorganization theory supports that communities with high poverty rates tend to have high crime rates because poverty decreases informal social control which is important to raising children who can stay away from crimes and finish college. 

Weak informal social control can produce low collective efficacy that reduces the ability of families to prevent the spread of criminological culture in their neighborhoods.  Poverty can reinforce poor social cohesion which might affect the development and reinforcement of criminal behaviors.

            Aside from social disorganization theory, conflict theory argues that capitalism breeds crime by perpetuating poverty among the lower classes of society.  This theory asserts that capitalism is an unjust economic system that produces poverty which creates crime.  Shelden provides statistics that blacks suffer from poverty the most, and if many blacks conduct crimes, their poverty can be one of the strong predictors of their crimes.  Conflict theory argues that the poor might become criminals because they want to struggle against an oppressive system. Poverty can result in delinquency because colored youth from low-income families violate the norms and expectations of the upper class.  I am not saying that poverty rationalizes criminality, but it can impact delinquency if it contributes to decreases in informal social control and collective efficacy and if the youth feel the oppression that comes from their class and race/ethnicity and wants to fight their oppression through engaging in delinquency.