Concept of the Strain Theory - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: CRIMINOLOGY: STRAIN VS. GENETICS Criminology: Strain Theory Vs. Genetic Theory Criminology: Strain Theory Vs. Genetic Theory Introduction: One of the most groundbreaking theories of the twentieth century was the development of the concept that stressful circumstances from both the social and personal environment of a human being can create a criminal, or is at least a strong precursor of one. Strain theory evolved over several decades from a concept originally developed from a model promoted by the sociologist, Emile Durkheim, in his published work Suicide in 1897. Here he presented a theory that outside influences can cause a malaise in individuals leading to depression and anomie, or a lack of value and purpose. Later Robert King Merton seized on this idea of anomie and further refined it into what we now know as Strain Theory. (Featherstone, 2003) This and other theories of criminology such a labeling, which is stereotyping someone with criminal behavior, all depend on environmental factors alone. However there is another side that is overlooked by environmental theories and that is the nature of the person involved in criminal behavior. This is the consummate debate between Nature versus Nurture. Do Criminals have an innate imprint from birth that lead them astray or are they created as a result of their environment? This paper will explore both sides of this issue, singling out strain theory as the environmental factor, and researching the genetic side, the innate behavior in human beings and its influence on behavior. Environmental Influence: Strain Theory This strain begins in early adulthood and adolescence, as children are exposed to the environment of everyday living. Those in poorer circumstance with less opportunity to achieve the goals they see presented in the media are often frustrated and anxiety ridden. "The social strain theory of delinquency is based on the idea that delinquency results when individuals are unable to achieve their goals through legitimate channels." (Sullivan & Wilson, 1995 p. 1) The most obvious example of this is the "Gangsta" culture that is often promoted on many levels as the way that those without the legitimate means may attain those goals. But this is nothing new, the deification of criminals certainly has been a recurring theme throughout history and the romanticizing of their crimes leads to an unrealistic portrayal of possibilities for the maturing adolescent. One of the earliest strains in the life of a juvenile is the search for legitimate employment. Again, dependent on circumstantial variables of education and cultural jobs may be difficult to find and lead to feeling of persecution and prejudice: Sociological accounts often note that delinquency is an invention of western industrialized society and the separation of childhood from the adult world of work. As job security becomes more precarious in western economies, and as adult unemployment linked to school failure becomes more common, the lasting significance of the counterschool subculture of delinquency in the life course may become more salient for some adults. (Hagan, 1997, p. 121) This "counterschool subculture" is perhaps one of the most deleterious results of the social strain concept. Difficulties in school are often one of the benchmarks of the evolving delinquent. First seen as the failure of the child or parent and then of the school system, these children often have no recourse but to find alternate means of attaining status and capital. "Several theories emphasize how stress or strain can motivate criminal behavior so strongly that possible constraints are ignored. Therefore age and crime may be related because many potential stresses or strains are age-linked." (Tittle & Grasmick, 1997, p. 321) On the microcosmic level of the young adult this can have many differing ramifications. An unsettling home environment often precipitates failure in school and exposure to abuse or neglect is often present in these conditions. These strains add to a growing feeling of low self-esteem and in an attempt to bolster their self-worth the adolescent may resort to different ways of avoiding the home life altogether. This includes becoming homeless and taking to the street, or finding ways of creating money in order to leave the hostile environment. (Benjamin, 1999) Stressors affect the psychology of the individual equally although it must be understood that certainly more strain can be found for members of certain minority groups as well as particular factors regarding sex regarding cultural mores. (Lauritsen, 1994) Strain theories correspond to a now common view that individual's feelings of hopelessness and despair about their socioeconomic prospects lead to involvement in delinquency and adult crime. However, the subculture of delinquency may so effectively insulate participants from socioeconomically induced distress that these feelings may not be fully formed or expressed until later in the life course. (Hagan, 1997, p. 128) Strain theory also addresses the stressors developed within peer groups to conform to a created norm and thus create a sense of cohesion and adoption of an alternate extended family among the members. Especially prevalent now are the gangs that have virtually dominated the lower income strata of most urban environments. This pressure to conform adds another layer of strain and criminality to the behavior of juveniles and sets them more permanently on their way to more difficulties in adulthood. Parental control at this juncture may literally mean the difference between life and death for the child: Therefore, antisocial peers are a consequence of poor social control and not the cause of delinquent behavior. Others would argue that a delinquent peer group contributes to negative relationships with others brought about by the presentation of negatively valued stimuli and, in turn, this strain contributes to antisocial behavior. (Mills, Kroner & Mongrain, 2005, p. 47) Initially strain theory has been mostly associated with creation of the developing criminal from early childhood into adolescence and beyond. It has also been correlated primarily with cohorts that fall near or below the poverty line; in household family situations such as divorce, abuse etc.; lower class neighborhoods with problems such as vandalism, vacant buildings, high crime rate; overcrowded and substandard school systems, etc. (Rebellon & Gundy, 2006). Criminal psychologists have used this to understand criminal behavior and create modified therapies to assist the offenders in rehabilitation. Innate Influence: Genetics Knowledge that is displayed at birth is most likely to be innate. Most mammalian infants have instinctive behaviors to seek out warmth, and sustenance. A human infant will be able to imitate expressions, such as a smile or sticking out their tongue in mirror response to their caregivers. But other types of knowledge, such as how to ride a bicycle or build a fire, are obviously learned after being born (Churchland, 2004, p. 44). Genetics certainly prepares one for life and the ability to experience and learn from it. Neurologically, synaptogenesis is the explosive development of the brain’s synapses that occurs as the brain grows and develops both within the womb and after birth. Dawson, Klinger, et al. (1992) found that infants of depressed mothers showed a decrease in distress and an increase in left frontal lobe activity when separated from their mothers as compared to control infants, who showed an increase in distress and right frontal lobe activity. These researchers hypothesized that the infants' higher left-brain activity indicates this hemisphere's role in inhibiting negative emotions. In both these studies, environmental differences were correlated with differential brain development. (Strickland, 2001, p. 103) Adoption studies, twin studies and other family design research in combination with sophisticated longitudinal and statistical studies have been used to investigate the idea of inheritable tendencies. This has in turn created the fledgling field of behavioral genetics, which has offered evidence of the heritability of many traits including cognitive, personality attitudes, schizophrenia, addictive behaviors and sexual orientation as well as many others (Freese, Li & Wade, 2003). It must be noted however, that this is an imprecise science at this stage and various groups have made many claims regarding the veracity and fallibility of these studies. These debates occur quite often between religious activists and scientists regarding the ethical dilemmas that arise when predicting genetic tendencies towards certain personality traits. The issue then occurs for the parent and/or society to decided that these traits may be undesirable and choose to terminate a given pregnancy on that basis alone (Fausto-Sterling, 2007, p. 47-48; O’Neil, 2001, p. 33). There is growing evidence to support the claim that certain behaviors are in found hardwired in your DNA. Conventional thinking had usually been that children are always products of their environment and it is these ecological surroundings that are often at the root cause of either good or bad behavior. But looked at from another viewpoint, it could be possible that their environment, which is generated in large part by their parents, is a consequence of parental genetics as well and not the simply the environmental cause of the behavior. A recent research study at the University of Virginia concluded that: … naughty youngsters aren't simply copying behavior they may have been subjected to at home. Instead, traits such as bullying, lying, or being argumentative could be passed on in the genes. The research, from the University of Virginia, indicates that some children would be badly behaved no matter how loving or caring an environment they grew up in. ("Are Some Youngsters Simply," 2007, p. 25) Recent stories have shown that even complex behaviors originally considered too multifaceted for hardwiring do in fact have strongly innate components. For insistence, pioneering work on behaving chimeras (animal subjects with transplanted parts from another animal subject) has shown that the very complex behavior such as the recognition of their mother’s unique maternal call is hardwired into the brain. Studies with infant monkeys whose brain sections responsible for this activity were transplanted, recognized the opposites mother’s call rather than their biological parent’s (Long, 2003, p. 35). This work certainly indicates that very complex processes which may have a strong underlying and undeniable biological origin in the form of early predispositions: Recent work on genetic correlates to psychophysiological disorders like alcoholism and addiction, and research on genetic correlates of learning suggest that understanding the biological nature of predispositions may be more important to the analysis and prediction of outcomes in seemingly complex behaviors than previously thought. (Long, 2003. p.38-39) Conclusion The real beginnings of the nature versus nurture argument as to which is the true source of individual difference in human beings truly began scientifically at the end of the nineteenth century. Although training children is as old and older than the Bible and the urge to allow them to grow naturally with no encumbrance from society was the certainly the Rousseau school of childhood development; it has only been in the last two hundred years that the debate has reached its current state. Furthermore, over the last two decades this debate has gained wider and wider scientific interest. The areas of behavioral genetics and developmental psychology have made scientist and researchers reassess many of their well-worn truisms in order to cope with new evidence being provided by the research that there is a mutually arising aspect to development (Tremblay & Gagne, 2001, p. 173). In fact, the more we learn about certain developmental concepts, the more we realize that the conventional way of labeling behaviors as innate or learned has certainly lost some meaning. Research into concepts like the “little black box” of language acquisition (Chomsky, 1968), which is certainly a learned behavior, but children process it so quickly that there must be some innate predisposition to acquire it, adds fuel to this symbiotic fire. References “Are Some Youngsters Simply Born to Be Bad?” (2007, February 5). The Daily Mail (London, England), 25. order to leave the hostile environment Benjamin, C. J. (1999). “Mean Streets: Youth Crime and Homelessness.” Canadian Journal of Criminology, 413(3), 420-428. Chomsky, N. (1968). Language and Mind. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Inc. Churchland, P. S. (2004). How Do Neurons Know?. Daedalus, 133(1), 42-59. Fausto-Sterling, A. (2007). Frameworks of Desire. Daedalus, 136(2), 47-52. Featherstone, R. (2003) “Anomie and strain: context and consequences of merton’s two Theories.” Sociological Inquiry, 73(2) pp. 471-489, Freese, J., Li, J. A., & Wade, L. D. (2003). The Potential Relevances of Biology to Social Inquiry. 233 Hagan, J. (1997) “Defiance and Despair: Subcultural and Structural Linkages between Delinquency and Despair in the Life Course.” Social Forces, 76 (5), 119-134 Lauritsen, J. L. (1994) “'Explaining Race and Gender Differences in Adolescent Sexual Behavior.” Social Forces,72 (2) 859-884 Long, K. D. (2003). Inborn Preferences and You: What 'Innate' Behaviors and Perceptions Tell Us about Ourselves and Our World. Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association, 6(4), 28-37. Mills, J. F., Kroner, D. G., & Mongrain, S. J. (2005) “'Deconstructing Criminal Networks: Intervening to Break Down Patterns of Criminal Associations.” Corrections Today, 67(2), 46-49. Rebellon, C. J. & Van Gundy, K. (2006) “Can social psychological delinquency theory explain the link between marijuana and other illicit drug use? A Longitudinal analysis of the gateway hypothesis. Journal of Drug Issues, 36(6), 515-539 Strickland, S. J. (2001). 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