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Relationship between Social Networks and Crime: The Role of Social Structure in Facilitating Delinquent Behavior

Joselin Guzman

Department of Criminal Justice Administration, Middle Tennessee State University

Criminology 4300-001

Professor Ugur Orak

December 06, 2022

Relationship between Social Networks and Crime: The Role of Social Structure in Facilitating Delinquent Behavior

Introduction:

For many years society has believed that the people you hang around with can be the ones who influence you in many different aspects, and it has been acknowledge for a long time (Shaw and McKay, 1942; Sutherland, 1947). This, of course with research there have been many ways how a social group can get introduced to criminal activity depending on who the people choose to surround themselves. For instance, youths that lived in a low-income like Boston neighborhoods, there seem to be ten percent of an increase in the juveniles, and crime rate increases the individual of probability of becoming a delinquent by two-point three percent (Case and Katz, 1991). In this paper it will explain how delinquents get exposed to criminal activity. In this paper it will be giving the definition of labeling theory, along with knowing the concentric zone model, how can that model determine how crime can relate to that and why is it important to know it. I will also explain how social structure theory can help the person understand how a delinquent can become a criminal. This paper will also explain how this can be counted as a social learning theory where most criminals have been considered to be as a micro-level. Lastly, this paper will transition on how delinquents can either improve by reducing crime activity for a better future or if these delinquents will continue to perform criminal activities throughout their whole life instead. Hopefully by the end of this paper you will get to see how social networks can influence crime by how these delinquents choose to go into this route of life.

Labeling Theory, Concentric Zone, and social learning

The labeling theory is defined as a sociological hypothesis wherein “describing an individual in terms of particular behavioral characteristics may have significant effort on his or her behavior, as a form of self-fulfilling prophecy (APA Dictionary). The labeling theory plays directly into the self-fulfilling prophecy which is defined as “belief or expectation that helps to bring its own fulfillment” (APA Dictionary). Concentration effect is “working-and-middle-class families flee impoverished areas, resulting in the most disadvantage populations being consolidate in the most disorganized urban neighborhood” (Siegel, 2023). Social learning is when Albert Bandura was conducting an experiment where he finalized his thoughts where these experiences include personally observing others acts aggressively to achieve some goal or watching people being rewarded for violent act on television behavior after the violent acts of adults (Siegel, P.158, 2023).

These definitions applied to the current issue look like this: First, if a young child constantly sees his father hit his mother as in an abuse matter, then the child will grow up and commit the same act on any woman. Not only that but this notion continues, and his children see it, not only does it affect the person, but it can affect the whole family. On top of that if the delinquent is seeing that then, it is a social learning theory as well. Where someone is learning those criminal behaviors and can lead to the person committing into a larger crime if no one stops the person. If the person does get caught by abusing the other person, it can lead in labeling the person who committed the crime to be known as a criminal and an abuser. Most of these delinquents that become criminals have lived in a neighborhood, where they are surrounded by low-income and there are broken windows all around them. For example, in a study conduct, “the number of delinquent friends reported by a survey respondent, and the social bond or attachment (Sarnecki, 2001) is typically measured through the perceptions and attitudes of the respondent towards parents, peers, and school.

Proof of Social learning

A study was conducted in New York City where in 2015 the population was 8,550,405. New York has five regions that make up the state which are: Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island. The study was conducted in these five different areas where it shows an estimate of how much burglary has increased in a year (2014-2015).

As you can see on here, more burglary happens in Brooklyn where is a big city, and if we look back to the concentric zone if we were to lay it out with these five regions Brooklyn would be considered to be in phase one which is known to be Central Business District and that is where more crimes occur. Furthermore, Brooklyn, NY is considered to be a hot spot where there are high repeat offenders at the same location and have high repeat victims. Another way how this can make this crime happen is anything related to “sometimes might consist of criminal gangs” (Brontinghom, 2013). Social network doesn’t always need to involve in a way where it can relate to social media, but it can consider to be on who is around your circle. Akers in 2005 have discovered that, “this element refers to the ratio of differential exposure to varying attitudes and behaviors (both favorable and unfavorable to crime) from a variety of sources (e.g. Direct peers, the media, virtual peer groups, etc.).” If there are people committing this act and they are known to be in gang relations, what most members do is learn from the highest authority or leader of the gang and copy what that person does. Which is where social learning comes in. For instance, there has been a lot of computer crime overall has increased throughout the years, one of them is known as hacking. In regard to this, there have been studies about how young Americans are the main subjects to invade to digital piracy (Higgins, 2005). Additionally, it can involve behaviors of consistent with the unlawful use or possession of copyrighted media. In this research Akers is conducting the experiment with computer hacking and in doing so along the way of this research he has tried several theories. He believes that the social learning theory is more accurate of why people are hacking computers each day. Social learning theory is still one of most flagrant criminological explanation of crime and deviance today. After several studies it has shown sustenance for its application to certain types of computer deviance, but these certain types are only dedicated on digital piracy (Skinner and Fream, 1997). In 2007 there has been data where the prevalence for guessing passwords is thirty-seven point five, attempting hacking is eighteen point five, file manipulation is eleven point three (Sherman, 2007). In 2018, eleven years later the crime has increased dramatically and overall, the percentage was seventy-nine point two and in two thousand twenty-one it increased to eighty-six-point two percent. Cybercrime is increasing as it goes because of how much technology has improved throughout the years and it is getting a bit challenging to find the actual person who started the cybercrime. (Zaharia, 2022).

Stopping the Cycle

You may ask yourself; how can social network reduce crime? Well, the federal agencies have access to community residents who may have concerns and questions about how they and their family can reduce of becoming a criminal victimization. Many juveniles that have committed crime are related to antisocial behavior. Juveniles’ violent behavior can be characterized by observational learning, or it can also be as an individual may acquire ways of doing something by watching others. Media violence can influence children more because they are seeing, observing, being exposed to what is on television or on the internet. This can affect the children’s development to the long-term effect and can increase the child to a positive attitude to violent behavior. This of course, the shooting that happened in Columbine High School was a tragic event, but what led the boys to go to that extent was that they were exposing themselves to violent games. Which violent games were very aggressive, and it can increase their adrenaline to go high up.

It is best to know that social networking can become one of the most known crimes that can run into someone who does cybercrimes. The definition of cybercrime is “criminal activities carried out by means of computers or the internet” (Skinner 1997). What this definition is meaning that anyone who is stealing your identity through the internet is counted as a criminal, someone who is hacking your computer and stealing your information, that is also committed a cybercrime. Additionally, the use of a computer whereas to further illegal ends, such as committing fraud, trafficking in child pornography and intellectual property. (Dennis, 2018). We can prevent this social networking by letting cybercrime unit or law enforcements to post trips on you can prevent crime happen to you. Furthermore, social media format for crime prevention education is the development of a. blog that focuses on crime prevention as a subject for information exchanges and inquires.

Many researches are encouraging these delinquents to be more careful about what they will get themselves into before making the decision. It is proved that social networking sites can lead youth to commit various illegal acts. This can threaten the future of the youth and put them behind bars at a young age and once they grow up, it can lead the person to commit more crimes instead of becoming a better person for themselves.

Final thoughts

To conclude this discussion, social networking is a broad topic for anyone to get themselves into.

Reference

Akers, R.L., and C. Sellers (2005). Criminological Theories: Introduction, Evaluation. and Application. 4th ed. Los Angeles: Roxbury.

“Apa Dictionary of Psychology.”  American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, https://dictionary.apa.org/labeling-theory. 

“Apa Dictionary of Psychology.”  American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, https://dictionary.apa.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy. 

Dennis, M. Aaron (2018). cybercrime. Encyclopedia Britannica.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/cybercrime

P. Brontinghom and P. Brontinghom, "5. Crime pattern theory", Environmental criminology and

crime analysis, pp. 78, 2013.

Case, A. C., and L. F. Katz, “The Company You Keep: The Effects of Family and

Neighborhood on Disadvantaged Youths, “NBER Working Paper No. 3705, 1991.

Higgins, G.E. (2005b). “Statistical Significance Testing: The Bootstrap Method and an Application to Self-Control Theory.” Southwest Journal of Criminal Justice 2:54-76.

Hu, T., Ye, X., Duan, L., & Zhu, X. (2017). Integrating near repeat and social network approaches to analyze crime patterns. 2017 25th International Conference on Geoinformatics, Geoinformatics, 2017 25th International Conference On, 1–4. https://doi-org.ezproxy.mtsu.edu/10.1109/GEOINFORMATICS.2017.8090949

 Nickerson, Charlotte. “Labeling Theory.” Labeling Theory – Simply Psychology, 9 Oct. 2021, https://www.simplypsychology.org/labeling-theory.html.

Sarnecki, Jerzy. 1986. Delinquent Networks, Report No. 1986:1. Stockholm: National Council for Crime Prevention.

Skinner, W.F. and A.M. Fream (1997). “A Social Learning Theory Analysis of Computer Crime

Among College Students.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 34:495-518.

Shaw, C., and H. McKay, Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1942).

Siegel, Larry J. Criminology. 8th ed., Cengage, 2023.

Sutherland, E. H., Principles of Criminology, 4th edition (Chicago: J. B. Lippincott, 1947)

Zaharia , Andra. “300+ Terrifying Cybercrime & Cybersecurity Statistics (2022).” Comparitech,

4 Nov. 2022, https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/cybersecurity-cyber-crime-statistics-facts-

trends

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