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Samenvatting Juvenile Justice and Youth Criminology
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- Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)
Zeer uitgebreiden samenvatting/notities van het vak Juvenile Justice and Youth Criminology. 18/20 gehaald.
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Juvenile Justice andYouth Criminology
, Les 1 - Introduction
Content
Today’s topic: Short introduction reflecting on Youth, Crime and Community
Reactions
Paper: Cohen, S. (1967). Mods, rockers and the rest: Community reactions to
juvenile delinquency
Part 1. Mods, rockers and the rest: Community reactions to juvenile
delinquency
Historical perspective
How do we as a society look at young people in general, how do we deal with young
people involved in crime and what is our reaction towards this ?
Based on the paper of Cohen where he talks about youth and youth subcultures
Chronocentrism: We must also look to the past, without doing so we tend to believe that what
we see or study is happening for the first time in history
Youth/childhood as a separate concept or category Youth as a specific category doesn’t
have always been a specific category
- Depending on the age limits that are used to define ‘youth’, there always have been
people between for example 12 and 25 obviously, but we haven’t always called them
young people, we haven’t always defined them as youth in the sense that that would
be a specific category, a specific phase in life
- If we look at this from a historical perspective, it’s something quite recent, from the
last 100 years that we defined those groups as a specific time in life, as a specific
moment in growing up 19th century
- After the discovery of youth and childhood as specific categories in society, there also
emerge scientific disciplines focusing on those specific groups during the end 19th,
early 20th century within medicine, psychology there were specific groups looking at
young people and what is related to young, these scientific disciplines have emerged
based on the societal discovery of those specific groups as separate groups,
categories, concepts in life
- In the mid 20th century they discovered youth also as subcultures before this these
groups were just defined as ‘youth’ and ‘childhood’ (younger/older), but young people
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, were seen as a homogeneous category, but in the mid 20 ths we started to see that
they’re a lot of differences between young people in how they identify themselves,
how they relate to popular culture… so they were defined in what we call ‘subcultures’
- Subcultures are relevant for the article that Cohen wrote, because the two central
groups discussed in his study (mods & rockers) are youth subcultures defined by their
clothes, the music they listen to, their vehicles (vespa’s vs motorcycles) differences
as a way to identify themselves, youth subcultures uses those popular culture, those
elements in order to define themselves and to differentiates themselves from other
subcultures
- Book from Ellen Key (a Swedish psychologist) ‘ The Century of the Child’ The
scientific discovery of youth and young people often is referred to as a starting point
in history: 20th century is often referred to as the century of the child and also the
century of the child professional looking to that specific category of childhood and
youth in the 20th century
Examples subcultures: pictures
Mods Flower power Punk
Rockers Skin head movement New wave (Band: the
sisters of mercy)
Mods and Rockers were in the UK in the 1960 and 1970, but there were youth subcultures
before these like the Rock and Roll subculture that is often referred to as one the first youth
subcultures. After the mods and the rockers also different youth subcultures like flower power
(hippie), punk…
- Looking from a historical perspective puts things in perspective talking about
childhood and youth is (from a historical perspective) relatively recent discourse, but
it’s also been seen as a differentiated set of people, set of individuals within those
groups and no longer as a homogeneous group
- Central element of how we look at subcultures of youth and to youth as a general
category is somewhat contradictory
On the one hand we look at young people as the future and the hope of our
society = a bright, prosperous element
On the other hand there’s always some kind of concern around young people in
society, around those youth subcultures and around those popular culture that
they affiliate to
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, - For example: Rock and Roll, the first time that older people saw young
people dancing to that music it was considered as evil, satanic
- Later on you see the same thing happening to other groups of young
people: Pleysier did research on gaming related to youth crime and school
shootings are often related to youth subcultures, like the gaming culture;
one of the first major shootings was in the Columbine High School in
Colorado and it was referred to that the two perpetrators committed the
crime, because they played violent games and listened to music from
Marilyn Manson the gaming and the specific type of music was referred
to as a potential cause of the shooting, but politics almost never referred to
the fact that those 17 year olds could just buy weapons; so they rather
referred to the youth subcultures than the fact that they could buy
munition, guns and go to school with a backpack full of weapons
- So one of the things that is also prominent in how we look at young people is not only
the prosperous part (hope, future), but also the concerns, the negative ideas and the
fact that we see young people as a threat to society because of the subcultures, the
popular culture that they promote, that they believe in which is different to the
‘mainstream’ culture
- Distinguish between youth at risk and youth as risk: how we as a society look at youth
(involved in crime) with that double vision; we treat youth differently because they
have a whole future in front of them, but we still are concerned because of the serious
crimes that they sometimes can commit Traditional distinction, duality, Youth’ is
always seen as our hope and future, but also as our fear, ‘Welfare and protectionist’
vs. ‘punitive and controlling approach
- This duality is often referred to as a Greek, mythological figure = Januskop, the god
with 2 heads; one looking forward to the good, the future and one looking back to the
bad, the past
- Exposition in Gent: “Child in Danger, Child as Danger” on this topic young people
as our bright future, but also as a concerning group in our society; pictured by a child
with a pale, white face (referred to as the bright future, prosperous) but also with devil
horns (the bad, children are also able to commit crimes)
- In popular culture, you see many references to the tension in young live (the hope
and future and one the other hand the bad things and the concerns we have as an
adult society
- Picture Joseph Szabo: a child that is smoking and picture Diane Arbus: a young boy
that holds grenades in his hands
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, - Music sometimes highlights this duality as well: Like the latest fashion, Like a
spreading disease, The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom, Getting
weapons with the greatest of ease The Offspring – Come out and play
- Also movies are inspired by this topic and one of the most controversial ones, was a
film by Larry Clark with the title ‘Kids’, picturing the skate culture in LA related to using
drugs and sexual activity at an age that older people wouldn’t expect how can
young people do this and how can we make movies about young behaving like this
Children/adolescents
- Children, adolescents and youth is an old new malaise: the idea that young people
are both our future but also our concern is not new, we see in popular culture, in the
youth subcultures the same idea; a threat to the social moral order but also some
nostalgia in the public condemnation of behaviour of young people so it’s
considered a ‘problem’ from all times
- For example our previous children's commissioner followed up on Ellen keys book by
saying that the 21st century might be the ‘century of the child as risk’; we are losing
the balance and approaching young people a little bit to much as a risk and less at
risk, the concerns are overpicturing the idea that children are our hope, our future
Cohen’s Mods & Rockers
- Cohen’s paper: he refers to specific concerns in society about clashes of youth in the
UK in 1963; Events, disturbances and so-called riots between the Mods and the
Rockers in Clacton-on-Sea beach resort were the police had to intervene and that got
a lot of political attention in tabloids, news..
- Cohen mentions in his article that at that time there was already a lot of research on
juvenile delinquency related to ‘delinquent traits’ looking at young people and what
is inherently part of those people that explains why they commit crimes
- What is missing in Cohen’s idea ? we look at delinquency not limited to young people
and a problem of young people, but also a problem to other people in the sense that
we call that a problem or we exaggerate those riots because they cause a problem
for someone and that someone is sometimes left out of the picture if you look at
contemporary studies (contemporary at that moment in time) on juvenile delinquency
and that ‘someone’ that Cohen refers to is the audience, the fact that we as a society
look at what is happening and amplify what is happening in order to have a political
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, debate surrounding those youth subcultures delinquent is a problem, but a
problem for someone and the audience, not the actor, is the crucial variable
Initial deviation
- Important element: Cohen doesn’t deny the initial deviation and the fact there’s
behavior that could not be excused, but he does put his attention to what’s happening
after, the reactions on that initial deviation and refers to that as the process of
amplification
Process of amplification
Violence and damage
- In his study, he clearly identified the process of amplification where he points to the
fact that what is being described as the violence act and the damage that is being
caused is overexaggerated what is know about that violence and damage was
much more exaggerated than what really happened
Legends and myths/Stereotypes and ‘readily identifiable symbols’
- Legends and myths are created around the youth subcultures and their behavior that
creates stereotypes connected to ‘readily identifiable’ symbols and then youth
subcultures come in handy because they clothe in a specific way, their use their
transport means in a specific way, listen to a specific kind of music and all that helped
in a societal reaction toward youth and youth subcultures (in this case the Mods and
Rockers) were the process of amplifying is again an important element, referring to
other important authors in the symbolic interactionism movement
- Lemert and Tannenbaum
Putative Deviation (Lemert) the idea that above the initial deviation, we as a
society add deviance to those specific groups by discussing and dealing with the
problems that occur in a much larger sense than what really happened
Dramatization of the evil (Tannenbaum) there is indeed an evil element, an
element of initial deviation but we dramatize it and youth subcultures are an easy
target, a usual suspect to dramatize that type of evil
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