Degradation of Moral Values in Today's Youth: Youth Crime

Introduction

This essay will analyze the relationship between youth and crime and how young people have come to be treated as a threat. The notion that portrays youth behavior as troublesome or a threat to society and themselves creates moral panic about youth crime and disorder being out of control. The association of youth and crime is widely employed by most media or official statistics and is often accepted as common sense. Unfortunately, the positive image of youthful behavior is mostly downplayed or completely ignored. To determine how far this narrative reflects the social reality and why youth are always the target for mainstream media headlines and politicians, this essay will explore the possible reasons behind this perception and the role of official statistics in reflecting the reality. Additionally, this essay will examine the social aspects and moral grounds related to youthful behavior. The meanings developed about troublesome youth, taken as fact, are a result of social constructionism, which can differ based on society and the events surrounding it at that time. The essay will also discuss different social controls and how they affect youthful behavior, impacting the degradation of moral values in today's youth. The real issue lies in questioning who said this and how much it reflects reality, rather than constructing a biased view.

Historical Perspectives on Youth and Crime

Muncie suggests that since the first decade of the 20th century, in much media and political debate, the words teenage, adolescence, youth, and generation have always been trapped in a negative discourse. The media's reporting of crime and violence often contains exaggeration, distortion, prediction, and symbolization (Cohen, 1972). Youthful behavior has been criminalized by mislabeling youth groups as gangs, which runs the risk of glamorizing them and may even encourage young people to become involved in more serious crimes. According to statistics, crime and fear about social order increased during the time of the industrial revolution after the emergence of urban culture and growth in cities. The first inquiry about juvenile delinquency by the metropolis in 1815 found that youth were indulging in crime due to parents' conduct, lack of education, violation of Sabbath, and gambling in streets, resulting in various new legislations such as the Vagrancy Act of 1824. The Vagrancy Act stated that a person playing or betting in the streets or open public space would be committing a criminal offense. As streets were the only place for leisure and recreation for working-class youth (Pearson, 1983). On the same line, (Cunningham, 1980) suggested that playing in streets was penalized and targeted youth only. Moral panic occurs when the media constantly reports ordinary news in an extraordinary way and spreads fear in society. Moral panic clarifies the moral outline of society in which it occurs. Youth is always defined by what is lacking or what is not, rather than defining what it is (Furlong and Cartmel, 1997, p.41). When the words 'children' and 'media' occur together, they are often in the context of public fear about harmful dangerous effects, bad examples, corruption of innocence, and cultural decline (Messenger Davies, 2010, p.7). Teenagers in the 1950s were defined as those who had no respect for authorities and lived in a world that was dismissive of anything adult. Teddy boys were Britain's first post-war teenage folk devils, represented as violent, depraved, and sex-crazed. (Cohen, 1972) observed folk devils as a stereotype labeling of media and exaggerated it to create a moral panic. On the same line, (Becker, 1963) suggested that what makes something deviant is not what is done by that individual but how people react to what is done. He suggests that the only thing that deviant acts have in common is that they are labeled 'deviant' by others. (Wilkins, 1964, p.46) claims that 'criminal' definitions have no standards, and the things defined as 'crime' today were once part of some form of society and were acceptable.

Social Constructs and Moral Degradation

Muncie claims that many 'crimes' attributed to young people, such as vandalism, joyriding, and hooliganism, are stereotype media-inspired and are not considered crimes in actual UK laws. Young people are subject to formal and informal social controls. The informal case example of the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger in Bootle, Merseyside, by two boys who were 10 years old at that time triggered from past violent activities that were not dealt with accordingly. On the same line, the case example of the Edlington brothers, also labeled as 'the J children,' took two boys of age 9 and 11 to waste ground where they were robbed, beaten, hit with bricks, burnt, and sexually humiliated. Unlike the Bulger case, these 2 brothers had a long history of contact with social services. Newspapers reported them as devil brothers, monsters, and devil boys. Informal social control has a more significant effect on youngsters because social values become more internalized, affecting their mentality and playing a long role in an individual's personality. Whereas formal control is external sanctions enforced by the government to prevent the establishment of chaos or anomie in society. The example of the 'Crime and Disorder Act 1998' adding ASBO'S, parenting order, closure power, community protection notices granted new powers to the police against youngsters. (Travis, 2011) argued that 18,670 ASBO'S were issued between 1999 to 2009, in which more than 15,900 were issued in between 2 to 3 years to teenage boys and adult men. During the riots in 2011, authorities were too quick to blame youth and called them names like 'sick breed' and 'mindless thugs.' In actuality, 73% of those arrested and prosecuted were adults.

Conclusion

One might suggest that youngsters have always been an easy target for authorities and are subjected to various forms of control. The impact of these orders has included exclusion zones and bans on going to certain places at certain times or from meeting certain people. KFC and McDonald's banned young people from dining in under anti-social behavior in Stoke-on-Trent in 2016. One might suggest that the stigma labeled on youth puts them in a position where they want to move on with their life but being stop and searched by the police all the time and being seen as always doing something wrong never lets youth move on. (Acland, 1995) suggests that this is necessary to produce stability and reproduce dominant values.

Bibliography

1. Acland, C. (1995) Youth, Murder, Spectacle: The Cultural Politics of ‘Youth in crisis’, Boulder: Westview Press.
2. Cohen, S. (1972/2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, London: Routledge.
3. Travis, A. (2011) ‘ASBO`s breach rate among young teenagers hits 73%,’ The Guardian Online, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jan/25/asbo-breach-rate-young-teenagers
4. Report of the Committee into Juvenile Delinquency (1816) Committee for Investigating the Alarming Increase of Juvenile Delinquency in the Metropolis, London: Dove.
5. Cohen, S. (1972/2002) Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers, London: Routledge.
6. (Muncie, 2004), `Youth Crime: Representations, Discourses and Data` in Youth & Crime 4th Edition, London: Sage, pp1-43.