Sociology 2267A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: These Girls, Gang, Juvenile Delinquency

• School: Western University
• Department: Sociology
• Course: Sociology 2267A/B
• Professor: Dale Ballucci

Document Summary

Youth crime is discussed as a moral panic when non-white youth commit crime: race and ethnicity are used to otherize groups, attach particular characteristics. This helps to foster unrealistic images of youth criminals as part of the moral panic. Youth (cid:448)iole(cid:374)(cid:272)e is the(cid:374) dis(cid:272)ussed i(cid:374) (cid:373)edia as a (cid:862)(cid:271)la(cid:272)k pro(cid:271)le(cid:373)(cid:863) or a(cid:374) (cid:862)a(cid:271)origi(cid:374)al issue(cid:863: two biggest groups targeted. Our knowledge = limited difficult to refute stereotypes. Youth crime is discussed often in terms of race or ethnicity: not discussed when it is about whites, produces the idea that white is the privileged group and everything outside is the other. Media reports focus typically on gangs based on race or ethnicity. Root causes of violence such as poverty, urban environment, broken windows, are ignored. Media sources most often report on racial and ethnic ties to youth gangs: the news, twitter, facebook, the movies and television, music, always represent ethnic ties to a particular group.