The Role Of Society And Family In In Crime And Its Controlling

Crime affects all sectors in society, it hinders a country economically and socially, it slows down a country from developing as, resources would have to be put in place to curb this cancer. According to the recent research done by the Inter-American Development Bank, the crime rate has been soaring over the years, they stated that one in every three persons are affected by crime. Many individuals tend to point fingers at parents and say that they are the root cause for such atrocities in society and solely blame poor parenting for the rising crime rates and they tend to turn a blind eye on the other factors contributing to crime. Society as a whole plays a crucial role in crime and in controlling it.

Crime and unemployment seems to be interlinked as an increase in unemployment leads to an upsurge in crime. Individuals who are unemployed and are unable to attain jobs, they would find it difficult to obtain the required finances along with other various necessities for their survival in present day society. This would lead to frustration, they may be desperate and may take up desperate measures to ensure their survival. These individuals may turn to crime as it may be their only option, crimes such as robbery, break-ins or even selling of drugs may be committed. Going down this avenue may be the light at the end of their tunnel.

An empirical time series research done on serious crimes by the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, showed that there was a link between unemployment and education and that these two factors had a negative impact on crime, they also found where there were female employment, there seem to be a reduction in crime, it was suggested that it was due to the families income. Additionally, in an article in Caribbean Business written by the founder Manuel A. Casiano, he stated that unemployment, was the biggest cause of crime. This statement was said due to the tends of the upsurge in crimes he noticed within the years 2009- 2011, he stated that because of a “recession, unemployment especially of the youth’s is driving them to traffic drugs for a living”. With the unequal distribution of wealth, some individuals are left at a major disadvantage. They are left with little to no resources to achieve success. These individuals’ desperation and eagerness to get the basic needs in order to survive will lead them to go against society’s conformed norms and values to gain success, if it means breaking the law. According to functionalist Robert Merton, he stated that “when individuals are denied the opportunity to achieve success in life in the traditional way, they turn to crime as an alternative.” He explains that societies with an “unequal division with both the rich and poor, the poorest groups with the fewer opportunities would most likely to commit crime” in order to achieve success.

Peer groups play a major role in a child’s life and in their crafting of them becoming adults. Peer groups has a strong impact on an individual, each peer group establishes what they deem to be acceptable. Fellow peers simply wanting to be accepted and not wanting to be left out or bullied may do impudent and temerarious acts. These deviant acts soon leads to criminal activities, sometimes due to peer pressure. The Institution of Gender and Development studies in the University of the West Indies Trinidad and Tobago, conducted a research which contained two parts, the first one being the examining of data reported by other Caribbean researchers and the other being a qualitative research which was fifty four detailed interviews from the years 2005-2008 with men from diverse backgrounds between the ages of 18-38 from a wide cross section of Trinidad and Tobago’s society. They concluded from the research that while “peer groups can be a powerful force for good, they can also be an extremely bad influence.” The researchers found that peer groups rejected “caring masculinities and labelled them as gay or feminine” and that they “pressured to prove one’s manhood by acting out hard to promote hyper-masculinities.” They endorsed dangerous and risky masculinities and acts of deviance.

Additionally deviant and criminal acts can be arise from schools because of the teacher. It all depends on how the teacher labels and treats the student, if the teacher shows aggressive qualities, and labels them negatively, the student may fulfil the negative stereotype and act out deviant. The Functionalist stated that in society, there are various socializing agents, family, education, media and religion. The family is the first socializing agent meaning that they are responsible to teach the child values, norms, morals and tradition. If the child portrays deviant acts, its simply because it’s what they learn, if the parents has no time for the children then they will not know what is right from wrong. Therefore the family, mainly the parents are to be blamed for the crime situation, if they were efficient and effective in their duties as parents, there would be little to no crime.

Parents also should carry out the duty of rewards and punishment. Simply giving rewards to the child from young so they would know it’s a good act they are doing and would keep it up, however a simple slip up, no matter how minor should be dealt with the correct amount of punishment. The mistake should match the punishment, not to severe and not to minor.