SOC 1500 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Gang, Gangsta Rap, Social Exclusion
24 Oct 2016
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New Unit - Week Seven – SOC*1500 – Crime and Criminal Justice – October 20th
Read Chapter 6 pages 143-160
Crime and Social Exclusion
• Social exclusion – used by politicians, government policy analysts, social scientists as a
better way to understand social inequality. Taken the place of income inequality/poverty
o This term originated with French author Lenoir in the early 1970 referring to
groups or persons not covered by the traditional social security system
o Walker and Walker defined this as the process of being shut out, fully or partially
from any of the social, economic, political or cultural systems that determine the
social integration of a person in society. May be seen as denial of the citizenship.
o This concept is multi-dimensionality (some people may be excluded)
Homeless Youth
• Study of homeless youth has gone up due to
o Number of homeless people has risen and become visible
• Homeless youth – any male or female for whom the streets have become their home
• Most are in the age range of 16 to 24
• Hagen and McCarthy conducted an important study which shows that street youth
engaged in more types of illegal activities like serious theft, drug-use, theft of food, etc.
• Homeless youth generally had parents who experienced unemployment often
• Gaetz et al. study found a considerable number of homeless youth grew up in families
where one or both parents were employed either as managers or as professionals
• Baron and Hartnagel mention that stressful situations can cause them to resort to crime
• Since the 1980, the level of homelessness in Canada has been increasing
Youth Gangs
• Very little Canadian research exists in this area
• Statistics must be treated with extreme caution
• Greatest challenges researchers face is how to property define the term young gang
• Miller states a gang is a group of recurrently associating individuals with identifiable
leadership and internal organization, identifying with or claiming control over territory in
the community and engaging either individually or collectively in violent behaviour
• 1960 gave the rise to the “super gangs” when the social/economic climate was changing
• Change in gang patterns were due to the drug trade and the involvement they had
• “wannabe groups” – spend large amount of time hanging around public places like the
shopping mall and they dress in clothing evocative of the style/attire of gangster rap
• Julian Tanner and Scot Wortley carried out a study of gangs in Toronto
o Found that gender, poor school performance, dysfunctional families, low
socioeconomic status and visible minority stats were all associated with gangs
o Result revealed that the reason people started in gangs was because of
power, money, respect, protection and social support and companionship
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
New unit - week seven soc*1500 crime and criminal justice october 20th. Crime and social exclusion: social exclusion used by politicians, government policy analysts, social scientists as a better way to understand social inequality. May be seen as denial of the citizenship: this concept is multi-dimensionality (some people may be excluded) Homeless youth based on income: 1 third of homeless youth are 15-24. Thrasher, sociologist, gangs flourish in neighbourhoods that are socially disorganized: the most powerful gangs in british columbia was the criminal business organization. Introduced in the 1980s to eliminate drugs from schools, became widespread in the 1990s to address gun violence. There was a rapid expansion in the post-columbine era: 95% of suspensions for non-violent offences, this was implemented into the school systems, most common reasons students have been victims of zero-tolerance is for tardiness. Ex: dress code violation, inappropriate phone use: non-discretionary its clear you did something wrong, most often times white students are suspended for this.
