Gang Crime Case Study Examples

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Organized crime is one of the post popular forms of crime today. Organized crime includes white collar crimes such as, embezzlement, fraud and insider trading. Gang crime is the most popular form of organized crime, gang crime includes, organized acts of violence, drug smuggling and trafficking and theft. People often resort to crime because they did not have the opportunity to achieve societal goals. According to strain theory, strain occurs when people are unable to achieve their goals. These goals are often of wealth and success, often lower class citizens goals are to increase their class status. In an anomic society, This occurs because the means for achieving goals are class dependent. Meaning that depending on your class your opportunity for accessing these means is blocked. As a result of blocked opportunity often people are unable to increase …show more content…
This is a type of group problem-solving, and the gang emerges the shared issue of blocked opportunity. In this case, the boys in question lacked the opportunity to gain middle class status. As a result the boys felt abandoned and hopeless toward their future. As a result the boys rebel against middle class values, they feel cheated or like society is not fair. In this scenario a gang is formed from the common feeling of abandonment and frustration that was caused by a blocked opportunity. In this scenario strain was caused by the inability to increase wealth due to blocked opportunity, the individuals did not feel like they had the equal opportunity to achieve their goals of success. The result was to create a gang based on this shared issue. Resorting to crime due to Strain theory has 5 components , poverty, conventional rules and norms, strain, formation of gangs or groups and crime and delinquency. In this case poverty lead to blocked opportunity and strain which lead to the formation of a gang. Strain theory can influence gang crime in other ways however blocked opportunity is the most