Philosophy and community
Introduction
Over the years, for a long time now, the media has been associated with the problems faced every day in the society. Through this, the media has been blamed for the issues in the problem and in turn, have become a social problem too. One such problem is the crime rate among the children and the youth leading to juvenile delinquency. They have a wide access of information through the media because the media provides wide range of information all across the globe. The wide range of films, video games, reports among many others that these age groups can access through the media causes influence. The influence they have is the main reason the media has been termed as a social problem. One theory that covers this influence is a bullet or hypodermic theory. This theory states that media is directly involved in the shaping of thoughts and behaviors of people, thus, inducing social problems such as violence and crime, rebellious social behavior and mindless consumption. Thus, the power of propaganda on the youth through films, comic books and other social media’s is a great influence to these generations. They spend most of their time using these media forms and thus, they are influenced leading to the large rates of juvenile delinquency. Terms used in coding this theory, analysis includes juvenile, juvenile delinquency, juvenile crimes among many others. The main focus of this paper is the rates of crimes among the young people and the influences behind such acts.
Discussion
Newspaper Articles
All the articles used in this paper show the range of the crimes that these people commit. One article states the age limits that define the youths that can be convicted by the juvenile court. Mostly, the upper age limit of the youths ranges from 15 to 17 years (National Institute of Justice, 2014). These offenders are mostly given life sentences without chances of getting parole. The Supreme Court however, restricted life sentences without parole for some juveniles. In May 2010, the Supreme Court put a strict rule in the constitution in terms of limit in prison terms for the young offenders. They termed it as cruel and unfair to have young offenders sentenced for life with no chance of getting parole especially for crimes that do not involve murder (Savage, 2010). The judges thought that it was unfair to compare the crimes committed by children to those committed by adults. For example, the eleven year old boy who was convicted of attempted for murder cannot be sentenced for life while he never really murdered anyone. The eleven year old boy was arrested in Washington D.C because the police discovered the boy was in possession of a handgun, 400 rounds of ammunition and a number of knives (Cantor, 2013). This law, by the Supreme Court can protect such a young offender; being in possession of such weapons is a crime of its own but using them is another reason. The young people should also be given a chance to rehabilitate them-selves after serving their sentences to help them build a future and start a new life. From the statistics of Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJD), juveniles are enrolled into the juvenile system through law enforcement such as arrests (office of justice program, 2014). Through law enforcement statistics, juvenile crime trends and rate can be measured and kept for comparison purposes over the years. The rates of juvenile arrest increased over the last two decades, but there was a decline by 2011 (office of Justice Program, 2014. The statistics for the juveniles include all the crimes that they commit and not a category of certain crimes. Through this, it is clear that there are high rates of crimes among the young people.
Some of the juvenile arrests made all over include murder. In one of the cases, two 17- year- old girls were arrested and sentenced for murdering an old lady. One of the young ladies was a neighbor of the elderly lady, and had tortured her for a while before murdering her. It is stated that the elderly lady had complained to the local police concerning the noise and crimes that she was experiencing in the neighborhood. The police had decline moving her to another house since she lived in one of the housing neighborhood programs for the poor in London. Most of the questions that the public asked were why no action had been taken especially by the neighbors since it was clear that the young lady was torturing the elderly woman (Los Angeles Times, 1993). The two young ladies stabbed the elderly woman 86 times. Prevention facilities help in reducing such rates and preventing these young people from committing these crimes, through education and training and following up on their activities (Gold, 199). The shock is that this happened three weeks after a toddler was murdered by a group of 10- year- olds in the same city. Last year, a group of boys aged sixteen years were arrested for raping a fifteen year old girl (Cantor, 2013). Fifteen year old Audrie passed out at a party after having too much to drink and the three boys took the opportunity to torture her. It is reported that they sexually assaulted her repeatedly by using foreign objects and raping her. Such assaults have led to the arrest of many young people, but they still are on the rise, especially in situations where young people are out partying. The parents of Audrie later on sued the boys as their acts after the incidents drove Audrie to commit suicide. It is stated that one of the attackers left his name on her body and in the following days, they embarrassed, humiliated and disgraced her in front of the whole student body.
Religious beliefs
The issue of juvenile cases is very relevant in our community for a couple of reasons. One of the major reasons is the realization of the fact that our children are deep into crime and criminal activities; activities that are way imaginable and fathomable. Crimes such as murder and even rape are crimes that cannot be associated with young people, teenagers and younger children for that matter. Another issue is that we realize the media carries too much information, information that is somehow proving to be harmful to our children. Parents and the society in general should limit the access of some materials in the media by the children as it is contributing to some of these behaviors and acts.
Political and ethical theory
One of the political theories that are applicable in this situation is the co-offending theory. According to Siegel and Welsh (2009), this theory is brought about by the process through which kids that are anti-social seek like-minded miscreants and end up forming delinquent gangs or groups. Some of the situations of juvenile cases we have looked at in this report show cases of crimes that were performed by children in gangs. Children that are anti-social are more likely to perform delinquencies in gangs or groups that are comprised of their anti-social peers rather than engaging solo crimes. When such children are in gangs or groups with their fellow troubled peers, their collaborated thinking helps them to come up with creative ways through which they can pass the time or have fun or just hurt people in the society as they feel they are not part of the society, or so left out. Such acts are the ones that lead to the committing of such crimes, which has become a major problem in the community and the society in general due to their increased rates in the recent years. According to this theory, such children seek comfort in their peers who have the same social problems with them.
Conclusion
Bullet theory shows that media acts as a primary influence on most of the social problems that are experienced. Their coverage influences the thoughts and behaviors of these young people. The articles chosen for this paper show the rates of crime over the years in America. Others are used to show the range of crimes that these young people commit. Most of their crimes include rape and murder. The bullet theory explains some of these cases, especially the ten year old boy who murdered his teacher. The media can be blamed for the actions of this boy as he was an addict of Dark Souls 2. His addiction to the game can be the reason why he committed the crime. The game involves murder of people, and he might have let the actions of the game get over him. Some of these kids take what happens in these video games to be real and thus end up committing these crimes, or being influenced by these games. The political theory that is more in line with this social problem is the co-offending theory. Through this theory we see that children who are anti-social are likely to commit more crimes when they form groups with other anti-social peers. The society should have ways through which such groups are curbed or even prevented from happening. Such children should be contained and helped out through therapies and other methods to prevent them from joining or forming such groups, and committing such crimes.
References
Cantor, M. (2013). Boy, 11, brought 400 rounds of Ammo to school: Cops. Retrieved from
<http://www.newser.com/story/176419/boy-11-charged-over-weapons-ammo-found-at-
Los Angeles Times. (1993). Brutal murder by teen-age girls adds to Britons’ shock. Retrieved
Office of Justice Programs. (2014). Statistical briefing book. Retrieved form
<http://www.ojjdp.gov/ojstatbb/crime/overview.html>
Savage, G. D. (2010). The supreme Court restricts life sentences without parole for juveniles.
Los Angeles Time. Retrieved form <http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/17/nation/la-
na-court-juveniles-20100518>
Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. (2009). Juvenile delinquency: theory, practice, and law (10th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Cengage Learning.
The Telegraph. (2014, May 1). Juvenile criminals are not the only boys consuming violent video
games. Retrieved from <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/10799141/Juvenile-
criminals-are-not-the-only-boys-consuming-violent-video-games.html>
