Florida, Cuba & Crime

This analysis will review some socioeconomic differences between the state of Florida and the country of Cuba. The main focus of the analysis will be on how culture influences teen crime, particularly juvenile crime involving gang membership. Juvenile crime is on the increase in both Florida and Cuba. In Florida, 115 murders, 813 sexual batteries, 1,065 armed robberies, 16,263 burglaries and 4,537 auto thefts were committed by juveniles between July 1998 and June 1999, most of them gang-related (Bankhead 1). Cuba, too, has experienced an increase in juvenile crime that is gang-related, typically seen as the effect of the cause � the collapse of the communist bloc which threw Cuban society into serious economic turmoil. The island's GNP fell by 35% between 1989 and 1993, and then rose by 2.5% in 1995, 7.8% in 1996, and 2.5% in 1997 (Ponte 4). Social problems began to re-emerge as a result of these problems, including prostitution, theft, and gang-related crime.

While in Florida, teenagers experience isolation and alienation from mainstream society who do not adhere to the mechanisms of capitalism, so, too, Cuban juveniles are isolated and rejected if they reject the one-party, government-controlled social institutions (media, judicial system, etc.) of their country. Education enrollment and levels are declining in Cuba which adds to crime among juveniles. In 1995, 12.7% of Cuban youth enrolled in university as c

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future, or-to put it bluntly-about their destiny, is like asking them for a false address. They'll say they've never heard of it, that it doesn't exist. The shrewdest of them will say that the future is elsewhere, not here" (Ponte 1). Looking at the exclusion of juveniles from mainstream society and culture in terms of politics, education, and economics helps us see why Emile Durkheim's theory of anomie might help explain the criminal reaction of isolated and alienated juveniles. Durkheim's theories argue in favor of social forces being the cause of the most intimate personal decisions, including suicide on which Durkheim based the majority of his research. Durkheim's theories that emanated from his studies on suicide suggested many sociological connections, such as a lack of "being needed" by others as a primary motivator of suicide (Stack 1). In one aspect of Durkheim's theory we see that too much control or restriction is as dangerous as too much freedom when it comes to engendering alienation and other feelings among the most susceptible population, single males. Durkheim's theory helps explain why alienated juveniles are increasingly committing crimes in Florida and Cuba even though Cuban youth experience great restr

Category: Government - F