Sociological Theories on Criminology

In Makes Me Wanna Holler, Nathan McCall (1994) recounts his childhood and young adult experiences that include being abandoned by his father, exposure to crime, drugs, racism, and violence, and time spent as a member of a gang that participated in sexual violence against teenage girls. We see that the impact of these social forces tends to produce a mindset that tends toward delinquency, deviant behavior and crime. McCall and his friends understand that the world is fixed against them and in favor of whites, working hard and playing by the rules dooms one to abuse when Black, and that whites always seemed to

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ce and other deviant behavior readily lends itself to social process theories of crime such as learning criminal behavior. As Brown, et al., (2001[b], p. 51) explains, ôThe learning theorist believes the deviant behavior is learned in a social context. An underlying assumption of the learning theory is crime is normal rather than pathological due to the process by which one learns deviant behavior.ö We see this in McCallÆs book when he begins to hang out with a gang at school who behave in a pathological manner but one that seems the norm to them û a much better alternative than offered them by the racist status quo. This subculture adopts its own norms that seem as normal to its members as adopting the norms of mainstream society seem normal to its members. For these individuals, owning a gun, beating someone in a fight, or setting up the rape of a teen girl are the norms that when achieved earned ôrespectö and ôadmirationö from others. We see how this leads to a mindset among young Black males that is ôlearnedö and seems natural from the way it is learned. We also see how the psychological damage inflicted by racism leads to the development of a deviant viewpoint that often dooms one to prison or death. McCall knows how
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1523
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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