Michael Gerard Tyson: Lack Of Social Control Theory

Michael Gerard Tyson grew up in neighborhoods with high crime rates during his childhood. He had a rough childhood growing up. He had bad events happening his life at a young age. His biological father was not around, he knew Jimmy Kirkpatrick as his father. However, Jimmy Kirkpatrick was known as a regular street guy. Kirkpatrick had abandon Tyson’s mom and their family around the time Tyson was born. Tyson did not grow up with a father figure growing up. Another tragedy was losing his mother at the age of 16. Tyson was left on the care of Cus D’Amato, a boxing manager and trainer. (Iron Mike, 2018). According to Tyson he stated that “I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: she only knew me as being a wild …show more content…
Young people need a strong bond with their families to establish control in their life. According to The Review of the Roots of Youth Violence Volume 5 “Social control theory is situated amongst other sociological theories that focus on the role and the familial bonds as constrains on offending. For young people a key aspect of social control is found with family particularly through interactions with and feelings towards parents” (McMurtry & Curling, 2008). The youth need a social and moral bond their parents. Michael did not have a father growing up and he lost his mother before he could ever develop an emotional bond with her. He did have that parental love and support a young child needs at that age. Without parental discipline and support a child can develop negative behaviors that can lead to criminal behavior. Based on the multiple similar studies on parental bond and aggression, it has been supported that the stronger the relationship between child and parent leads to less violent behavior. According to The Review of the Roots of Youth Violence “Herrenkolh et al. (2003) found that young people who exhibited less violent behavior were more likely to hold stronger attachments to their parents” (McMurtry & Curling, 2008). If young people lack the bond with their parents it can lead for that child to develop violent crime, in which can lead to …show more content…
According the book Criminological Theory “youth with the misfortune of residing in the socially disorganized zone in transition were especially vulnerable to the temptations of crime” (Robert, Cullen, & Ball, 2015, p. 43). Michael grew up in high crime neighborhoods during his childhood and teenage years as well. Living in such high crime rate neighborhoods can lead young people to follow in the footsteps of violence. This is not necessarily saying every young person who lives in a high crime neighborhood becomes a criminal. However, living in an area where there is no juvenile supervision, lack of community ties, and lack of conventional instructions can increase the chances of a juvenile developing criminal behavior. Young people need stable living conditions and living arrangements to have a stable life growing up. Young people need to have the opportunity to have a stable school environment and living conditions. If they live in the conditions that Michael did, they could end up developing criminal behavior. Living in high crime rate neighborhoods can lead to exposure to violence and crime. Having exposure to these negative behaviors can lead young people to imitate to those criminal actions. For Michael, he lived in and out of these high crime rate neighborhoods all through his childhood, it is not surprising to see the violent and criminal behavior he developed growing up into