Structural Functionalist Approach To Juvenile Delinquency

American society is faced with an ever growing threat of juvenile delinquency. Most would dispute that the problem is more complex and deservers more attention that adults in the criminal system. Even though the punishment for criminal activity is the same, juvenile delinquency bring into conversation many issues. Although many strategies have been put into place to decrease juvenile delinquency and to get rid of the legal justice approach to crime overall, crime for the youth and particularly violence is still ever present in today’s society.
One approach to juvenile delinquency has been to looks at both the social structure and social functions like in structural functionalism, or just functionalism. This theory is built on the concept that sees society as a complicated system that work together to promote unity and stability. This functionalism approach looks at society through a universal level point of view, which broadly concentrates on the social structures that forms society all together, and believes that society has evolved. Sociologists would later develop the theory of structural functionalism which studied how social order is …show more content…
According to functionalism, the purpose of juvenile delinquency is said to be both for the offender and for the people as a whole. There have been many studies that proved the government and politicians use the opinions of increased crime as a key topic for during elections. Using important issues such as crime in a false way is seen in election data of crime rates during election time. These tactics take focus away from the real issues, and instead focused on crime and violence which is usually encountered with the increase of incarceration rates (Bureau of Justice Statistics,