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When a juvenile matures, he tries to pursue the American Dream. For many adolescence the accumulation of material goods and wealth, which their parents never had, and which are so common in our country, pushes them to the limit. We should not forget about another drives for pursuing the dream high determination to succeed and high self-image. They are quite typical for many adolescents and force an individual to reach a goal at any price. High self-image presses on the person to achieve recognition and fame. In a hostile environment, high willpower increases persons aggression and desire to act using all available means in order to achieve something.
Therefore, many of juveniles become criminals. Strain usually occurs because of lack of opportunity to achieve success in life using generally accepted and legal methods. The children who grew up in unsuccessful family and in criminal neighborhood usually lack education but the most they are short of the desire to acquire education, because they do not view it as a powerful tool for changing their future. The constant deficiency of parents support and love (which is substituted by punishment and disrespect), money, and harmony leads them to seek for other options in order to become successful in life. Success for majority of them is considered to depend only on power and money. For them it appears to be as goal in life and as self-actualization.
Full of aggression they are starting to look for any ways to gain recognition and power. Many of these ways are not normal, but in the mind of a juvenile obsessed with success, it is a single opportunity to change something. This situation was described by the concept of anomie that was proposed and adopted to the highly competitive American society by Robert Merton. According to his concept, anomie happens when personal goals cannot be achieved by available means. All this creates a situation when an individual cannot reach harmony and success using the legitimate opportunities and therefore becomes frustrated, hopeless, angry, and aggressive. This theory has been criticized, because it does not explain middle class crime, it only focuses monetary goals.
Social class is the only barrier that is considered, and it does not specify why some turn to deviance (Agnew, 1992: 51). According to the General Strain Theory developed by Robert Agnew, there are three major types of strain. They are the failure to achieve positively valued goals, the loss of positive stimuli, and the presentation of negative stimuli. The persons failure to achieve positively valued goals such as money, status of respect, and autonomy is the first major type in General Strain Theory.
Money is a cause of strain when it is not available to the individual through legitimate means (Agnew, forthcoming). Agnew (1994: 425 - 426) found that monetary strain was related to crime in a limited fashion, and that the previous studies may not be accurately measuring all aspects of monetary goal blockage. The findings from this study do seem to confirm that delinquents desire to gain large amounts of money (Agnew, 1994: 425). The second positively valued goal is the status and respect, which is very important for males, who may switch to crime in order to achieve that status. Traits that are associated with masculinity are often displayed through criminal behavior (Agnew, forthcoming). Another possible source of strain is the difference between expectations and real achievements.
Strain is substantially increased when the actual achievements of an individual are less than that which the individual had expected (Agnew 1992: 52). Agnew found that the removal of positive stimuli that could be some valuable object or loved person could also cause strain. According to Agnew, the strain that is felt by the individual due to the loss could lead the individual to delinquency as the individual attempts to prevent its loss, retrieve what was lost, or seek revenge on those who removed the positive stimuli (Agnew, 1992: 57).
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Research essay sample on Order To Achieve Strain Theory
