Youth Crime in the local area
In recent years the amount of youth crime in the Solihull and wider Birmingham area has increased. This could be for one of many reasons, one including the rise in groups of anti-social subcultures that reject the norms and values of school in favour of “dossing around” (not focussing on lessons), causing them to be demoted in the streaming process to the bottom sets and to be given the label of a “failure”. This results in them paying less attention to school and more attention to peer group pressure, being forced into something because your friends are doing it, one of these could include crimes such as truancy, gang crime or robberies of their peers. The Birmingham Mail reported in 2010 about a group of “crime commuting” teenagers from Yardley Wood, near Solihull between the ages of 15 and 17 threatening and stealing from young people in parks in the Solihull borough, some being as young as 13.
Some sociologists believe that this is a result of internal factors inside schools, such as labelling and streaming. Labelling is when teachers give students labels that impact their education, for example if a student was labelled as “intelligent” the teacher would be more likely to favour them and praise them, and if a student was labelled as a “failure” or “disruptive”, they would be opposed by the teacher. Streaming is when a student is placed in a set based on their ability. This can cause their self-esteem to go down if they are placed in a lower set, increasing the likelihood of them joining a counter-culture, a group that rejects school rules and values. Another internal factor that could cause higher probability of gang crime or counter-cultures is grades — if a student receives bad grades they are more likely to lose self-esteem and faith in school and the education system than seek support from their teachers. Overall, as, stereotypically, many “gang members” aren’t well behaved at school, they are more likely to be streamed, labelled and underachieve. Students underachieving means teachers have to spend more time working with them to try and push their grades up, despite the only problem being their peers and not a lack of intelligence from the pupil. This means the more intelligent students are deprived of the teacher’s attention, thus leading to them not excelling as well as they could have. Additionally, the pupils who don’t mess around will learn less as the teacher wouldn’t be able to focus on the needs of the many due to the impact of the few, having a large effect on the quality of teaching. This could lead to lower achievement from some groups, and the lower sets abilities getting lower due to lack of attention from teachers.
However, other sociologists believe that external factors, factors coming from outside school, may be to blame for this. For example, peer group pressure can also be used as an external factor as it could cause people to do things they are uncomfortable with, such as perform anti-social actions like muggings or graffiti, just because a group is doing it and they don’t want to seem “uncool” or boring. This can lead to a rise in youth crime, as it only takes one group to do something then they all start trying to do it better than the other, meaning there is a competition for who can be the most anti-social. Another factor could be material deprivation, as if students cannot revise or do homework due to lack of materials, they will be more likely to become “anti-school”, and join a counter-culture. This, in turn, leads to a higher likelihood of them joining a gang or committing crimes. Additionally, if a student suffers from material deprivation, they are more likely to be in financial trouble. This means they could turn to crime or joining a gang for financial gain.
Overall, the fact that gangs and counter-cultures exist put strain on police forces as they don’t have enough units to send to all instances, teachers as they cannot teach the normal class and help the students who reject school values or do not put effort in at the same time, and society as many members are powerless to do anything about gangs of teenagers graffiting, mugging and committing crimes around an otherwise pleasant place to live.
