Impact of Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory on Youth Crime

Download or read book Impact of Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory on Youth Crime written by Wai-Fung Ng and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Impact of Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory on Youth Crime" by Wai-fung, Ng, Shuk-yi, Maggy, Lee, King-sang, Pang, Kit-yin, Wan, Sin-yi, Shirley, Wong, Ka-in, Wu, 吳卉灃, 尹潔燕, 彭敬生, 胡嘉燕, 黃善怡, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: In 1969, Travis Hirschi set out to explain why individuals do not commit crime. Unlike previous criminologists, he emphasized why individuals conform, rather than deviate. In his theory, involvement in law breaking acts is determined by the presence, absence, or strength of four bonds, i.e. attachment, commitment, involvement and belief. To consolidate his propositions, he published the book called "Causes of Delinquency." We set out to test Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory in our research study of juvenile delinquents in Hong Kong. We interviewed a total of ten youngsters who had law-breaking experience. Our main findings suggest that Hirschi's Social Bonding Theory has some relevance to the local context in explaining why young people with weaker bonds commit crimes and why their subsequent development of stronger bonds helped them become law abiding citizens. However, we also identified a number of other specific characteristics that helped shape young people's behaviour, including the family and social structures in post-colonial Hong Kong. Our study therefore highlights the importance of contextualizing Hirschi's theory in terms of the structural and cultural conditions and everyday experiences of male and female juveniles in Hong Kong. DOI: 10.5353/th_b5301569 Subjects: Juvenile delinquency - China - Hong Kong Juvenile delinquents - China - Hong Kong