NCJ Number
85658
Journal
Kriminologisches Journal Volume: 13 Issue: 1 Dated: (1981) Pages: 4-31
Date Published
1981
Length
28 pages
Annotation
Interrelated physical and social constraints of the urban environment constitute a 'structural violence' that promotes juvenile delinquency -- a form of spontaneous defiance and protest against these structures.
Abstract
The contemporary pattern of urban infrastructures is monofunctional, rigidly compartmentalized into commercial, residential, industrial and recreational areas. The pattern is an outgrowth of economic motivations to protect property and maximize its value to owners. To enforce these functional limitations of urban space, a myriad of official regulations, social customs, and behavioral habits have evolved. Monofunctionality of space extends even into the interior living quarters of urban multifamily residential blocks. All these arrangements and prohibitions discriminate against children and juveniles whose needs are ignored within these structures. Their instinctive attempts to use monofunctional spaces for unauthorized activities meet with disapproval and sanctions against 'deviant' and 'delinquent' behavior from adults conditioned into accepting these constraints. Their reactions to the structural violence of the environment express themselves through stress and other psychosomatic ailments. Delinquency is but one of the responses to urban environmental violence -- that of the least powerful. Others choose moving to the suburbs or forms of internal withdrawal and resentment. Viewing delinquency from this perspective should make it easier for crime prevention and urban planners to devise ameliorative strategies on both the physical and social levels. A total of 22 footnotes are given.