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Ros
Coward's Article in
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1. Political Discourses Social Histories and Youth Crime.
"Everything has a history- even History itself." (Marx).
When looking at the perceived reality of criminal activity by young people, perhaps we need to be doing something other than merely describing what is accepted as a social problem of some importance. A definitional approach which asks what the terms really mean, and how the everyday commonsense understandings and perceptions of such language are arrived at and change over time. As Muncie points out
"While 'child' and 'adult' are largely neutral terms connoting what is generally viewed as a normative period of life 'youth ' and 'adolescence' usually conjure up a number of emotive and troubling images. These range from uncontrolled freedom, irresponsibility' vulgarity, rebellion and dangerousness to those of deficiency' vulnerability, neglect deprivation or immaturity. As such 'youth' is largely defined in terms of what is lacking; by what it is not rather than what it is (Muncie 1999 p3)
Crime also, like Youth, it can be argued is not an objective reality, but a social construct. The definitions of crime and deviance, indeed, what we understand by the terms is, it can be argued not arrived at objectively, but part of a social process in which the mass communications industries have a powerful role as do political, economic and social contexts. That being said it should noted that the definition of crime and criminality does have at least an external validation - the Law. A criminal act is one which is defined primarily by the legislature- a crime by definition breaks the code of behaviour that is ossified by the process of parliament, the judiciary and the security forces. But ..... is "mugging" a crime? If so there is no statute in British criminal law that uses the term. The term mugging is a relatively new one, however despite this is very widely understood. What we understand by mugging has no legal basis -it is entirely a media construct, and "the mugger" a tabloid media creation.
Youth, childhood and adulthood also appear to be concepts that change over time and are differently understood in different cultures. In rural areas of the developing world, just as in mediaeval Europe, the notion of childhood, beyond the dependency of infancy, would be as incomprehensible as that of the ownership of land.
It would even be tenable to argue as does Philippe Aries does in Centuries of Childhood (1960) that the concept of a childhood, and of the 'innocent child' arises in a specific set of historical circumstances. The hegemonic understanding of childhood and it's supposed innocence, only to be rend asunder by the chaos and danger of the teenage years, is relativley new and may be indeed be as much a product of industrial society as the mass media industries that reinforce this 'commonsense' belief at every turn.
In particular, it does not seem not likely coincedental that the widespread fear the danger of youth, and of young working class men especially, becomes dominant at during the same period, at least in Britain, of the growth of urbanised industrialised Victorian society- the same period that saw the rise of the ideology of the angelic child. As Ros Coward points out in a Guardian article in 1994-
The yob is not a new phenomenon. The last century has seen many versions of yobbism. Late 19th-century Britain saw the rise of the `residuum', an underclass of the poor whose lifestyle and morals were seen as dangerously anti-social. A half-century later, it was the turn of the teddy boys, mods and rockers who brought an atmosphere of criminal gangland warfare into a society which liked to see itself as cohesive. Motor bikes, black leather and booze signalled young men on the rampage, spitting in the face of 1950s respectability.
Contemporary theories of a social underclass draw on this long history of male-outcast groups. The 1990s image of the council estate, with its gangs of alienated youths, abandoned mothers and violent homes, drug dealing and drinking, and chronic crime, is an update of an earlier vision of the dark side of Britain's social landscape. (The Guardian DATE: 03 September 1994 "Whipping boys" ROSALIND COWARD)
As Cohen and Young argue in "Folk Devils and Moral Panics" the categorisation amplification and sensitisation to particular forms of crime can have a reactive effect in the public sphere. As many studies have shown (eg Cohen & Young " The Manufacture of News" 1976) The news media, almost as a consequence of their existence tend to amplify the exceptional (ie Violent crime rather than the far more common routine property crime) and that this amplification can and does have an effect on social behaviour.
Youth Cults and Youth Culture, like deviance are largely defined by and labelled by the media. From the Teddy boys of the fifties through the Mods and rockers of the early sixties to hippies, angels, skins, punks, yuppies, to raga muffins and ravers of the nineties the mass media play a role so important that the cults and cultures themselves adopt labels driven by them rather than internally.
There is also a relationship between deviance and youth culture. Some youth groups are labelled deviant, named, and demonised by the media:
'YOB', once a slang insult, is now a descriptive category used by tabloid and quality newspapers alike. Incorporating other breeds, like the lager louts, football hooligans and joyriders, yob is a species of young, white, working-class male which, if the British media is to be believed, is more common than ever before. The yob is foul-mouthed, irresponsible, probably unemployed and violent. The yob hangs around council estates where he terrorises the local inhabitants, possibly in the company of his pit-bull terrier. He fathers children rather than cares for them. He is often drunk, probably uses drugs and is likely to be involved in crime, including domestic violence. He is the ultimate expression of macho values: mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
The yob is the bogey of the Nineties, hated and feared with a startling intensity by the British middle class. Janet Daley, in her Times column, describes such men as `drunken Neanderthals', while Jeremy Kingston, also in the Times, reckons they are `crapulous louts'. Simon Heffer of the Telegraph claims, like Peter Lilley, that not even women of their own social class can tolerate such ghastly specimens: `Nobody wants to marry a yob because he is boorish, lazy and unemployable.' The language in which such young men are described - louts, scum, beasts - can be heard across the political spectrum. It appears in an extreme form in Sun editorials and in a modified version in sombre discussions of youth crime, as well as in some feminist writings on contemporary masculinity. Individual men disappear in this language into a faceless mob, or appear only as thuggish stereotypes.(The Guardian 03 September 1994 "Whipping boys" ROSALIND COWARD)
Just as significantly for us, these reactive effects can and do include political and legislative change, the Dangerous dogs act, as genuinely incompetently framed and rushed piece of legislation as any in current British law, was a direct result of a tebloid media campaign. Of even more direct importance there are specific provisions within the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998, especially those directed at Young Offenders, which almost certainly would not be included without along campaign through the 1990s by the Tabloid press and television. It is very doubtful that the provisions allowing local child curfew schemes and anti-social behaviour orders would exist but for the long media feeding frenzy that followed the Bulger murder, included the infamous "rat boy" case and a television inspired moral panic centered on "neighbours from hell". The draconian nature of the act as whole, indeed, would not have sufficient garnered public support without such created panics.