Consumer Culture and Contemporary Youth Crime What is consumer coulter and what role does it play in contemporary youth crime? Criminologists have long been alive to discover the connections between consumer culture and criminality, and recently there has been an increased focus on the issue (Taylor 1999; Young 1999, 2007; Hayward 2004; Hall et al. 2008). Consumerism is identified to exist globally, from the media, technology, fashion, music and sports; it has placed an influence amongst individuals.
Society has been influenced by having an organized thought on consumption and culture in the modern world this will go more in depth throughout the essay. In this exploratory it will explain and identify how consumer culture plays a role within contemporary youth crime it will be substantiate using modernist theories to provide an explanation on the various different concepts of how consumerism has an effect on young people within society and how criminality behavior is developed through the influence of consumer culture.
The essay will give an historical background on how consumer culture evolved, it will also include statistics of the most persistent crimes performed by young people and how it is related to consumerism, criminologists such as Robert Merton, researcher David Moxon will be presented throughout the work. The consumer society first came to existence during the industrial revolution before the late eighteenth century in England and between the nineteenth century in Western Europe and North America, this society became more own willing to perpetuate (Miles.
S, 2008) the evolution of consumption is regarded to be a normal way of life in other words; Consumerism appears to have become a part and parcel of the very fabric of modern life. (Milles. S, 1998). In the past people lived in rural areas and worked on farms, and did a lot of agriculture. Fashion and technology did not exist, clothing and house hold possessions were man made.
There was not an existence of an oppressive society which would encourage people to make a new purchase on major items such as a new winter coat. Winter coats were expected to last a life time and more were often passed from one generation to other. (Goodwin. N, 2008). Young people are living in a quagmire society where “different version” of cars, new technology and gangster rap music are constantly being advertised and become pronominanly the focus of the press.
Young people are consuming when they observe the media which uses icons and celebrities that youths look up to for example Nike have featured superstar footballers in order to attract consumers, with the likes of Didier Drogba, Fabio Cannavaro, Wayne Rooney, Frank Ribery, Ronaldinho, and Cristiano Ronaldo and using people such as Beyonce to promote mobile phones for Samsung, and Jennifer Lopez promoting more advance vehicles, It has been argued that this goes hand in hand with the rise of individualism and ‘the death of the social’ (Rose 1996, Pg 328 ) argued Ten years ago a young person would not own an mobile phone however within society today individuals who do not have one will be deemed of a lower social status, its regarded as the norm of society to possess all these luxurious things. However this sort of society has a consequences it’ll encourage a lot more deviant behavior within society and will be essentially an ongoing process In such a world everything becomes a consumer item, even education and knowledge itself, and consumption becomes the key form of social expression, particularly through what Veblen (2009) in 1899 termed ‘conspicuous consumption’. For example middle class people are more likely to afford private education, and have automatic links to progress in a business, their more likely to have a good lifestyle, paramount. Throughout the years consumer culture has played a sufficient part within society, it deems individuals to believe that this sort of life style is obtainable, consumerism became a truly ‘mass’ phenomenon during the 20th century, and particularly after the second world war (Hall et al. 2008: 89).
Slater (1997: 1) he explains there’s an element of truth in this because ‘consumer culture is rediscovered every few decades; or, to be uncharitable, it has been redesigned, repackaged and relaunched as a new academic and political product every generation since the sixteenth century’. According to Merton 1930 he asserted that crime was caused by society the functional analyst, it considers socially deviant behavior just as a product of social structure as conformist behavior” (Merton, 1957, p. 121). He believed that deviance was not caused by sudden social change, as suggested by Durkheim, but was, rather, a symptom of a constantly changing social structure. Merton was writing in America at the time when there was a rage of inequality between ethnic groups. (Merton, 1957) Merton observed that not all individuals within society have an equal chance of uccess; he believed that inequality in society blocked people from attaining the means needed to achieve their goals. For example in Britain today youths from black ethnic minority groups are more likely than other young people from different minority groups, to come to the attention of the police because they are more at risk of factors such as social exclusion, depending on the welfare state or being homeless, which are factors related to crime and criminality which indeed are associated with arrest. The types of crimes they commit may also bring them more readily to the attention of the police and individuals within society,(publications. parliament. uk) they are more likely to participate in street crime, robbery and gang related crimes.
Police have clearly highlighted the more common crimes which contemporary youths engage in, many crimes which are committed have one thing in common money and materialism with the fact that capitalism is at the forefront attention according to the Home Affairs Second Report 2007. Robert Merton “strain theory” suggests that society has cultural goals and intuitional means; it is this strain that Merton described as a state of anomie (Jones, 2008). Goals are shared norms and values within society i. e. what people should do in order to achieve what they want to be, the American dream is the concept of having a well paid job, nice car and a house. The means are how individuals are supposed to achieve those goals i. e. attending educational institutional and working.
These factors exist in Britain today, an can argued that this is true with the concept of education been more privilege in today’s society and people having more higher education with the means of technology been more widespread human skills are not needed with certain job roles and responsibilities as a result youths are now giving up the institutional means, because the lack of jobs opportunities On the other hand the recession that has swept Britain could be the instigation for young people distinctively associating in the riots which took place in the summer 2011 and the protesting of tuition fees. Relative deprivation could be argued to be a cause, since some of these people seem to think that resources have been distributed unfairly. Youths see themselves as marginalized by mainstream society and have developed a subculture with common motives to seek shared solutions to common problems and gain mutual reinforcement (Jones, 2008). Field work which was conducted by Opinion Panel using our Student Omnibus Survey 2011, the survey shows, 002 full-time undergraduates who took part in the survey, 85 per cent feared that higher education will only be entitled to wealthier students. One in ten students said they would break the law without using violence, to get their point across through protesting over tuition fees. This links to Merton when he asserts that when goals and the means of society are imbalanced, when society doesn’t provide the means for individuals to accomplish the cultural goals, this will lead people to aim for something that they can not obtain which may result to crime. Young people especially from the lower social class feel let down by society and this leads young people from deprived society to result to crime in order to achieve their goals.
The riots which took place in the summer 2011, was an outrage among society, Tinbergen’s (1963) asserts a principle that a scientific community should strive to answer questions as a whole, not the individual to provide a complete work, then one would expect theories of criminality to complement one another in answering the grand question of the summer riots and looting. The riots that took place in the summer, neither should it be. The lack of institutional means is an aspect that can be used as a cause of the riots and looting. Example young people being oppressed and marginalized without having the intelligence on how to make them self known is another factor in itself which caused crime and deviance, so as a result if they have a child that needs clothing then to fend for the child as shown in the London riots the shops targeted are the ones that have more value, and shops which are more of an interest to young people such as footlocker.
It could be argued that the youth have accepted the culturally defined goals of society, and the availability and distribution of legitimate structural opportunities seems to be blocked by government policies for example the student protesting which took place in November 2011 is an demonstration of how the government has had an effect on young people and how social pressure has lead them to demonstrate their concerns by causing antisocial behavior and damaging shops in London. The Reading Riots: Investigating England Summer of Disorder reports that some of the summer rioters when interviewed claimed there are no job opportunities, of those involved, 59% were unemployed and 75% had previous criminal convictions. Hence the strain could be argued to have given rise to the riots, even though there was a remote cause of the riots (The shooting of a young male in north London). The youth that took art in the rioting can be said to be innovators as Merton described those who accept the culturally defined goals but use other means to negotiate it. The use of violence becomes the last resort. David Moxon in his paper suggests riots also took place not only because of unbalanced goals but relatively because of consumer culture which is causing a stir within society; it is increasingly developing into a consumerist in its orientation (Moxon. D 2011). Nevertheless, it has been forcefully suggested that consumption has now replaced production as the defining characteristic of advanced western societies (Lasch 1979; Bauman 1998), and that there is a new intensity to it in the era of ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman 2000).
The existence of a culture of consumption is global, it’s a dominant value of society which derived from the activity of consumption (Hayward 2004: 144), however it has been argued that the criminality which took place was down to greed, according to Emile Durkheim, he quotes, “Man’s characteristic privilege is that the bond he accepts is not physical but moral; that is, social. He is governed not by a material environment brutally imposed on him, but by a conscience superior to his own, the superiority of which he feels. Because the greater, better part of his existence transcends the body, he escapes the body’s yoke, but is subject to that of society. ” However Zizek 2011 argues that its not a psychological cause, the looting during August represented ‘envy masked as triumphant carnival, envy of the celebrities and footballers who consume so conspicuously and publicly, which those from deprived backgrounds are not able to consume.
The Young People and Street Crime Report found that young people were constantly concerned with their image for example financial and personal needs which were found to be the main triggers in causing them to commit street crime. American sociologists and economist Thorsten Veblen asserted in The Theory Of The Leisure Class (1899) asserts that individuals will always attempt to look a certain way through the envy from others, which he calls the ‘conspicuous consupumtion’ and the capacity to engage in ‘conspicuous leisure’ (Veblen 1899) the more you consume, the better social status you receive from others. Veblen believes that lower classes were continually trying to pass as one class higher than they are, however others change their modes of consumption. The Report concluded that young people who are more likely to ffend, were from social deprived neighborhoods and background especially those who surround themselves with those in the middle class or those who do not have any adult earners at home. The lack of male role models at home and those who have been segregated from mainstream education. Lord Warner of Brockley, Chairman of the Youth Justice Board, stated This research shows that ownership of mobiles phones is just one part of a wider consumer culture among young people that has not only made robbery a more lucrative crime to commit but has motivated offenders in the first place. For many young people possessions like mobile phones are a must-have status symbol and some young people have turned to crime to get them.
These particular young offenders have often already accepted that they will not achieve a proper education but they still want what they see as the good things of life and symbols of success (FiterGerald. M, Stockdale. J, Hale. C, 2003) Jock young notion of the bulimic society is similar to Merton’s anomie theory, he tries to explain that the need within society is based on individuals feeling deprived from their identity if they do not have the latest product or foot wear, however some individuals are able to obtain these goods but the frill of looting or taking part in the riots may have been caused by peer pressure, due product being bestowed on to them.
Consumption is viewed as normal behavior it comes across as an individual’s basic right. Many young people took trainers, clothing and flat screen TVs; this is what David Moxon describes as ‘positional goods’. Edwin Sutherlands contributed to this notion of peer pressure he identified nine propositions to explain criminal behaviour he asserted that the looting was copy cat behaviour, many people where aware that there was a police shortage and develop an assumption that they would not be arrested (Sutherland and Cressey, 1955). However it could be argued that not only through interactions but also through the consumption of media (consumer culture), the fort that association is not only learned through rationale and motives.
We can use the James Bugler murder as an example where two 10 year old boys murdered a two year old boy; it was assumed that the way the murder was performed was linked to Childs Play 3, which both boys supposedly intimated the game. In another hand there’s not enough evidence to back up, as it was identified that both boys came from erupted backgrounds, however legislation was created, The Amendment to the Video Recording Act contained in the Criminal Justice and Public Act 1994. While media are inextricably part of children and young people’s lives, they generally prefer to be outdoors in the company of friends rather than to gaze at a screen, unless they are tired or want to fill a gap between activities.
Even the most popular media activity – watching television – is a second-best option, and is widely seen as what you do when you are bored and have nothing better to do (Livingstone. S, 2010), this is where Sutherlands explanation that criminal behaviour is learnt as is so called normal law abiding behaviour, is learned through interaction with other people usually within personal groups, (Morrison. W, 1995). Gurr 1969 illustrated that deviance is more likely to occur, when there is a pronounced economic crisis, but he also believes that the economy cannot be held responsible for the riots, if it was to be purified comes down to blaming the economy, there would be a wide spread of social unrest.
In a paper written by Sarah birch and Nicolas Allen 2011 they argued that that it was down to inequality which caused the disturbances. Geography deprivation may help to explain why the riots happened where they did. The Chicago school can be used to explain the geographical deprivation and criminality which took place, in it one of the caused was thorough immigration. The Chicago School was essential for the establishment of criminology in America between the two world wars (Newburn, 2007). It focused on the city, which was undergoing rapid change caused by the demographic changes (waves of immigrants). Crime came to be seen as a social problem (Newburn, 2007).
The Chicago school sociologists provided a detailed empirical enquiry into the nature of social bonding in the modern, fragmented city. Park and Burgess (1925) proposed the idea of the city as a ‘’living, breathing organism’’. He studied the dynamics just like in an ecological system, observing the changes and interactions between individuals. Park and Burgess (1933) explained urban development by the idea that the city evolved through a series of concentric zones, each being a zone of social and cultural life. This came to be known as the zonal hypothesis. “Zone in transition” At the heart of these circles is the business district (zone 1) with a small residential population. Outside this zone is the zone in transition (zone 2). his is a zone with a more transient population, one which is poor, living in inadequate and deteriorating housing. Zone 3 is a zone of working class people who have escaped zone 2 and of relatively modest residential homes. Zone 4 is homes to middle class and more affluent. Zone 5 is the suburbia (Jones, 2008). If the city was growing considerably, areas which were considered to be in zones three and four could find themselves becoming part of the zone in transition with corresponding deterioration. Of most interest was the zone in transition, which was characterized by poor housing and limited resources. Immigrants lived there and majority of crime was concentrated in his zone.
The Chicago schools theory in regards to the riots could be argued to be based on social disorganization that Shaw and Mckay (1942) proposed. The riots and looting seem to have taken place where the youth see themselves as marginalized from the social economic world. These neighborhoods seem to be home to immigrants and lower class people. The riots took place in what could be known as deprived neighborhoods, where the youth lack jobs and opportunities. These neighborhoods seem to be areas of high unemployment. Life seems to be unpredictable leading to instability in terms of social cohesion. Where there is lack of cohesion, it leads which to ‘disorganization’ and ‘moral dissensus’.
This style of living increase the chance of criminality, when the lack of consumption may lead them to crimes as there is a lot of latest products, fashion that young people within these communities may want to obtain. In the Young People and Street Crime Report many young people who took part in street crimes were those from deprived neighborhoods. It demonstrates that many of these young people are trying to obtain a life style that they cannot have and so by means they reach out to crime. This essay asserts that consumer culture is a manifestation which has created a materialism culture, and it’s played a sufficient role in ones personal and self identity especially amongst young people today.
The exploratory is not claiming that consumer culture of the late modern Britain is to blame for the riots. However the criminal behaviour which took place, both in the acquisitive and the nihilistic moments, can only be comprehended if the concept is analysed in the context of a society that is becoming increasingly consumerist in its orientation. The essay also demonstrates this by using different criminologists to explain how consumer culture effects young people in London, Chicago school points out that the relative deprivation in which young people live in are the cause of crime, the reality that they live in areas of permanent recession is an ongoing battle for them to achieve their cultural means as Merton would describe.
The Young People and Street Crime Report concluded that young people who associate with middle class people are more likely to commit a criminal offence not because they want to but due to the need of surviving, they want to perceive a different identity. Merton analyst on crime is down to consumer culture. Video games which have been claimed to play a part the criminality with the James bulges murder, however there was no evidence for such claim, as the young boys came from erupted back grounds. . Today we ask the young to face a future whose fragility is not of their own making—or we ask them to face the possibility of no future at all. Global consumer culture profits from the false promise of personal solutions to social problems, with many of the most seductive of these pseudo-solutions aimed at the young.
It has concluded that consumer culture has an impact on young people which leads them to crime, not necessarily just for money but it’s also to portray a certain image to others, it comes down to peer pressure, Edwin Sutherland in one of his nine propositions asserted that criminal behaviour is learnt process through the narratives, throughout life experiences, and when young people are amongst those who are in the same category as others. As social welfare networks are facing cuts and conventional careers a disappearing, young people are relying on crime as their last resort to inherit what they need, however a global culture of industry markets to young people the global culture industry markets to the young giving them false impression of individual self-actualization through the consumption of commodified risk, pleasure, and transgression.
Navigating this world of crisis and consumption, young people find themselves engaging all manner of possibilities and imperfections—and drifting across the boundaries of law and propriety, and into the realms of criminality.
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