Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words - 9

Research Paper Example Yet, regardless of the motivation that exists for encouraging individuals to join street gangs, the fact of the matter is that participation and juvenile membership in street gangs has noticed a marked increase in the past several years time. Whereas other types of crime have slowly been decreasing, crimes associated with gain participation, membership, initiation rites, and all of the other aspects that go alongside this have statistically increased at an alarming rate. Gang crime also provides an additional headache for law enforcement as well as the justice system due to the fact that locating and prosecuting juvenile gang members for crimes committed on behest of the gang is oftentimes difficult if not impossible due to the completely unknown structure of the game that exists as well as the near impossibility of penetrating these criminal organizations to gain valuable intelligence. As such, seeking to understanding causal relationships and criminal theory that ultimately explain such behavior has been a fundamental research goal of criminologists and social scientists of late. Accordingly, the following analysis will review the â€Å"strain theory† as it relates to juvenile gang membership. Bureaucratic organized crime exhibits a number of tell-tale marks that help to differentiate it from the more commonly known and recognized patron-client networks of organized crime. One analyst noted the following: â€Å"Juvenile crime is unique in that it oftentimes exhibits a level of organization that is clearly not seen with respect to other types of crime throughout the system† (Goddard et al., 2000). However, just because bureaucratic organized crime may be less recognizable, it does not mean in any way that it exists to a lesser degree in our society. A few of the most recognizable aspects of bureaucratic organized crime is