Criminal Theories
How accurate is S.C. Hinton's depiction of the Outsiders (the "greasers") as juvenile delinquents?
This is what we found:
A person can't commite a crime unless:
-he or she is acting under his own free will (that means no one is forcing him to commit a crime),
-he or she is sane, and
-he or she is old enough (this age depends on where a person lives).
Under this definition, the Greasers (and some of the Socs) do seem to be juvenile delinquents. However, why do the Greasers seem to do some more ciminal acts (e.g. stealing)? Well, that's because:
According so some criminal experts, working class boy are more likely so commit crimes than the middle class boys (e.g. "Socs") do. They say this is because the working boys so not think the same things are important that middle class boy so. For instance, in The Outsiders, the socs cared about money (e.g. Mustangs and madras) and their reputations (e.g. what their teachers think of them). The Greasers seemed to care more about friendship and loyalty. Ponyboy explains this in Chapter 8, when he describes how Two-Bit gave Dally his knife: "Dally knew how much that knife meant to Two-Bit, and if he needed a blade bad enough to ask for it, well, he needed a blade. That was all there was to it. Two-bit handed it over to Dally without a moment's hesitation." However, some experts, especially the sociologists Delos Kelly and Robert Balch, say this thoery is not necessarily true. They say teenagers from all sorts of backrounds are equally likely to be juvies.
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