Violence is a part of the norm of the lower socioeconomic classes and are a learned response to pressures of survival. According to this theory, young males, particularly those in female-headed households in socially deprived areas, frustrated in their search for self-esteem and material goods, turn to violence as a means of achieving status. Stress theories view violent behavior as a means of coping with intolerable stress, which may occur when youths are faced with pressure from a single trauma, or when pressure has gradually accumulated from several sources. The ensuing violence may be directed against intimates or toward strangers. Such violent incidents tend to be unplanned and unintended. Aggressive violent behavior may be directed toward family members or peer-group members when an aggressor experiencing stress wishes to maintain intense physical and emotional contact with the victim. Also, that violent delinquents were characterized by poor impulse control, rage, low self-esteem, lack of empathy with others, and limited tolerance of frustration.
Homicide was the fifth leading cause of death among black males and the fourteenth leading cause among white males. It was the leading cause of death among black males in the 15-19, 20-24, 25-34 age groups, while it was third in those groups among whites. And this is mostly because those victims who are dying from gun shots live in a poor area. Most of those deaths were African-Americans and the majority of those African-American came from or lived in a poverty-stricken neighborhood or city. There are two complementary procedures which may be used to put order into criminological knowledge. The first is logical abstraction. Blacks, males, urban-dwellers, and young adults all have comparatively high crime rates. What do they have in common that results in these high crime rates? A lot of children and teenagers today that live in poor communities, that live in welfare, believe that they cannot get anywhere in life because they do not have any money. At school they are constantly being told that they cannot do it because they are black, white, Hispanic, because they live in a poverty-stricken community, because their parents do not make enough money, because they aren't smart enough. So these kids listen and believe this and do not bother to go to school, and if they do, they skip class, they vandalize school property, always getting in trouble, starting fights, getting detention. They become extreme trouble makers and it makes them look like their future is headed nowhere. These kids and teenagers see people with money, and they want money too. But because they are already trouble makers, they end up finding the easy way to make money. They buy drugs just to sell them off, they steal, they rob stores, cars, people. They find a way to make "easy money" when real money is never just that easy to make. They break the law over and over and over because they believe that since they were little, that because they grew up in a poor society, poor community, poor family, that they will be poor for the rest of their lives and they do not see why they should work at school, get good grades and be a good person, if they believe they are too dumb or have no money. Living in poverty makes kids believe that they are headed down a path of nothing, when they have the option to be great.
Social-learning explanations of violent behavior hold that early childhood experiences are related to behavior patterns later in life. Physical abuse of children by parents or of spouses toward one another is internalized by the children as the appropriate reaction to problems. A study revealed that 26 percent of youths had experienced physical abuse, and that the abused delinquents tended to direct their violence toward members of their immediate families or significant others in their lives. Another study of self-reported violent behavior by high school students and youths referred to a juvenile court revealed that those who had experienced violence from their parents and who live in families characterized by low levels of family functioning were more likely to have committed violent acts than those who had not had such experiences.
Researchers who have examined the family situations of the kids who threatened to kill or actually killed their parents found that the youths family environment was characterized by physical abuse of children, heavy drinking by parents, and constant verbal and physical fighting among parents. A history of drug abuse has also been known to be related to violent delinquency.
A number of researchers studied social disorganizations, industrialization, population movements, and changes in the neighborhoods to determine their influence on delinquency and crime in cities. In their study The Polish Peasant, they examined social disorganization in a Polish neighborhood of Chicago. They noted the failure of existing social rules and norms to control behavior, and they documented the fact that the home, neighborhood, church, and friendship patterns lost their influence when rapid social change occurred. They developed a theory that juvenile delinquency occurs most frequently in the center of the city, decreasing as one moves out toward the peripheral suburban areas. They also asserted that the high-delinquency areas were those in which the population was declining and that were deteriorating physically, with a consequent movement from residential to business zoning.
Those living in areas characterized by rapid changed in the population, lack of interpersonal interaction, poverty, and family disruption have limited opportunities to achieve through legitimate means, so they react by seeking success through illegitimate means. The social disorganization that exists around them reduces their response to social controls and in many instances causes them to seek success or pleasure without regard for the laws of society. Youths who realize that they cannot achieve their goals develop various behavior characteristics in reaction to their failure. They not only defy conventional norms but deliberately seek to oppose them.