Why Dodger?a Critical Analysis of Criminal Behaviour

Why Dodger?A Critical Analysis of Criminal Behaviour

Maria Letizia Addante

500 635 268

CRM 304 Youth Justice in Canada

Section 021

Professor Kelly Deluca  

November 13, 2015

        For Centuries, there has been a vast amount of theories attempting to explain why criminal behaviours occur, particularly among youth delinquents. As discussed in lecture these theories generally derive from strains of larger biological, sociological and psychological ideologies. Without a doubt crime, including youth crime, has been a subject of discourse for years now. In the novel, Oliver Twist, an early 19th century tale, crime is a leading issue among youth. Particularly why Dodger in the novel commits crimes or participates in delinquent behaviour in the perspective of social learning theory, self fulfilling prophecy and strain theory will be examined.

        The social learning theory can be best described as a social behavioural approach that has  to do with mental processes: the understanding of ourselves and the world around us (Ministry of Children and Youth Services, 2013).  The theory includes four fundamental premises which include differential association, differential reinforcement, definitions and imitation which will be examined in order to explain Dodger’s delinquent or criminal behaviour. The first premise, differential association, provides that the people or groups that an individual is in social contact, indirectly or directly, provide the social context where the premises of the theory function. This social context provides an individual with changing definitions of unacceptable and acceptable behaviours, and various behavioural models that can reinforce criminal and non-criminal behaviour (Akers & Sellers, 2004, p. 85). These people or groups are broken up into primary or secondary sources. Primary sources include immediate family and friends whereas secondary sources encompass a much larger context: neighbours, church groups, and teachers. These sources are seen as contributions to certain beliefs that an individual adopts. Immediate influences, such as Fagin and Bill provide the basis of what constitutes Dodger’s beliefs. Fagin who reinforces delinquent behaviour in the form of a game downplays the severity and immorality of these actions, and also downplays the type of consequences attached to this behaviour: “The gentleman would keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn’t lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face” (Dickens, 1839, p 99). Fagin advocates criminal behaviour with a lack of negative consequences thus enforcing the permissibility and regularity of pickpocketing and stealing. The way Fagin teaches the group of children, Dodger among them, to make their living by these criminal activities provides sufficient influence for what constitutes Dodger’s values and beliefs.