Analysis of Media Report: Juvenile Crime, Justice, and Strain Theory

The report analyzes a news article from NBC News that discusses a 12-year-old charged with murder and the implications for the juvenile justice system. The article highlights the complexities of prosecuting juveniles and the limitations of the current system. The analysis focuses on the media's portrayal of the event and its potential impact on public perception. The report also incorporates Merton's strain theory to explain the causes of crime and deviance, examining how social strain can lead to criminal behavior, but also acknowledges the limitations of the theory, such as its focus on utilitarian crimes and its individualistic approach. The report concludes with the significance of the news report and its relation to the justice system and the role of media in shaping the perception of juvenile crimes.

Running head: MEDIA
Analysing Portrayal of a Delinquent Act by Media
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

MEDIA
NBC News Digital posted a piece of news on 26 January 2020 with the headlines of
“12-year-old charged with capital murder spotlights justice system ill-equipped for
juveniles”. According to the media report, a Texas boy, of 12 years old, broke into the house
of Boxer John VanMeter and ‘allegedly’ killed him. The excerpts analyzed from the media
report highlight that the news was told to NBC executive by witnesses, and taking into
consideration that police have still not verified the suspect, the headlines seem to be more
critique and showcasing false news to the readers. The news article is revolving around a
confident statement of a teen guy committing murder, a very serious type of felony; however,
with no clue or strong evidence to support the statement. The news article highlights an
important point of juveniles committing felonies; that is, they cannot be charged with capital
punishment, unlike the death penalty for murders marked for adult convicts.
The key advantage of Merton’s strain theory is that it explains how deviant and
normal individuals can arise, even when sharing the same goals, and also explains how social
strain results in deviance and acts as a reason for crime (Eriksson & Broidy, 2017). However,
key disadvantages associated with the Merton’s strain theory is that it ignores non-utilitarian
crime and explains only the utilitarian crime with an individualistic approach and not group
crimes (Sealock, 2017). Another key point is that not all the working-class resort to crime;
thus, the theory can be marked as too deterministic.

MEDIA
References
Eriksson, L., & Broidy, L. (2017). Strain Theory and Crime. In The Palgrave Handbook of
Australian and New Zealand Criminology, Crime and Justice (pp. 543-556). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
NBC News (2019). 12-year-old charged with capital murder puts spotlight on a justice
system ill-equipped for juveniles.. Retrieved 22 March 2020, from
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/12-year-old-charged-capital-murder-
spotlights-justice-system-ill-n962886
Sealock, M. D. (2017). Strain Theories. The Encyclopedia of Juvenile Delinquency and
Justice, 1-6.