Youth Deviance in Barbados: Challenging Socio-Economic Stereotypes

• In Event: Advancing Social Disorganization Theory In Crime and Punishment Research

Abstract

Previous studies have linked neighbourhood characteristics with adolescent crime and delinquency in urban and metropolitan neighbourhoods and communities through a social disorganisation framework. While the nature of crime in the Caribbean means that there is a large body of literature that explores crime and delinquency as the dominant form of deviant behaviour among youth, few studies have gone beyond criminal behaviour, to explore the range of deviant behaviours that characterise different social groups. This paper, based on a PhD thesis that seeks in part, to examine how youth deviance is manifested and patterned across different socioeconomic groups within select Barbadian neighbourhoods, interrogates the existing literature on deviance in the Caribbean and argues that the historical privileging of crime and delinquency suggests a false reality in which deviance is unique to those from lower socio-economic groups. This resulting empirical neglect fails to account for the diversity of expressions of deviance that exist within the social strata of the society. This paper further argues the unique socio-cultural milieu of these neighbourhoods have had a significant impact on the types and prevalence of deviant behaviours exhibited.

Author

• Melanie Callender-Forde, University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus