Crime
Juvenile Crime
The number of youths who were arrested for committing a crime acounted for 21 percent of the total number of people arrested (SPF). This goes to show the seriousness of juvenile crime in Singapore. I feel that there was a number of reasons for this.
As we learnt from the lecture, there was several characteristics to a globalised city like Singapore. First of all is the dominance of materialism. Almost everything is being measured by wealth. How rich you are will determine your status in the society or even the kind of education your children will receive. It is hard to deny that the rich people will get the best of everything while the poor struggle to survive. This has made Singapore a breeding ground for crimes, especially for youths. Small things like who has the better handphone or the more expensive bag can easily affect young people. Teenagers who have yet to mature in their thinkings might resort to illegal methods like stealing just to get things that they/parents could not afford. I feel that this is one of the reason for the fact that theft is the most common offence for teenagers in Singapore.
Another considerable reason will be the family. From what we have learnt, family is the most important factor in the process of childhood socialisation. To a large extent, the type of family the child grow up in will determine what kind ofperson the child will grow up to be. On top of that, the lack of the family, especially in the case where both parents go to work might also affect the child. The lack of care and concern from the family might result in the children using criminal acts as a way to gain the attention of the parents. Teenagers from single parent families might also feel neglected and react in the same way.
Apart from this, we should also take the Singapore education system into consideration. The Singapore education system is the survival of the fittest, students who are unable to keep up will be ‘kick out’. We are being streamed into different courses at the mere age of 12. This system of meritocracy will result in elitism and class consciousness, where those who are not academically inclined will not have the chance to show their capabilities. In addition, the teenage years is the time when we seek for our self identity and discover our capabilities, to be determined as ‘stupid’ due to bad academic results may badly affect the self confidence of the child. People who have low self confidence or self-esteem will tend to be easily influence by the media or will tend to succumb to peer pressure.When they are incapable of proving their capabilities, they might turn to illegal methods.
Some might argue that there are sports and arts schools in Singapore for those who are not academically inclined. However, the sports school in Singapore has an age limit while theres no subsidy for arts schools like NAFA. What will then happen to those who discovered their talent late? Or those who have financial difficulties? I would say there are still loopholes in the education system of Singapore. Other than that, in general, people still see academic education as highly important and as a mean to a good future.
I would think the meritocracy system has indeed resulted in class consciousness and inferiority. Although some feel that juvenile crime is the result of the lack of self-control and that those mentioned above are just excuses. However I think that even if that is the case, external factors like the education system do play a part in being the trigger that could cause on to commit such an act.
Reference:
SPF. (n.d.). Retrieved from SPF: http://www.spf.gov.sg/stats/stats2007_youtharrests.htm
