One theory to explain Tommy’s involvement in gang involvement and crime is the social learning theory. This theory suggests that individuals learn and imitate illegal behavior from the people and community they surround themselves with. In the podcast we learn the start of his deviant behavior when they explained that he was abused by his father and ended up resenting him, but also led him to disobey authority figures. He finally decided to join a gang when he was confronted by three other boys. After feeling scared and humiliated he wanted to show others that he can be just as scary. He really got into the gang life by being amazed by their culture, dances, music, the way they dressed, and the gang signs, he saw the gang life as a united family I wanted to be apart of something like that. After seeing the gang with low riders, selling drugs, he started to do the same delinquent activity such as fighting in school, snatching cars and purses. what he wanted and what he craved was the ghetto representation and popularity and it ended making him want to do more violent crimes then his fellow gang member’s. This all supports how the community you surround yourself with can affect how you view the world, how you view yourself, and make you become something that you are not to later on regret it.
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