Director John Singleton’s feature film debut Boyz n the Hood works not only as an engaging and kinetically entertaining coming of age story, but as a piercing sociological, and more importantly, criminological study.
The film is an accurate and unrelenting snapshot of a community and a people struggling to break out of a cycle of poverty and lawlessness. As many criminologists argue, crime is a manifestation of the desire of the poor to escape poverty. Those that have not, want. In the case of the characters in Boyz n the Hood, living in South Central is the social equivalent of being trapped in a cage. Everyone wants to break out of his or her imprisonment, but with no hope of escape in sight, they turn to the only outlet they have left: crime.
Characters such as Tre Styles (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and Ricky Baker (Morris Chestnut) represent the small few who attempt to pursue legitimate futures through education. Yet in the end, even they are sucked into the vortex of violence and destruction that consumes their community, simply through their association with criminals. Characters like Doughboy (Ice Cube), on the other hand, represent the type of individuals who value pride, power, and prestige over following social norms and adhering to the law. These individuals have no fear of the repercussions of the law, and commit crimes with no hesitation. Without any apprehension to hold them back, they freely engage in violence as a means of solving their problems and thus institute a cycle of crime that never seems to end.
A poignant scene early in the film highlights one of the contributing factors to this sense of lawlessness in the community. When a burglar breaks into the Styles home and escapes, Furious Styles (Laurence Fishbourne) naturally calls the police. The cops, however, do not arrive until over an hour later, and when they do, they’re unhelpful and seemingly unwilling to even aid in the investigation. Here, the law has shown itself to be completely useless in handling a common neighborhood problem. So when these situations arise, what are the citizens to do if the law will do nothing for them?
From a criminological perspective, it’s easy to look at a film like Boyz n the Hood as a signature example of the sociological reasons behind criminal activity. The actions of the characters in the film are tied directly to the social circumstances they are forced to live in.
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