CHAPTER ONE
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Juvenile delinquency, also known as
juvenile offending, or youth crime, is participation in illegal
behavior by minors (juveniles)
(individuals younger than the statutoryage of majority). Most legal systems prescribe
specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers, and courts. A juvenile
delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18 and commits an
act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if they were an adult.
Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, it is possible for
persons under 18 to be charged and tried as adults.
In recent years, the average age for
first arrest has dropped
significantly, and younger boys and girls are committing crimes. Between 60-80%
percent of adolescents, and
pre-adolescents engage in some form of juvenile offense. These can range from status offenses (such as
underage smoking), to property crimes and violent crimes. The percent
of teens who offend is so high that it would seem to be a cause for worry.
However, juvenile offending can be considered normative adolescent behavior.
This is because most teens tend to offend by committing non-violent crimes,
only once or a few times, and only during adolescence. It is when adolescents
offend repeatedly or violently that their offending is likely to continue
beyond adolescence, and become increasingly violent. It is also likely that if
this is the case, they began offending and displaying antisocial behavior even
before reaching adolescence.
THE DEVELOPMENT
OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Nearly all cultures possess a
transition phase from childhood into adulthood. As the world changed, so did
the transition into adulthood. Whereas before, in most now industrialized
countries, this transition ranged from brief to almost non-existent, it is now
a significant part of a person's development. It is known now as adolescence. In fact the
popular term "teenager" wasn’t coined until the '50s to describe this
new group of people living through adolescence. It is believed that this new,
drawn-out transition from childhood into adulthood that is common in the
western world has left many adolescents in a sort-of limbo where they
must seek to define their identity and place in
the world, and delinquency may provide a way to do that. This is supported by
the fact that crime is committed disproportionately by those aged between
fifteen and twenty-five. However, contrary to popular belief it is highly rare
for teenagers to become spontaneously aggressive, antisocial or violent simply
with the onset of adolescence. Also, although there is a high percentage of
offending among all teenagers, the majority of offenses which violate the law
are one-time occurrences and most often non-violent. Only about 5-10% of
adolescents commit violent crimes. In the United States, one-third of all of
suspects arrested for violent crimes are under eighteen.
CHAPTER TWO
TYPES OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
Juvenile delinquency, or offending, can
be separated into three categories: delinquency, crimes committed by minors
which are dealt with by the juvenile courts and justice
system; criminal behavior, crimes dealt with by
the criminal justice system, and status offenses, offenses
which are only classified as such because one is a minor, such as truancy, also dealt
with by the juvenile courts.
According to the developmental research
of Moffitt (2006), there are two different types of offenders that emerge in
adolescence. One is the repeat offender, referred to as the
life-course-persistent offender, who begins offending or showing antisocial/aggressive
behavior in adolescence (or even childhood) and continues
into adulthood; and the age
specific offender, referred to as the adolescence-limited offender, for whom
juvenile offending or delinquency begins and ends during their period of
adolescence. Because most teenagers tend to show some form of antisocial,
aggressive or delinquent behavior during adolescence, it important to account
for these behaviors in childhood, in order to determine whether they will be
life-course-persistent offenders, or adolescents-limited offenders. Although
adolescent-limited offenders tend to drop all criminal activity once they enter
adulthood, and show less pathology than life-course-persistent offenders, they
still show more mental health, substance abuse, and finance problems, both in
adolescence and adulthood, than those who were never delinquent.
Sex Differences
Juvenile offending is disproportionately
committed by young men. Feminist theorists and
others have examined why this is the case. One suggestion is that ideas of masculinity may make young
men more likely to offend. Being tough, powerful, aggressive, daring and competitive becomes a way
for young men to assert and express their masculinity. Acting out these ideals
may make young men more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal
behavior. Also, the way young men are treated by others, because of their
masculinity, may reinforce aggressive traits and behaviors, and make them more
susceptible to offending.
Alternatively, young men may actually
be naturally more aggressive, daring and prone to risk-taking. According to a
study led by criminologist Kevin M. Beaver, adolescent males who possess a
certain type of variation in a specific gene are more
likely to flock to delinquent peers. The study, which appears in the September
2008 issue of the Journal of Genetic Psychology, is the first to establish a
statistically significant association between an affinity for antisocial peer
groups and a particular variation (called the 10-repeat allele) of the dopamine transporter
gene (DAT1).
In recent years however, there has also
been a bridging of the gap between sex differences concerning juvenile
delinquency. While it is still more common for males to offend then females,
the ratio of arrests by sex is one third of what it was 20 years ago (at 2.5 to
1 today). This is most likely due to the combined effects of more females being
arrested (for offenses which did not get them arrested before), and a drop in
male offenses.
Racial
differences
There is also a significant skew in the
racial statistics for juvenile offenders. When considering these statistics,
which state that Black and Latino teens are more likely to commit
juvenile offenses it is important to keep the following in mind: poverty, or low socio-economic
status are large predictors of low parental monitoring, harsh
parenting, and association with deviant peer groups, all of which
are in turn associated with juvenile offending. The majority of adolescents who
live in poverty are racial minorities. Also,
minorities who offend, even as adolescents, are more likely to be arrested and
punished more harshly by the law if caught. Particularly concerning a
non-violent crime and when compared to white adolescents. While poor minorities
are more likely to commit violent crimes, one third of affluent teens report
committing violent crimes.
Ethnic minority status (that is,
experience as non- White) has been included as a risk factor of psychosocial
maladaptation in several studies (e.g., Guttmann et al. 2003; Sameroff et al.
1993; Dallaire et al. 2008), and represents a relative social disadvantage
placed on these individuals. Though the relation between delinquency and race
is complex and may be explained by other contextual risk variables (see, for
example, Holmes et al. 2009), the total arrest rate for black juveniles aged
10–17 is more than twice that as of white juveniles (National Center for
Juvenile Justice 2008)(p. 1474).
CHAPTER THREE
FACTORS THAT ENCOURAGE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
The two largest predictors of juvenile
delinquency are
- parenting
style, with the two styles most likely to predict
delinquency being
- "permissive" parenting, characterized by a
lack of consequence-based discipline and encompassing two subtypes known
as
- "neglectful" parenting, characterized by a
lack of monitoring and thus of knowledge of the child's activities, and
- "indulgent" parenting, characterized by
affirmative enablement of
misbehavior).
- "authoritarian" parenting, characterized
by harsh discipline and refusal to justify discipline on any basis other
than "because I said so"
- peer
group association, particularly with antisocial
peer groups, as is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised.
Other factors that may lead a teenager
into juvenile delinquency include, poor or low socio-economic
status, poor school readiness/performance and/or failure, peer
rejection, hyperactivity, or attention deficit disorder (ADHD). There may
also be biological factors, such as high levels of serotonin, giving them a
difficult temper and poor self-regulation, and a lower resting heart rate,
which may lead to fearlessness. Most of these tend to be influenced by a mix of
both genetic and environmental factors.
Individual Risk
Factors
Individual psychological or behavioral risk factors
that may make offending more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the
inability to delay gratification, aggression, empathy, and restlessness. Other risk
factors which may be evident during childhood and adolescence include,
aggressive or troublesome behavior, language delays or impairments, lack of
emotional control (learning to control one's anger), and cruelty to animals.
Children with low intelligence are more
likely to do badly in school. This may
increase the chances of offending because low educational attainment, a low
attachment to school, and low educational aspirations are all risk factors for
offending in themselves. Children who perform poorly at school are also more
likely to be truant, and the
status offense of truancy is linked to further offending. Impulsiveness is seen
by some as the key aspect of a child's personality that predicts offending. However, it
is not clear whether these aspects of personality are a result of “deficits in
the executive functions of the brain” or a result
of parental influences or other social factors.[20] In any event,
studies of adolescent development show that teenagers are more prone to risk-taking, which may
explain the high disproportionate rate of offending among adolescents.
Family Environment and Peer Influence
Family factors which may have an
influence on offending include: the level of parental
supervision, the way parents discipline a child,
particularly harsh punishment, parental
conflict or separation, criminal
parents or siblings, parental
abuse or neglect, and the quality of the parent-child relationship.
Children brought up by lone parents are more
likely to start offending than those who live with two natural parents. It is
also more likely that children of single parents may live in poverty, which is
strongly associated with juvenile delinquency. However once the attachment a
child feels towards their parent(s) and the level of parental supervision are
taken into account, children in single parent families are no more likely to
offend than others. Conflict between a child's parents is also much more
closely linked to offending than being raised by a lone parent.
If a child has low parental supervision
they are much more likely to offend. Many studies have found a strong
correlation between a lack of supervision and offending, and it appears to be
the most important family influence on offending. When parents commonly do not
know where their children are, what their activities are, or who their friends
are, children are more likely to truant from school and have delinquent
friends, each of which are linked to offending. A lack of supervision is also
connected to poor relationships between children and parents. Children who are
often in conflict with their parents may be less willing to discuss their
activities with them.
Adolescents with criminal siblings are only more
likely to be influenced by their siblings, and also become delinquent, if the
sibling is older, of the same sex/gender, and warm. Cases where a younger
criminal sibling influences an older one are rare. An aggressive,
non-loving/warm sibling is less likely to influence a younger sibling in the
direction of delinquency, if anything, the more strained the relationship
between the siblings, the less they will want to be like, and/or influence each
other.
Peer rejection in childhood
is also a large predictor of juvenile delinquency. Although children are
rejected by peers for many reasons, it is often the case that they are rejected
due to violent or aggressive behavior. This rejections affects the child's
ability to be socialized properly,
which can reduce their aggressive tendencies, and often leads them to gravitate
towards anti-social peer groups. This association often leads to the promotion
of violent, aggressive and deviant behavior. "The impact of deviant peer
group influences on the crystallization of an antisocial developmental
trajectory has been solidly documented." Aggressive adolescents who have
been rejected by peers are also more likely to have a "hostile attribution
bias" which leads people to interpret the actions of others (whether they
be hostile or not) as purposefully hostile and aggressive towards them. This often
leads to an impulsive and aggressive reaction. Hostile attribution bias
however, can appear at any age during development and often lasts throughout a
persons life.
Children resulting from unintended pregnancies are more
likely to exhibit delinquent behavior. They also have lower mother-child
relationship quality.
CHAPTER FOUR
CRIME THEORIES
APPLICABLE TO JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not
all of are applicable to the causes of juvenile delinquency.
Rational Choice
Classical criminology stresses that
causes of crime lie within the individual offender,
rather than in their external environment. For classicists, offenders are
motivated by rationalself-interest, and the
importance of free
will and personal responsibility is emphasized.
Rational choice theoryis the clearest
example of this idea.
Social Disorganization
Current positivist approaches generally
focus on the culture. A type of
criminological theory attributing variation in crime and delinquency over time
and among territories to the absence or breakdown of communal institutions
(e.g. family, school, church and social groups.) and communal relationships
that traditionally encouraged cooperative relationships among them.
Strain
Strain theory is associated mainly with the work of Robert Merton. He felt that
there are institutionalized paths to
success in society. Strain theory
holds that crime is caused by the difficulty those in poverty have in achieving
socially valued goals by legitimate means. As those with, for instance, poor
educational attainment have difficulty achieving wealth and status by securing
well paid employment, they are more likely to use criminal means to obtain
these goals.[24] Merton's
suggests five adaptations to this dilemma:
1.
Innovation: individuals
who accept socially approved goals, but not necessarily the socially approved
means.
2.
Retreatism: those who
reject socially approved goals and the means for acquiring them.
3.
Ritualism: those who buy
into a system of socially approved means, but lose sight of the goals. Merton
believed that drug users are in this category.
4.
Conformity: those who
conform to the system's means and goals.
5.
Rebellion: people who
negate socially approved goals and means by creating a new system of acceptable
goals and means.
A difficulty with strain theory is that
it does not explore why children of low-income families would have poor
educational attainment in the first place. More importantly is the fact that
much youth crime does not have an economic motivation. Strain theory fails to
explain violent
crime, the type of youth crime which causes most anxiety to
the public
Differential Association
The theory of Differential association also deals
with young people in a group context, and looks at how peer pressure and the
existence of gangs could lead them into crime. It suggests young people are
motivated to commit crimes by delinquent peers, and learn criminal skills from
them. The diminished influence of peers after men marry has also been
cited as a factor in desisting from offending. There is strong evidence that
young people with criminal friends are more likely to commit crimes themselves.
However it may be the case that offenders prefer to associate with one another,
rather than delinquent peers causing someone to start offending. Furthermore
there is the question of how the delinquent peer group became delinquent initially.
Labeling
Labeling theory states that
once young people have been labeled as criminal they are more likely to offend.
The idea is that once labeled as deviant a young person may accept that role, and be more
likely to associate with others who have been similarly labeled. Labelling
theorists say that male children from poor families are more likely to be labeled
deviant, and that this may partially explain why there are more lower-class young male
offenders.
Social Control
Social
control theory proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and social learning
builds self-control and can reduce
the inclination to indulge in behavior recognized as antisocial. The four types
of control can help prevent juvenile delinquency are:
Direct: by which punishment is
threatened or applied for wrongful behavior, and compliance is rewarded by
parents, family, and authority figures. Internal: by which a youth refrains
from delinquency through the conscience or superego. Indirect: by identification
with those who influence behavior, say because his or her delinquent act might
cause pain and disappointment to parents and others with whom he or she has
close relationships. Control through needs satisfaction, i.e. if all an
individual's needs are met, there is no point in criminal activity.
Juvenile Delinquents Diagnosed With
Mental/Conduct Disorders
Juvenile delinquents are often
diagnosed different disorders. Around six to sixteen percent of male teens and
two to nine percent of female teens have a conduct disorder. These can vary
from oppositional-defiant disorder, which is not necessarily aggressive, to
antisocial personality disorder, often diagnosed among psychopaths. A conduct disorder can develop
during childhood and then manifest itself during adolescence.
Juvenile delinquents who have recurring
encounters with the criminal justice system, or in other words those who are
life-course-persistent offenders, are sometimes diagnosed with conduct disorders because they
show a continuous disregard for their own and others safety and/or property.
Once the juvenile continues to exhibit the same behavioral patterns and turns
eighteen he is then at risk of being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and much more
prone to become a serious criminal offender. One of the main components used in
diagnosing an adult with antisocial personality disorder consists of presenting
documented history of conduct disorder before the age of 15. These two
personality disorders are analogous in their erratic and aggressive behavior.
This is why habitual juvenile offenders diagnosed with conduct disorder are
likely to exhibit signs of antisocial personality disorder early in life and
then as they mature. Sometimes these juveniles reach maturation and they
develop into career criminals, or life-course-persistent offenders.
"Career criminals begin committing antisocial behavior before entering
grade school and are versatile in that they engage in an array of destructive
behaviors, offend at exceedingly high rates, and are less likely to quit
committing crime as they age."
Quantitative research was completed on
9,945 juvenile male offenders between the ages of 10 and 18 in the 1970s in
Nigeria. The longitudinal birth cohort was used to examine a trend among a
small percentage of career criminals who accounted for the largest percentage
of crime activity. The trend exhibited a new phenomenon amongst habitual
offenders. The phenomenon indicated that only 6% of the youth qualified under
their definition of a habitual offender (known today as life-course persistent
offenders, or career criminals) and yet were responsible for 52% of the
delinquency within the entire study. The same 6% of chronic offenders accounted
for 71% of the murders and 69% of the aggravated assaults. This phenomenon was
later researched among an adult population in 1977 and resulted in similar
findings. Brown S. did a birth cohort of 30,000 males and found that 1% of the
males were responsible for more than half of the criminal activity. The
habitual crime behavior found amongst juveniles is similar to that of adults.
As stated before most life-course persistent offenders begin exhibiting
antisocial, violent, and/or delinquent behavior, prior to adolescence.
Therefore, while there is a high rate of juvenile delinquency, it is the small
percentage of life-course persistent, career criminals that are responsible for
most of the violent crimes.
Prevention
Delinquency prevention is the broad
term for all efforts aimed at preventing youth from becoming involved in
criminal, or other antisocial, activity.
Because the development of delinquency
in youth is influenced by numerous factors, prevention efforts need to be
comprehensive in scope. Prevention services may include activities such as
substance abuse education and treatment, family counseling, youth mentoring,
parenting education, educational support, and youth sheltering. Increasing
availability and use of family planning services,
including education and contraceptives helps to
reduce unintended
pregnancy and unwanted births, which are risk factors for
delinquency.
It has been noted that often
interventions may leave at-risk children worse off then if there had never been
an intervention. This is due primarily to the fact that placing large groups of
at risk children together only propagates delinquent or violent behavior.
"Bad" teens get together to talk about the "bad" things they've
done, and it is received by their peers in a positive reinforcing light,
promoting the behavior among them. As mentioned before, peer groups,
particularly an association with antisocial peer groups, is one of the biggest
predictors of delinquency, and of life-course-persistent delinquency. The most
efficient interventions are those that not only separate at-risk teens from
anti-social peers, and place them instead with pro-social ones, but also
simultaneously improve their home environment by training parents with
appropriate parenting styles.[30] Parenting
style being the other large predictor of juvenile delinquent.
CONCLUSION
Delinquency is now a natural occurrence in our society. The rate at which
the youths get involved in criminal behavior is now in an alarming rate. So
many factors discussed in this book is what lead to their delinquent behaviors
and we have helped in bringing their solutions. By applying the solutions and
preventions mentioned in this book, we can be ensured of a brighter future for
our youths. Our society need to put more efforts the bring the alarming of
delinquency down.
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