Juvenile delinquency

Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, or youth crime, is participation in illegal behavior by minors (juveniles) (individuals younger than the statutory age of majority).[1] 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 preadolescents engage in some form of juvenile offense.[2] 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.[2] 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.

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.[7] According to the developmental research of Moffitt (2006),[2] 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.[3] 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.[3] Although adolescent-limited offenders tend to drop all criminal activity once they enter adulthood, and show less pathology than life-coursepersistent offenders, they still show more mental health, substance abuse, and finance problems, both in adolescence and adulthood, than those who were never delinquent

Risk factors
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.[2]

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.[2]

Individual risk factors

Individual psychological or behavioural risk factors that may make offending more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the inability to delay gratification, aggression, empathy, and restlessness.[14] 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.[17] 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.[4][18][19] Children who perform poorly at school are also more likely to be truant, and the status offense of truancy is linked to further offending.[14] Impulsiveness is seen by some as the key aspect of a child's personality that predicts offending.[14] However, it is not clear whether these aspects of personality are a result of deficits in the executive functions of the brain[14] 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.[2]

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.[20] 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.[2] 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.[20] Conflict between a child's parents is also much more closely linked to offending than being raised by a lone parent.[4] If a child has low parental supervision they are much more likely to offend.[20] 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.[14][20] 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.[20] 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.[20] 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.[17] 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.[17] 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.[17] 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."[17] 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.[21] 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.[22] They also have lower mother-child relationship quality.

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.[30] 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.[30] 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 antisocial 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 delinquency

Juvenile Delinquency - Causes and Control

What is Juvenile Delinquency

Crime committed by children and adolescents under statutory age is called juvenile delinquency. A juvenile delinquent is one who is a minor with major problems. The age limit and also the meaning of delinquency vary in most countries, but it is always below 18 years. Generally, any person between the ages 7 to 18, who violates the law, is considered as delinquent and persons above this age are considered as criminals. The incidence of delinquency is rising amongst the girls also. Juvenile delinquency is one of the most serious problems of our times. It basically means anti-social behavior. The different forms of delinquent behavior include loitering, loafing, pick-pocketing, stealing, gambling, sexual offences like eve teasing, etc. The rate of delinquency is rising very fast all over the world and one of the main suspected reasons could be the negligence of parents

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency

Some of the causes of juvenile delinquency include the following: 1. Family Almost all research workers have accepted that families of delinquents are characterized by discords, desertions and divorces. Such families have been pointed out as one of the main causes of delinquency. 2. Peer Group To those in sore need of a substitute for family love and groupbelongingness, the peer group or the gang presents itself as a kind of close knit unit that will solve the purpose. 3. Neighborhood The immediate environments of a child also affect the trend he will adopt in connection with his personality. It has been seen that more delinquents come from slums and thickly populated areas. 4. Educational Curriculum Although schools and educational institutes are playing an increasingly important role in the training and upbringing of future citizens, they are also contributing towards many cases on juvenile delinquency. Delinquents are typically non-bookish and non-academic individuals who take studies like a burden. When they fail in exams and get scolded by their family, they tend to indulge themselves in delinquent acts. 5. Poverty and Democracy Poverty and democracy are also the major contributing factors towards juvenile delinquency. People indulge themselves in delinquent acts in order to meet and satisfy the primary wants of their life. Democratic orders also increase delinquency.

How to control Juvenile Delinquency

Following are some of the suggestions for the prevention of juvenile delinquency:

1. Accept the delinquent as a person in his own right, and give affection and security. 2. Watch for the signs of maladjustment; early treatment may prevent this maladjustment from taking a delinquent trend. 3. Providing the child with a variety of experiences like music and dance, art and craft, etc. can serve the purpose. 4. Attempt to build-up a stable system of moral and social values. 5. Reject the delinquent behavior without rejecting the delinquent. 6. Encourage the child to talk about and admit the existence of anti-social tendencies. 7. Change the conditions of home, school and community that seem to give rise to such behavior. 8. Give a potential delinquent some post of special responsibility, such as task of preventing other children from committing delinquent acts. 9. Once a delinquent act has been detected, never pass it over. Make clear to the child that he has done something wrong, but do not punish him harshly. 10. Minimize the chances of a childs going wrong by putting the smallest possible number of temptations in his way. Thus, parents and the other family members, and the teachers in school can do a lot in the prevention and controlling of juvenile delinquency.

What is Juvenile Delinquency?

Juvenile delinquency is lawbreaking by children or adolescents. Delinquency includes behavior that would be considered criminal if committed by adults, such as setting a fire or stealing a car. It also includes acts that are not necessarily criminal in adults, such as truancy and running away from home. Today the legal attitude toward the juvenile lawbreaker is that a child too young to be able properly to distinguish between right and wrong or fully to appreciate the nature of his acts ought not to be criminally responsible for what he does or fails to do. The Canadian Juvenile Delinquents Act of 1929, for example, states that "every juvenile delinquent shall be treated, not as a criminal, but as a misdirected and misguided child, and one needing aid, encouragement, help and assistance." In the United States, laws defining delinquency and setting age limits for the juvenile delinquent vary from state to state. The maximum age ranges from 14 to 21 years, but in most states it is set at 18. In all states, juvenile offenders are tried in juvenile courts or family courts, which are separate from regular criminal courts. Juvenile delinquents account for a great number of the illegal acts committed in the United States, especially those that involve taking another's belongings. During the 1960's more than 60 percent of all persons arrested for auto theft and about 50 percent of those arrested for thefts and burglary were under 18 years of age. Delinquency is rising among girls, although many more boys than girls come before juvenile courts. Many juvenile delinquents break the law repeatedly. Delinquents come from both well-to-do families and poor families, and almost as many arrests are made in rural communities as in cities and their suburbs.

Definition of Juvenile Delinquency

Any discussion of juvenile delinquency raises two fundamental questions: Who are the juveniles? and What constitutes delinquency? In answer to the first question, the most common criterion employed is chronological age. The vast majority of the laws dealing with juvenile delinquency throughout the world provide an age limit beyond which special procedures and measures meant for juveniles are inapplicable. This age limit varies not only from one country to another, but also from state to state within a country as in the case of the United States. In Europe, the variations range from 16 years in Belgium to 21 years in Sweden. The majority of European countries, however, fix the age limit at 18 years. Jurisdictions in the United States have fixed the limit with considerable variation, ranging from 16 years in states like New York and Connecticut to 21 years in such states as California and Arkansas. Here again the majority of states have fixed it at 18 years. In Latin America, the range is from 14 years in Haiti to 20 years in Chile, with the majority of the republics fixing it at 18 years. The limit in Asia ranges from 15 years in some countries like Syria and Lebanon and most of the Indian states to 20 years in Japan.

In addition to the upper age limit, most laws employ a lower age limit below which criminal responsibility, in accordance with common law tradition, cannot be attributed to juveniles. The majority of countries throughout the world accept either seven or eight years as the lower age limit, often in conjunction with the rebuttable presumption concerning discernment, although there are some countries where it is higher, apparently the highest being found in Finland where the lower age limit is 16 years. The second question as to what constitutes delinquency is more difficult to answer. The word delinquency is derived from the Latin delinquere meaning "neglect," and it may be interpreted in broad terms as neglect on the part of juveniles to conform to the accepted standards of behavior in a given society. There is general agreement, among the vast majority of the countries of the world, that an antisocial act which in their respective laws is defined as a criminal offense constitutes delinquency when committed by a juvenile. Beyond this, however, various meanings are attributed to the term. In the United States, for example, there are over 30 forms of behavior which are regarded as delinquency. They include incorrigibility, addiction to drugs, disorderliness, vagrancy, and sexual irregularities, to mention just a few. What is delinquent behavior in one state may not be so in another. According to English common law a boy under the age of 14 years is presumed to be incapable of having sexual intercourse and he cannot, therefore, be found guilty of a sex offense in England. In the United States he may be considered a delinquent. The trend in the mid-20th century is toward the broadening of the concept of delinquency with the consequence that it cannot be defined with any precision. The apparent increase in juvenile delinquency is due partly to the recognition of a greater number of behavior forms as delinquent. This is true not only for the highly industrialized and more developed countries but also for the so-called less developed countries where detribalization and shift of population to urban areas have brought juveniles face to face with impersonal law, which regards as delinquent certain forms of behavior which were customarily considered acceptable conduct in the juvenile's previous environment.

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency

There is no single cause of juvenile delinquency. In general, however, delinquency stems from the tensions and emotional stresses between young people and the adult world. Usually these tensions start in the family. Many delinquents come from broken homes or from homes where the adults do not show sufficient love for each other or for their children. Young people who are too harshly disciplined and whose rights and responsibilities as part of the family are not respected may dissociate themselves from adults, lose respect for adult society, and take aggressive action against society. A lack of discipline may also lead to delinquent behavior. Young people who do not learn moral conduct in their homes can fail to develop a firm sense of right and wrong and can enter easily into delinquent conduct. Social and economic conditions outside the family may also contribute to juvenile delinquency. The difficulty of living in poverty in slums or blighted areas may breed contempt for oneself and for others, A girl may turn to shoplifting to get cosmetics or jewelry or a boy may steal a car to impress his girl. The older youth who has dropped out

of school is especially prone to delinquency. The dropout is idle because his skills are not sufficient to get a job, and in order to get money he may turn to burglary or mugging. Discrimination against minority groups may also encourage delinquency. Youths who belong to minorities may strike back in resentment against society.

Treatment of Delinquents
The treatment given to the juvenile delinquent depends on his offense and on the factors that made him delinquent. In cases where the offense is minor, the police may talk with the youth's parents and release him with a warning, or they may refer him or his family to some agency such as a department of welfare for assistance. When the offense or its causes are serious, the youth may be referred to the juvenile court or family court. The court may send the delinquent home with a warning and assign a probation officer to help him with job or family problems. In cases where the youth's home environment is bad, the court may place him in a foster home. If he seems emotionally disturbed, the court may arrange for psychiatric treatment. As a last resort, the court may commit the delinquent to an institution where he can learn a trade while living under constant supervision. One of the most frequent measures of treatment applied by juvenile courts is probation. A juvenile delinquent is placed under the supervision of a probation officer whose duties are to befriend and assist him with a view to his rehabilitation. Probation is essentially social case work because it is the task of the probation officer to find regular employment for his charge and assist in his family problems whenever necessary. Trained probation personnel is a prerequisite for the success of this measure. In most countries where probation is used for juveniles, the tendency is to employ trained personnel on a full-time salaried basis. In England, for example, the Home Office offers a training course for probation officers. In the State of Victoria in Australia, on the other hand, probation officers are volunteers selected from all walks of life. In some European countries such as France and Belgium, a measure analogous to probation known as "supervised freedom" is practiced. The tendency in these countries is to employ full-time personnel although in the past volunteers have played a more important role. Other measures of treatment in freedom include foster-home placement for those juveniles who have no homes or whose homes are inadequate. In spite of the emphasis on rehabilitation in the treatment of juvenile delinquents, many countries still employ measures such as corporal punishment, the rehabilitative value of which is doubtful. Next to probation, juveniles are most often sent to institutions for rehabilitation. The modern juvenile institution is a greatly improved version of the early reformatory school, but it is a far cry from the ideal establishment which sends back to the community a rehabilitated juvenile whose adjustment to normal living conditions is easy and smooth. Juvenile institutions offer agricultural or industrial training to juveniles and usually provide opportunities for the development of social responsibility in their inmates. There

is a tendency to have the cottage type of establishment in preference to the congregate type of institution so that juveniles may be classified according to different criteria, and individualized treatment given. It has also been realized that individualized treatment does not consist in treating a juvenile apart from other human beings but in relation to them. In the United States, the State of New Jersey has led the way in experimenting with group therapy methods in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders. In view of the fact that the institutional setting offers an artificial atmosphere which in many instances is unrelated to actual conditions prevailing in the outside community, aftercare is a very important element in the treatment process. Comparatively speaking, aftercare services throughout the world are underdeveloped. In this connection, England and some states of India, such as Bombay and Madras, have experimented with aftercare hostels where juveniles are placed prior to their final release. Such hostels offer a less abrupt adjustment for juveniles in returning to their communities. Otherwise, aftercare usually means supervision by a parole officer. As in probation, the importance of having well-qualified supervisory personnel in this respect cannot be overemphasized.

Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency

In the United States, churches, civic associations, settlement houses, and groups such as the YMCA and YMHA work to teach young people how to use their leisure time constructively. Such organizations usually provide recreational facilities and counseling. Several cities in the United States and Canada have police-sponsored boys' clubs and athletic associations, such as the Police Athletic League (PAL) in New York City. City and county welfare departments work with youths and their families, and urban renewal projects try to eliminate slums and create decent living conditions. Most states allot money to assist such projects. The President's Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, created in 1961, provides federal funds to local public and private agencies for programs to prevent and combat delinquency. Other programs, such as the Youth Corps and the Youth Conservation Corps, were set up in 1964 under the Office of Economic Opportunity to help youths stay in school or get vocational training and job placement. Efforts are also being made to cope with the problem of school dropouts. The U.S. Department of Labor has recommended that the states make school attendance compulsory up to the age of 18 and provide two years of free schooling above the high school level. It is hoped that the additional education will better fit youths for employment. Many nations have developed youth corps camps to promote skills and good character among youths from about 15 to 20 years of age. The United Nations Economic and Social Council (UNESCO) provides expert assistance in forming and administering youth corps through a special Coordinating Committee for the International Voluntary Work Camps.