Juvenile Delinquency

Table of Contents

Juvenile Delinquency
3

Risk Factors
4-6

Applicable Crime Theories

7-8

Prevention
9-10

Bibliography
11

Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile delinquency, also known as "juvenile offending", is
participation in illegal behavior by minors (juveniles, i.e. individuals
younger than the statutory age of majority). In India a minor is a
person who is below 18 years of age irrespective of his or her gender.
Delinquency is not following the norms of society to which we belong.
Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with
juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers, and courts. Punishment
for juveniles is basically rehabilitation and reformation. They are later
given vocational training so that they can sustain themselves
afterwards rather than depending on crimes again. Burt is delinquency
occurring in a child when his anti-social tendency appears so grave
that he becomes or ought to become the subject of official action.
In recent years a higher proportion of youth have experienced arrests
by their early 20s than in the past, although some scholars have
concluded this may reflect more aggressive criminal justice and zerotolerance policies rather than changes in youth behavior. Juvenile
crimes can range from status offenses (such as underage smoking), to
property crimes and violent crimes. 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. Repeated and/or violent offending
is likely to lead to later and more violent offenses. When this happens,
the offender often displayed antisocial behavior even before reaching
adolescence.

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
enablement of misbehavior

by

affirmative

"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
socioeconomic
status,
poor
school
readiness/performance and/or failure, peer rejection, or attention
deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). There may also be biological
3

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 behavioural risk factors that may make

offending more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the
inability to delay gratification, aggression, lack of empathy, and
restlessness. Other risk factors that 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. 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 that 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. Some have suggested that having a lifelong
partner leads to less offending.
Juvenile Delinquency, which basically is the rebellious or unlawful
activities by kids in their teens or pre-teens, is caused by four main risk
factors namely; personality, background, state of mind and drugs.
These factors may lead to the child having low IQ and may increase
the rate of illiteracy.
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, non5

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 rejection 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.

Applicable Crime Theories

Rational choice:
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Classical criminology stresses that causes of crime lie within the

individual offender, rather than in their external environment. For
classicists, offenders are motivated by rational self-interest, and the
importance of free will and personal responsibility is emphasized.
Rational choice theory is the clearest example of this idea. Delinquency
is one of the major factors motivated by rational choice.
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 people.
Strain:
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. 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.

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Differential associations:
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. There is strong evidence that young people with
criminal friends are more likely to commit crimes themselves.
Labeling:
Labeling theory is a concept within Criminology that aims to explain
deviant behavior from the social context rather than looking at the
individual themselves. It is part of Interactionism criminology that
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. Labeling 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 working 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.
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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. Education
is the great equalizer, opening doors to lift themselves out of poverty....
Education also promotes economic growth, national productivity and
innovation, and values of democracy and social cohesion. Prevention
through education aides the young person to interact more effectively
in social contexts there for diminishing need 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. A well-known intervention treatment that has
not increased the prevention of juvenile delinquency is the Scared
Straight Treatment. The harmful effects of Scared Straight and boot9

camp programs may be attributable to juvenile offenders vicarious

exposure to criminal role models, to the increased resentment
engendered in them by confrontational interactions, or both This
suggests that exposure to criminals could create a sense of idealization
and defeat the entire purpose of scared straight treatment. Also, this
treatment doesnt acknowledge the psychological troubles that the
teenager may be experiencing. 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,
parenting style being the other large predictor of juvenile delinquency.
Other than this the other remedies which could be used are:

Psychiatric therapy: Some of the juvenile delinquents suffer from

mental disorder and have uncertain behavior. They should be treated.
Those children should be given psychiatric treatment.

Morality development: Morality should be developed in children

right from the grass root level so it needs a very good parenting. Good
parenting is what it takes. Other than that in schools also morality
development classes should take place. School should make efforts to
make their respective students a good citizen.

Love and affection from parents: As mentioned already, good

parenting is required. Parents should provide their children with love
and affection. If parents are too harsh or too permissive or theres a
communication gap between them chances can emerge of their
children of being a juvenile offender.

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Bibliography

1.
C.N
Shankarao,
Principals of Sociology

Sociology:

Primary

2.

Joseph Slabey, Juvenile Delinquency

3.

www.britannica.com

4.

www.dictionary.com

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