Ever wonder why some children commit offences while others can sail through their entire childhood with a clean record? I’m not talking about doorbell ditching or throwing water balloons at the elderly neighbors, but things such as drug related crime, property crime or even crime against a person, all of which could end up with a child being thrown in a juvenile detention center or parents paying the courts large sums. The answer to this question lies within the study of risk factors associated with adolescent criminal activity, and over the past twenty years, much has been learned about risks for antisocial and delinquent behaviour. A risk factor by definition is a condition, behavior or other factor that causes risk (Risk Factor, 2017). …show more content…
No need for alarm if your child is exposed to a risk factor, no single risk factor can lead a young person to delinquency and many children reach adulthood with no involvement at all in serious delinquent behavior. Risk factors do not operate in isolation but are cumulative, the more risk factors a child is exposed to the more likley they will get involved in criminal activity (Risk and Protective Factors, 2004). This essay breaks these risk factors into three sections: individual, social and community, in order to better understand the reason behind delinquency. The individual level includes biological, psychological, behavioral and cognitive factors. Social level risk factors are discussed next, these include family and peer relations. Finally we examine community level factors which include school and neighborhood …show more content…
Some of these factors can be identified before birth or directly after, while other factors can be identified during early childhood, or may not be able to be identified until late childhood or during adolescence. Kandels 1989 study on ‘Youth at High Risk of Delinquency’, showed that paternal complications can often lead to health problems that negatively affect the development of a child. Such as, children whose mothers smoked cigarettes frequently during their pregnancy are more likely to display conduct disorders and behavioral problems (McCord et al,. 2001). Kandel (1989) also found that 80 percent of violent offenders rated high in delivery complications compared with 47 percent of non offenders, making paternal complications a huge risk factor. Psychological, behavioral and mental characteristics also play into a child's individual risk factors. In Motiffs 1995 study, it was found that low verbal IQ and delayed language development have both been linked to delinquency. Children with low academic performance, low commitment to school, and low educational aspirations during the elementary and middle school grades are at higher risk for child delinquency than are other children (Herrenkohl et al., 2001). Hyperactivity and antisocial behavior just add on to the long list of individual risk factors that are associated with juvenile delinquency.
Juvenile delinquency may evolve around many different factors before it becomes a problem for society to solve. Gender and family structure can be a large and underlining cause of why children enter the criminal justice system. By examining the gender and family makeup, one could better understand how to treat a troubled individual.
Juvenile Delinquency is a complicated subject because researchers and scholars have tried different methods to reduce it. Research shows that the methods which have had better results are those that are implemented in a way where the family of the juveniles gets involved in the process (Laub, 2014). A policy that will be advocated is the policy in the city of Santa Ana, CA: The Santa Ana Police Athletic and Academic League (SAPAAL). If we want to reduce delinquency and crime then we should focus on prevention rather than intervention. There is not one theory that explains why people commit crime, on the contrary, there are multiple well-known theories that argue for different explanations of delinquency. As learned through lectures
This paper looks at the different theories of criminal behavior that explain why people commit crimes. It goes deeper to analyze the specific theories in a bid to determine why a person may commit a certain crime and another person under the same circumstances may not. The paper focuses on key factors that motivate unruly behavior among people and why such factors are present in some people and not in others. In doing so, the paper leans more on children in order to determine how delinquency behavior is progressively imparted on them as they undergo developmental trajectory.
The reason for the lack of sufficient changes in juvenile delinquency is that the problems that leads to juvenile delinquency starts in the home and there has not been enough attention paid to the family dynamics which causes delinquency. Parents are the first relationship chi...
The behavior among juveniles and family problems among their homes is a major issue at hand in our society today. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (2010), in the year 2010, 784 juveniles were arrested for murder, 2,198 for rape, and 35,001 for aggravated assault. The amount of juveniles being involved in violent crimes is very detrimental to all aspects of our society, but environmental factors are a major component of this issue that needs to be analyzed. The question is then is how does instability and turmoil within the family affect the rate of juvenile delinquency amount youth. Dysfunction within the family, negative peer pressure and substance abuse all influence the behavior and action of youth ages persons. All of these factors contribute to the possibility of a youth aged child to becoming a juvenile delinquent. Not all youths that have these different situations occurring in their childhood become involved in criminal activities, but they increase the chances. Children are affected at young ages and the things that they face in life and they way they act are vital in the path that they choose to follow in life.
Mulder, E., Brand, E., Bullens, R., & Van Marle, H. (2010). A classification of risk factors in serious juvenile offenders and the relation between patterns of risk factors and recidivism. Criminal Behaviour & Mental Health, 20(1), 23-38. doi:10.1002/cbm.754
The presentation of negative stimuli has been found to be one of the forerunning causes of delinquency amongst juveniles. Some examples of undesirable stimuli that an adolescent could be facing are child abuse, neglect, and exploitation, hostile relationships with parents teachers and peers, negative academic experiences, neighborhood difficulties, and poverty. If a juvenile is surrounded by individuals who sell drugs in order to finance a way of life that is easier and more financial than their current way of life, the adolescent id more likely to imitate that behavior by association.
Many in the juvenile justice field have tried to understand the cause of juvenile delinquency. There are many different theories describe the cause and effect of variables and how they react. However, through much research, we have concluded there is not just one single path or journey that determines the fate of the juvenile. There are many different risk factors that build in order to increase a youth's chance of becoming an offender. This is kind of like a domino effect. Risk factors are described as the characteristics that present themselves to determine if the individual or youth will become a delinquent. These factors may include; home life, income status, gender, and social. It can either be one or all that play a part in the way the
Throughout my life I have experienced issues with being antisocial but not in the most obvious way. In the way where I could converse with and befriend others, my issues were I tend to be antisocial when it comes to friendship and being in groups of people. I always find myself to be straying off. To this day I still cannot perceive why. It is highly sensible to say I endure complications when it comes to feeling included. This is due to my anxiety disorder. Growing up I was overly self-conscious. Over time this small issue goes out of hand, thus passing to my mother taking me to a doctor who then recommended me to a sort life coach, you could call her a therapist but that’s not quite what she is. In the darkness of that phase of my life
Criminological theorists and researchers in the United States have gained much more attention and interest of the study in Childhood delinquency in the recent years. It does not only concern the theorist and criminologist but also the members of the public as cases involving children whom committed violent crime has gradually increased. (Snyder 2001) provided statistics of juvenile offender aged 7-12 years old appearing in front of a juvenile court has gradually increased over the past decade. Burke et al. (2005) argued that ‘child delinquents’ offenders that are younger than 13 years of age have faced greater risks of becoming criminal offenders in their later adulthood.
Thompson, W. E. and Bynum J. E. (2010). Juvenile Delinquency: A sociological Approach Eighth Edition. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Tremblay, R. E., Maasse, B., Perron, D., Leblanc, M., Schwartzman, A. E., & Ledingham, J. E. (1992). Early disruptive behavior, poor school achievement, delinquent behavior, and delinquent personality: Longitudinal analyses. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 60, 64-72. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.60.1.64
The social environment of teens holds an enormous influence on how the teens act and behave. Teens are easily influenced by their surroundings and they look to others for guidance. Their behavior results from that of the parent and peer influences. Parents play a particularly influential role in their child’s life and it is up to them to make sure that they are leading their sons or daughters in the right directions. A teen’s peers also play a large role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not around. A teen’s social environment, consisting of family and peers, plays a vital role in their life, therefore becoming the ultimate cause of juvenile delinquency.
Loeber, R and Farrington, D (2000). Young children who commit crime: Epidemiology, developmental origins, risk factors, early interventions, and policy implications. Development and Psychopathology, , pp 737-762.
Juvenile delinquency is one of the major social issues in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is when “a violation of the law committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Merriam-webster.com). Although we have one justice system in America, the juvenile system differs from the adult juvenile system. Most juvenile delinquents range from as low as the age of seven to the age of seventeen. Once the delinquent or anyone turns the age of eighteen, they are considered an adult. Therefore, they are tried as an adult, in the justice system. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. In addition, there are a variety of effects that juvenile justice systems can either bad effects or good effects. Finally there are many different solutions that can reduce juvenile delinquency. As a result, juvenile delinquency is a major issue and the likeliness of it can be reduced. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency there has to be an understanding of the causes and the effects.