Stereotypes: How To Prevent Future Criminals

When you first spot someone being socially disruptive at a young age, you would assume that they would turn out to be aggressive. This paper will explore children with aggressive and delinquent family backgrounds, and their likelihood of becoming future criminals. It will also cover a few theories of how to prevent future criminal offences. There is always the possibility that different types of aggression could end up having multiple different outcomes. There are two different ways to describe aggression, indirect aggression and direct aggression. Indirect aggression is simply using aggressive words and tones. Direct aggression is described as using physical actions towards someone. (Benson, 2002). Now, the real question is: do children that

This example would be categorized both in the direct and indirect aggression category. This is because the guardians are using physical violence and verbal abuse towards a child. The offenders that we see in our lives today are predicted to have experiences of abuse and neglect earlier on in their lives (Malinosky-Rummell & Hansen, 1993). There was a study done in 1983 by Joan McCord called the Cambridge-Somerville study. This discovered that about half of abused and neglected boys ended up to become alcoholics, or mentally insane, or ended up to take their own life before the age of 35. Following up, there was another study one done by Smith and Thornberry in 1995, which is called the Rochester Youth Development study. This study was also to prove the fact that kids under the age of 11 and 12 who were physically or emotionally abused would have predicted delinquency and criminal behaviour later in life. Typically, these studies are explaining that a child who is going through neglect and abuse would have very weak coping skills. This could be a reason as to why children that are being abused and neglected are taking their own lives: because they do not know how to deal with the pain

This is a huge predictor of why delinquency could happen later on in a child’s life. If you do not supervise your child and don’t discipline them, then they may get themselves in trouble. In the popular Cambridge-Somerville study, it proved that the best predictor for violent and property crime: is the lack of supervision of a child (McCord, 1979). How you punish your child is important when predicting further delinquency in a child’s life. It’s been stated that “40 percent of offenders had been smacked or beaten at age 11 years, compared with 14 percent of non-offenders” (Newson, 1989, p. 208). In addition, there are other studies done that proves that a big predictor of why children become offenders is because of past abuse. The physical punishment that is towards Caucasian children is much different than the physical punishment that is towards African-American children. It is a possibility that the physical punishment may have different meanings in African-American homes. There are many different debates that say that in African-American homes the abuse can symbolize warmth and safety. In addition, in Caucasian homes it can symbolize as criminal and cold (West & Farrington, 1973). Another example, as to why delinquency can rise later on in a child’s life is the lack of involvement of a child’s activities. If you are not giving your child the right support or attention,