The Lack of Strong Parental Figures Causes Juvenile Delinquency Imagine a thirteen-year-old boy living with his mother. His parents have been divorced since he was four-years-old. He has never really known his father and therefore uses his friends for his male role models. His mother has to work two jobs to support her family and is therefore not there to spend much time with her child. This is the type of child that is normally delinquent. Add to this scenario a group of teenage friends that are involved in delinquent activities and it is almost guaranteed that a juvenile delinquent will emerge out of this situation. In an interview that I conducted with a juvenile corrections officer this scenario was seen as one of the biggest causes of juvenile delinquency. He, Mike Smith, said that: The three main causes of juvenile delinquency are fathers not being in the home, children being unsupervised, and child abuse. This is because children learn through modeling, or what they see, so if there is not a strong, good role model, they learn through their peers. (1999) One of the biggest problems of juvenile delinquents, or one of their biggest sources of delinquency, according to Mike Smith is, "without a doubt, …drugs and alcohol. These are usually the things that lead to other delinquent acts such as skipping school, stealing, and acts of violence and destruction (1999)." The only way that these problems can ever be solved is by everyone working together to make a difference in every child’s life. According to Smith, correcting the problem of juvenile delinquency, "Would involve changes from the individual level all the way up to the societal level (1... ... middle of paper ... ...ses of juvenile delinquency are exactly what my interviewee said that they were, lack of a strong male role model, children being left unsupervised, and child abuse. The problem of so many children today is lack of strong parental figures. There are too many youths that have been raised by the television. Until we begin to see our youth as the most important asset, we will never solve the problem of juvenile delinquency. Bibliography: Bibliography Bibliography Bynum, Jack E. and William E. Thompson. (1999). Juvenile delinquency: A sociological approach (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Schmallenger, Frank. (1997). Criminal justice today (4th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Smith, Mike. (1999). Personal interview. Troy, MO.
According to Price & Kunz, (2003) family structure is a major factor in explaining delinquency. The research aimed at finding a link between cohabiting and other family types with delinquency (Price & Kunz, 2003). They made an important finding that adolescents from cohabiting families are at greater odds of engaging in non-violent delinquency compared to those from biological-parent families. The findings contradict the findings of other studies that show that that youth from broken families are likely to engage themselves in delinquent activities. For example, in one longitudinal study by Juby and Farrington, (2003) they found out that children especially boys who were from non-intact families portrayed negative behaviors compared to those that were from intact families (Juby & Farrington, 2001). Moreover, Prince & Kunz, (2003) performed a meta-analysis involving divorce and juvenile delinquency. They also made a finding that children from divorced homes have a high rate of delinquency compared to those from intact homes.
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.
In the past, she has worked for three or more employers part-time, with close to full-time hours. During tax season my brother and I barely ever saw her due to the workload she had. Coffee was her best friend, and the night was just a few more hours to the day.
Children have their own views of the world. they do not see it as adults do, and they do not see it as other children do. the world is, at this point, a product of their imagination and whatever information they draw in from the world using their senses. (wilkie 100)
Being the child of an incarcerated parent has substantial amounts of negative influences on youth today. As young children, many consider their parents as role models. Someone who they can confide in, someone who will preserve them, and someone who will guide them through life. For most youngsters having an incarcerated parent, means that their admirable example in life is absent. Not having a parent present in one's childhood leads to innumerable negative outcomes and impacts.
Just about anybody can be a good role model. One may ask what a good role model is, and how a good role model dif...
Showing her options: Showing her resources, to help her provide for her family, finding her a safe place live, obtaining a job and going to back to school
Popkin, S. J., Leventhal, T., & Weismann, G. (2010). Girls in the 'hood: How safety affects the life chances of low-income girls. Urban Affairs Review, 45(6), 715-
work and is about to get married. The only work she has done is when
Traditional families are becoming a thing of the past. Women are no longer staying at home and assuming their womanly roles that society once expected from them. Due to their choices and living environment, they have to do what they can to raise the children that being into this world.
Families serve as one of the strongest socializing forces in a person's life. They help teach children to control unacceptable behavior, to delay gratification, and to respect the rights of others. Conversely, families can also teach children aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior. In adults' lives, family responsibilities may provide an important stabilizing force. Given these possibilities, family life may directly contribute to the development of delinquent and criminal tendencies. Parental conflict and child abuse correlate with delinquency. Though not all children who grow up in conflictive or violent homes become delinquent, however, being exposed to conflict and violence appears to increase the risk of delinquency. At this point, researchers have not pin pointed what factors exactly push some at-risk youth into delinquency. A child with criminal parents faces a greater likelihood of becoming a delinquent than children with law-abiding parents. However, the influence appears not to be directly related to criminality but possibly to poor supervision.
present for her children Because dad is so consumed with controlling everyone, he also is not
Juvenile delinquency is committing criminal acts or offenses by a young person, generally involving people under the age of eighteen. That is what this research proposal is about. For my research proposal my research question is what can cause or deter juvenile delinquency in first time offenders? I feel that this is an important question to be asking, because in our society there is too much juvenile delinquency and if we can use this research to figure out what can cause and deter this phenomenon then we could sincerely help a lot of adolescents.
Deviance can occur in any society or home but is mostly connected and associated with broken homes. Children with single parents are believed to be at high risk of being delinquent. The reason delienquency is very likely to occur is because the child is either "motherless" or "fatherless", and this may currupt the personality of the child in many ways. This is argued may lead to a destructive delinquent future. "Bad" neighborhoods, where single parents reside often leads to delinquency as the social society that single parents often live in are surrounded by deviant behaviour. The main reason single parents tend to reside in estates and currupted areas is they cant work because they have. Single parents tend not to punish their children for deviant behaviour as some parents feel guilty because the child only has one parent and they do not wnt thier child to resent them. Most citizens today believe It is very important for children to grow up in a nuclear family (two parents and children).
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.