Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, and Mennis’s (2010) examine the effects of neighborhood context on juvenile recidivism to determine if neighborhoods influence the likelihood of re-offending. Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, and Mennis made two hypotheses. Hypothesis one was that “neighborhood indicators of social disorganization found to predict delinquency will continue to predict recidivism after controlling for individual and family contexts” (Grunwald et al. 2010, p.1069). Hypothesis two was that “individual and neighborhood predictors of juvenile recidivism will vary depending on recidivism offense type” (Grunwald et al. 2010 p.1069). For this study Grunwald and his team used data taken from the Program Development and Evaluation System database of Philadelphia Family Court. This database measured: family demographics, …show more content…
2010, p.1070). Data to measure the neighborhood level was taken from the Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC). In this study Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, and Mennis looked at 45 neighborhoods located in one city. The sample size used was 7,061 male juvenile offenders. Out of the 7,061, 36% were on parole. Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, and Mennis measured recidivism, individual-level predictors, neighborhood disadvantage, and social capital to see what influences juvenile recidivism. In this study Grunwald, Lockwood, Harris, and Mennis (2010) used four different juvenile recidivism outcomes to measure the rate of recidivism among juveniles. One of the outcomes measured new offenses and specific offenses relating to property, drug, or violence. When Grunwald and his team measured for recidivism
Shaw, C. R., & McKay, H. D. (1969). Juvenile Delinquency and Urban Areas (Revised ed.). University of Chicago Press.
Jenson, Jeffrey and Howard, Matthew. "Youth Crime, Public Policy, and Practice in the Juvenile Justice System: Recent Trends and Needed Reforms." Social Work 43 (1998): 324-32
Shaw and McKay (1942) specified residential mobility as a second aspect of social disorganization that influences crime rates. In the words of Kasarda and Janowitz (1974) communities operate "as a complex system of friendship and kinship networks and formal and informal associational ties rooted in family life and ongoing socialization processes.” Population turnover, or the constant influx of new residents into an area reduces opportunities to create long lasting relationships between neighborhood residents (Bursik, 1999). Fewer ongoing relationships cause social ties and social capital to be weak thus contributing to the inability to recognize common values and organize collective efforts against unwanted behaviors. Empirical tests of social disorganization find the residential mobility component also to be mixed as associated with violence rates (Hawkins, et al., 2000; Haynie & South,
As discussed in depth, there are all types of crimes that are committed by young offenders these days and the offenders possess a number of different characteristics. There have been many theoretical crime explanations that have been formed over the years that attempt to explain the reasoning behind the question of why certain individuals, both young and old, are more prone to commit crimes. The discussion of punishment practices are also important because it displays the many approaches that have been taken to ensure that juvenile delinquents are being treated fairly, but punished and rehabilitated all simultaneously. Many methods fall under this kind of approach referred to as the restorative justice approach such as neighborhood conference committees, victim impact panels, sentencing circles, and community impact panels which all attempt to rehabilitate the offender, but also to involve members of society including the victims/survivors of crimes (Siegel, 2009). It is believed and hoped with the continuation of processes, practices, and programs in place such as these that juvenile crime will eventually decrease bringing more order to our society as a whole. Overall, this paper strives to bring awareness to juvenile delinquency by
Two major sociological theories explain youth crime at the macro level. The first is Social Disorganization theory, created in 1969 by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay. The theory resulted from a study of juvenile delinquency in Chicago using information from 1900 to 1940, which attempts to answer the question of how aspects of the structure of a community contribute to social control. The study found that a community that is unable to achieve common values has a high rate of delinquency. Shaw and McKay looked at the physical appearance of the neighborhoods, the average income of the population, the ethnicity of the neighborhood, the percent of renters versus owners, and how fast the population of the area changed. These factors all contribute to neighborhood delinquency.
Introduction: Recidivism or, habitual relapses into crime, has time and time again proven to be an issue among delinquents, which thereby increases the overall juvenile prison population. This issue has become more prevalent than what we realize. Unless a unit for measuring a juvenile’s risk of recidivism is enacted and used to determine a system to promote effective prevention, than the juvenile prison population will continue to increase. Our court system should not only focus on punishing the said juvenile but also enforce a program or policy that will allow for prevention of recidivism. So the question remains, how can recidivism in the juvenile prison population be prevented so that it is no longer the central cause for increased juvenile delinquency? Simply put, we must create a means of measuring juvenile’s level of risk and in turn, form an effective rehabilitation program that will decrease their risk level for future recidivism.
When the Juvenile Justice System was created, it was geared towards treating poverty stricken juvenile offenders as adults while allowing the wealthier offenders to essentially go free. Decades later, a reform movement saw a need to delineate juvenile offender from adults through their own court system. A shift in how these offenders were treated throughout the juvenile system process began to take shape. There was a push to reduce the risk of a youth offender becoming an adult offender. This push is far different from how the initial juvenile offenders were treated.
Social Disorganization Theory is based upon looking for outside motivations that contribute to the acts of delinquency. Some of the connections, however, that the theory makes to the letter to the Chicago Times are the following: heterogeneity from the Social Ecological Model, Disorganized neighborhoods from the Collective Efficacy Model, and social control from the Sampson and Grove’s Model. The letter explains youth want more protection and better relationships with police and community. The Social Ecological Model says, “differences among people living in a given area, there is a lack of shared norms” (Bates and Swan 2014:122). Without heterogeneity (relationship between individuals/ social groups) in a mutual agreement of wanting a
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
Not only do neighborhoods help to influence and not deter criminal behavior they also are influenced from other sources such as family, friends, schools etc. This is the view of most sociologists that adhere to the view of differential association. These views are also somewhat flawed but are a much better predictor of criminal behavior than the latter. Differential association tends to look as criminal behavior as a learned behavior this I agree with in some aspects most behavior is learned from parents, friends and family but can also be caused from psychological factors and biological factors such as some personality disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders and genetic irregularities such as XYY super males that are more prone to suffer from anti social personality disorder or psychopathy.
Social disorganization can be seen as origin of the development of criminal behaviors and that criminal behavior, “is linked to environmental conditions that fail to provide residents with proper human relations and development.”(182) The development of a situation like this is quite simple, a City would be segregated into two sections, a neighborhood for the wealthy and a neighborhood for the poor. People that are living in the poverty stricken area are, “controlled by the social and ecological climate.” Meaning that since these poverty stricken neighborhood have a higher crime rate, people living in these areas are likely to be influenced by their neighborhoods culture. This then results in a even higher crime rate and soon lose social control of the neighborhood. People who live in a disorganized neighborhood most likely want to try to get out of the area and will not invest into the community. This results in dirty streets and unmaintained homes. This is the reason why The Chicago School sociologists believes that “neighborhood conditions, and not individual pathology were the key influence on behavior.”
Despite an overall decrease in juvenile arrests recently, juvenile delinquency remains a serious societal issue (Loeber & Farrington, 1998; Snyder & Sickmund, 1999; Snyder, 2006). Criminal activity such as underage drinking, gang violence, and bullying are budding concerns (Shoemaker, 2013). Society often refuses to give juvenile delinquents a chance. They remain shunned and people find it difficult
Brutal, harsh, unforgiving, and relentless . . . the worst effect of poverty is not a tangible dirtiness, but a corruption of one’s very soul. Juvenile delinquency has always been a huge problem, but it has been especially evident in recent years as the juvenile crime rate increased exponentially to more than 1.3 million delinquency cases in just 2010. In 1999, the American public ranked crime as the most important problem facing the nation("Juveniles"). In 1994 there were only 78 youth court programs in operation, whereas in 2010 there were over 1,050 youth courts in operation ("Youth Courts"). The causes of juvenile delinquency are both economic and social. Some specific examples of these factors are bad housing, broken homes, parental negligence, boy and girl gangs, and other harsh neighborhood conditions. While social influences undeniably contribute to juvenile delinquency, it is the economic circumstances that contribute most to continued delinquent behavior amongst juveniles who are in consistent trouble with the law. Current solutions are either skill-based without appropriate support or highly punitive in nature; available resources would be better spent addressing the fundamental economic disparity of communities which primarily causes most of these problems.
Juvenile delinquency seems to be a huge factor in today’s society. Many of the youths that commit crimes are “at-risk”. At-risk is a term frequently used to describe children. The term really has no definitive answer to what at-risk is, other than a child who faces a much higher risk than other children. This could be in the form of abuse, being disabled, or even having a low self-esteem (Moore, 2006). Being at-risk may have some repercussions and may cause the individual to commit crimes, this is not a fact, but rather a probability. To get these answers and look into delinquency we need to think of the causation, correction, and prevention of crime in general. To make things even more difficult when trying to discover why a child does what
The forgotten few: the juvenile offender population. Seldom thought about, but yet are the foundation and underpinning of the origin of the crime in the United States. This is an inquiry as to what has been done to the adolescents and children with regards to sanctions that have not yet been really brought to light. The problematic history of juvenile offenders is one of the United States dirty little secret. The literature shows the nations children who deviate from the norm are presumed to be deviant and treated like its adult criminal population. Teenagers, kids, adolescents are presumed to be treated as if they are of age. What is lost is the cognitive development and nourishment when such negative actions occur. The basic and fundamental formative academics that have shown effectiveness are not being implemented into the sanctions for these juvenile offenders. There is a linear correlation between low education obtainment levels, mental illness and juvenile offending and recidivism. This is a significant dynamic risk factor that has the potential to eliminate the deviance of the youth in the nation. The development of our youth mentally can indeed have lasting positive effects for sustaining positive results during their rehabilitation stints and most importantly decreasing recidivism.