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Define Juvenile Delinquency

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What defines juvenile delinquency? Juvenile delinquency is when a male or female violates the law prior to their eighteenth birthday. However, in certain cases, someone younger than eighteen can be tried as an adult, it depends on their criminal history and what crime was committed (“38. Juvenile Defined”). Juvenile offenders usually have similar backgrounds. Many psychologists believe these are the contributing factors of the juveniles committing the crimes. The main factors that are believed to lead to juvenile delinquency consist of a lack of guidance, inadequate education, and substance and alcohol abuse. Repeating juvenile offenders almost always have a lack of guidance in their life. Criminologist have studied the importance of children's …show more content…

Substance and alcohol abuse has became known as the most popular contributors to juvenile delinquency. On the Juvenile Justice Bulletin there was a study done by Survey of Youth in Custody that came to the conclusion “ that more than 39 percent of youth under the age of 18 were under the influence of drugs at the time of their offense” (“Juvenile Delinquency”). The same study also found that 57 percent of the teens had abused drugs within the last month ( “Juvenile Delinquency”). The Survey of Youth in Custody did a similar study with youth and their consumption of alcohol. They took 113 juveniles that were in a state detention center and surveyed how often they consumed alcohol. Of the 113 juveniles, 82 percent of them consumed alcohol on a daily bases. The other 14 percent consumed alcohol usually more than twice a week. The last four percent of the youth in the state detention center reported to consume alcohol very rarely (“Juvenile Delinquency”). On average over 50 percent of juvenile delinquents have issues with abusing drugs and alcohol. In the table below it shows that another study shows the correlation between youth and substance

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