Factors Influencing The Risk Of Juvenile Delinquency Essay

The contributing factors to juvenile crime may include poor education performances, poor upbringing, substance abuse, disadvantaged socioeconomic status, low school

Research has shown a clear connection between certain environments ultimately being high predictors of juvenile delinquency. This leaves us with the question; How does the social environment contribute to juvenile delinquency? Through different scholarly articles and personal observations at my internship at the Brazos Valley Juvenile Justice Center I was able to narrow down generally what social environments and interactions could be high predictors of juvenile delinquency to come.

What is the relationship between family dynamics and juvenile delinquency? Can the family environment really affect the delinquency of a juvenile? A broken home is one of the first factors that will be looked at. Do single parents have more juveniles involved in delinquency than families with two parents? Do families with just a mother present have more delinquency than a family with just a father? The second factor that will be looked at is drugs and alcohol in the home. How does drugs and alcohol relate to violence in the home? When parents get in trouble for their drug and alcohol use and get locked up, how is the family affected by this? The third factor that will be looked at is bad parenting. Is bad parenting caused simply by being too strict or not strict enough? Or could it be that parents lack the proper supervision of their children and allow them to do things that they shouldn’t? All of these factors will be looked at and discussed within this paper.

Overall, the research collected has examined juvenile delinquency, the persistent consequences of incarceration, and suggestive measures from the Public Defenders that could help reduce recidivism and provide justice for the offenders, the victims and the community. The research highlighted the crime pattern in young offenders, existing racial disparities in the juvenile criminal justice system and the lack of a proper support structure that encourages the youth to make bad choices. Studies included in the research demonstrated that most juvenile delinquents belong to underprivileged backgrounds, where their mental and educational needs are not properly addressed. They don’t receive community policing and are more likely to be viewed as criminals by the Law Enforcement and the public. Given their poor background, these children are more likely to be incarcerated than their counterparts and conclusively have a poor

A juvenile delinquent act is considered an act committed by a juvenile and falls within the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. Delinquent acts include crimes against persons, crimes against property, drug offenses, and crimes against public order when juveniles commit such acts. Certain life factors such as poverty, broken families, and poor schools and neighborhoods have a direct impact on juvenile offenses committed by young people. These life factors contribute to whether young people will commit an offense or becoming involved in criminal activities. Young people who are immersed in poverty stricken communities and neighborhoods are more likely to turn towards criminal activities. Many of these neighborhoods do not offer positive activities

In addition to character traits, environmental factors are a huge contributor to delinquent behavior. Environmental factors include parenting, peers, mental illness, neighborhoods, education and more. A 25 year-long study proved that inadequate schooling/ education is connected to juvenile delinquency. One of the discoveries from the study showed the following: “A 25 year-long study consisting of 1,500 children in low-income inner-city Chicago neighborhoods found that children who attended a high-quality preschool were 28% less likely to develop drug problems or be incarcerated in adulthood. Additionally, they were 22% less likely to be arrested for a felony and 24% more likely to attend a four-year college.” (Contributing Factors, 2016).

Our society today is fraught with immense criminal behaviour. The idea that adolescent delinquency creates future criminals has been studied and has determined several biological, psychological, and sociological factors which pervade criminological theories. These theories are inclusive to the single parent poverty theory, the labelling theory, and the social disorganization theory.

Day in and day out residents and visitors to the Boston area are affected by juvenile crime and delinquency. Though the crime rates in MA and across the nation are on a steady decline, these juvenile crimes are still considered a serious matter that needs attention. It is thought that juvenile offenders do not cope as well with the criminal justice system as well as adults may be able to and therefore there needs to be a focus on how the system can better aid in the rehabilitation of these youthful offenders and lower the chances and opportunities for those same offenders to reenter into the juvenile and adult criminal justice system once again. This study aims to determine, amid all of the varied causes for juvenile crime, the prevailing causes that have lead to the steady amounts of juvenile crime within the Boston area. Though not one determinate factor can be used in order to explain or give reason to such a complex idea as crime, let alone juvenile crime, this study will attempt to examine multiple factors that contribute on multiple levels that can lead to juvenile delinquency in the Boston area.

(2) After individual and family factors are accounted for, do ethnicity and/or residence in underclass neighborhoods add to the explanation of delinquency? In order to answer the questions that were posed, a set of measures were used. In their study Peeples and Loeber considered factors such as Age, percentage poor/welfare, Percentage single parent, hyperactivity, and supervision as independent variables. On the other hand, they considered factors such as family poverty, welfare use, families with no one employed, male joblessness, and assisted housing. A cross sectional assessment of 506 Pittsburgh public school boys were used to determine how the listed factors can possibly lead to juvenile delinquency. They also did a follow up six months after the initial assessment. In the sample of schools boys, 290 were African American youths. Peeples and Loeber found that 40% of African American youths lived in poor neighborhoods, compared to 5% of white youths that lived in the same neighborhood. Also, twice as many African American boys had engaged in some forms of delinquency in their life than White boys. Additionally, African Americans and did not differ in terms of the seriousness of delinquent acts or frequency of serious acts. However, African Americans had a higher total frequency of delinquent acts than Whites. The

Poor or wealthy, the socioeconomic status of a family can have an affect on a child. Children can experience times when their family is in extreme poverty and can also experience times when the family income is sufficient to provide. A study was investigated the socioeconomic status of the family that changes such as income, education, and occupation and to see how they affect delinquency of the child. The study concluded that youth were more likely to offend when the family’s socioeconomic status was lower, rather than when it was higher If parents are educated and have a stable job, the family will be more stable. The child is less likely to commit crime and become labeled a juvenile delinquent. The crime could be coming from not having

An analysis of the reasons that instigate juveniles to engage in criminal behavior could potentially assist in improving the current Criminal Justice practices. The purpose of this research is to explore the principle of causality, which is basically the concept pertaining to cause and effect among potential young offenders. It is relevant to have a better understanding about the specific reasons causing young people to decide to break the law. An effective strategy would be to focus on prevention for rehabilitative purposes, which could be more beneficial than focusing on retribution. The United States is the country with the highest prison population figures in the world (Tsai & Scommegna, 2016). The main focus of this research is to examine juvenile delinquency in depth as finding a way to decrease the juvenile delinquency rates will impact the family unit as well as society as a whole.

Juvenile delinquency, as well as juvenile gangs are interesting and popular topic in the world of criminal justice. What criminological theories tie in with the problems of juvenile delinquency, juvenile gangs, and the reasons why juveniles do what they do? This paper explains the theories that tie in with the why, and how juveniles end up the way they do. Using the different theories explained in this paper you could hypothesize an explanation as to why the juvenile committed a crime or joined a gang. This paper touches on theories from Merton, Cohen, Cloward, Ohlin, Wolfgang, Ferracuti, and many more.

The risk factors for juvenile delinquents can be based on characteristics. these characteristics include individual characteristics family characteristics here and school influences neighborhood environment and daily activities.

According to Sickmund & Puzzanchera (2014), as of 2010, 22% of youth under the age of 18 lived in poverty---with nearly half (45%) of those juveniles living in “extreme poverty”. Statistics show that juveniles from certain racial groups tend to face economic hardships more than others. The racial breakdowns of juveniles living in poverty during 2010 are as follows: 39% were African American, 35% were Hispanic and 12% were White. That data concurs with previous research that indicates that minorities (more specifically African Americans) have a higher prevalence of living in disadvantaged neighborhoods in comparison to Whites (Chauhan, Reppucci & Turkheimer, 2009). In

Whether criminality is the result of learning from social institutions, labels placed on individuals, broken bonds with society, the breakdown of neighborhoods, frustration and helpless feelings felt by the lower class, the creation of a subculture that commands criminal and deviant behavior, or traits that have been passed down from generation to generation. The theories that were covered present a logical way of understanding criminal behavior in juveniles. They provide a concept that defines and predicts what leads juveniles into a life of offending. Each theory varies in its individual explanation and reasoning behind what factors create a juvenile offender. Some theories are better understood by individuals who have a relatable background while other theories perplex others by its explanation. New theories will continue to emerge and old ones will evolve as time goes by as others will be abandoned. Theorizing what causes juvenile delinquency to happen is not only important because it helps us understand what behaviors and factors cause delinquency but if we truly comprehending the cause of crime it can lead us to discovery a deterrence and solution to halt crime. We cannot fix something if we do not fully know how and why it