Juvenile Delinquency And The Social Control Theory

This paper will look at the importance of Preventing Juvenile Delinquency and what different ideas, concepts and methods are available to those adolescents that are either at-risk already or those that can be in the future. Early prevention is the best method of slowing down the statistics of crimes among adolescents, by keeping them off of the streets and out of the justice system by providing the means to teach them to be productive rather than destructive.

Four years now researcher in the fields of psychology sociology, genetics, and the juvenile justice system have contemplated the reason why some youth turn to delinquency and violence. To investigate the reasons, for some adolescents you would have to research on a case to case basis could fall into one category of multiple categories stemming, why they act the way they do and what cause these reactions. Some researchers may want to find reasons that is caused in the genetic line, it is the youth’s social atmosphere concerning in the youth has the right friends or any friends at all, or they could even to lead to arguments in the environment in which the child is raised.

Juvenile delinquency is defined by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary as “…a violation of the law committed by a juvenile that would have been a crime if committed by an adult; also: antisocial behavior by juveniles that is subject to legal action” (https://www.merriam-webster.com). As juvenile delinquency continues to be a great social concern, getting to the source of the problem and identifying solutions is paramount. Case studies have been conducted to identify early risk factors for delinquency. There are many programs in the state designed to help youth resist committing crimes and to prevent youth, who have already been in the juvenile justice system, from making repeated offenses. In order for these programs to be successful, they

This essay will compare and contrast some psychological and sociological approaches to studying juvenile delinquency and disorder behaviour. The question is what makes people behave disorderly. Youth disorderly behaviours are studied using different approaches including psychological and sociological approaches. Both psychological and sociological approaches to studying juvenile delinquency are necessary. This essay starts with outlining and defining disorderly behaviour and juvenile delinquency. Then, it will look at the work of Eysenck, the Cambridge Study of Delinquent Development research which was a longitude study and the Integrated Cognitive Antisocial Potential theory by Farrington, all fit in psychological approach; studying the connection between personality and disorder. It will then look at Sociological approach by looking at the work of Howard Becker, Stan Cohen and Stuart Hall. This essay will be analysing and comparing their theories and separating the differences and noting the similarities in their ideas. This essay will provide evidence for each theory. It will then conclude by specifying significant similarities and differences in the light of the evidence presented.

Juvenile delinquency is a social issue in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, is when “a violation of the law is committed by a juvenile and is not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Juvenile Delinquency). The juvenile system is different from the adult system in many way and most juvenile delinquents are from the age of ten to the age of seventeen (Juvenile Delinquent). Once the delinquent or anyone is at the age of eighteen, they are considered to be an adult. Therefore, in the justice system they are tried as an adult. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, peer influence, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. Teens are greatly influenced by the interactions and surroundings they are around. Their behaviors can result from the parent and/or their peer influences. Parents play a great role in the child’s life and a teen’s peers also play a strong role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not insight. This research will examine links between the social environment of teens and how it influences the teens actions and behavior which leads them to commit an offense.

This paper will be going over social learning theory and how it affects juveniles and its relation to Juvenal delinquency. Social learning theory states that learning social behaviors happens through observation and learning from others. This paper will be explaining how family, friends, and socialization affect the child's behaviors in relation to juvenile delinquency. Also going over the strengths and weaknesses of the social learning theory.

Experts in the psychological approach to delinquency Believe that most behaviors labeled delinquent seem to be symptomatic of some psychological problem. Psychologist point out that many delinquent youths have poor home lives, conflicts with authority figures, and destructive relationships with neighbors, friends, and teachers. These relationships seem to indicate it’s their personality. (Siegel, Larry J., and Brandon Welsh) Psychodynamic theory, behavioral theory, and cognitive theory are the three psychological perspectives of delinquency.

The field of criminal justice has spent a great deal of time and energy trying to understand the reasons behind criminal behavior. Various theoretical representations explain the correlation between variables and consequences. Researchers have determined that there is no distinct course to delinquency and mention that the existence of numerous risk factors often strengthens an adolescent’s chance of committing a crime. Studies also aim to the interaction of different risk factors, the effect of when multiple risk factors are present, and in what way specific protective factors may work to counteract risk factors (Shader, 2003).

The behavior among juveniles and family problems among their homes is a major issue at hand in our society today. According to the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (2010), in the year 2010, 784 juveniles were arrested for murder, 2,198 for rape, and 35,001 for aggravated assault. The amount of juveniles being involved in violent crimes is very detrimental to all aspects of our society, but environmental factors are a major component of this issue that needs to be analyzed. The question is then is how does instability and turmoil within the family affect the rate of juvenile delinquency amount youth. Dysfunction within the family, negative peer pressure and substance abuse all influence the behavior and action of youth ages

The social control theories have a different perspective than the previous theories. Travis Hirschi was the influential theorist behind the social control theory. The problems of crime and delinquency are the main two things that are addressed by the social control theory. The information in which the social control theory was based on is data from self-report survey’s and not police or courts records. The main question that we ask is not why the criminals commit the crime and delinquency when dealing with the social control theory; it is why the criminals do not commit crime and delinquency.

Juvenile Delinquency has been an active issue in the criminal justice system that is considered as an evil by the society. It is believed to be a social and psychological problem faced by the youth and the society, which violates the legal system. The violation of the legal system makes it important to overcome the problem. The need to prevent the juvenile delinquency is important to help the youth cope with the society as well as the criminal justice system. The prevention of the delinquency is only possible if the results can be gathered for the causes of this behaviour. The causes can be gathered by examining a group of youth who can become possible offenders by knowing that what causes the delinquency and at what stages of the life does it trigger. The paper will be focus on the problem of juvenile delinquency, and the factors that contribute towards the onset of delinquency in youth. The research proposal would be based upon the previous research’s done and the data collected by those research’s that depicted some of the possible factors of delinquency found in youth that could be childhood maltreatment, negative relationship between the parents and the delinquent youth, emotional disturbance faced in the adolescent, genetics and the geographical factors. The factors would be further investigated by using them as independent variables in the research to find out how these factors can be removed to make the community aware of the negative impacts the

As a result, adolescents from different family structures were expected to participate in all four types of delinquent behavior: general delinquency, violent crimes, property crime, and substance abuse. Gender, socioeconomic status, and place of residence did not matter in the family structure. It was noticeable that the family structure/delinquency relationship was largely

Deviance among adolescents in our society has many different causes and multiple theories throughout the history of criminal justice have been developed to attempt to explain, prevent and reduce incidents of status offenses and juvenile delinquency. There are theories varying from individual, to social and environmental. All of these theories have their merits and contribute in one way or another to the advancement of the understanding of juvenile delinquency and the treatment and prevention of delinquency within our society. Those that have proven to be successful we have applied in our justice system while those that are proven over time to be ineffective or defective we have discarded. There is no single theory that applies to all delinquent behavior in all situations. It is best to determine what theory may work best in each specific case based on the individual and the specific situation. Dodge’s information processing theory of social problem solving (Crick and Dodge 1994) was developed by Kenneth Dodge in an attempt to explain the interaction between the child’s cognitive development and their social environment. This theory combines elements of both the individual and the social environment and examines how these two variables interact with each other to present a model for juvenile delinquency. During my investigation of this topic I discovered that an adapted model of Dodge’s theory existed that seemed to be more encompassing of the causes of juvenile delinquency,

When looking into the history of United States and elsewhere juvenile delinquency is a problem and has been one for over a century. Like other systems in place, the system involving juvenile delinquents has gone through many stages. In the case of the juvenile delinquency, it has gone through four stages, with us presently in the fourth. The causes behind juvenile delinquency are still unknown even today. Some blame it on the current culture, the over-exposure to violence, music and video games. Nevertheless, the true causes of it have yet to be determined. The point of this paper is to examine the possible causes of juvenile delinquency by looking at various fields and their reasoning behind delinquency. In addition to understand the possible causes of juvenile delinquency I will be looking at past and present assumptions including practices used currently and previously to solve delinquency.

Juveniles delinquency has been a uprising issues across the United States, many Criminal Justice professionals over the decades over conducted many different experimental test in order to better understand why young American youth fall in the path of crime, however many aspects to better understanding why not only juveniles but also adults choose the paths of delinquency. Many of these aspects can be closely linked in to socialicgoal influences depending on the geographical location in which a person might be associated with. To better understand why social influence and education play a vital role we has first understand the simple concepts of the prevalence of delinquency.