The Effects Of Juvenile Delinquency On Teens

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“He did not know it because he did not know such a thing existed” this quotation from the passage so eloquently describes the emotional struggle of love throughout the novel East of Eden and its characters. In the passage, the absence of love and nurture in Adam’s life, the main character, foreshadows itself with his relationships and the surrounding characters relationships as well. Another technique that author, John Steinbeck, employs is imagery. Through this imagery, Steinbeck is able to encapsulate the setting, mood, and tone for the reader.

This research is important because understanding what makes a juvenile delinquent is necessary to know. Parents can be educated on what is affecting their teen to contribute to delinquent behavior. The family structure has been avoided by many citizens. Educating the public on the family structure can make a different in a teen’s life.

I am taking Criminology class this semester. Therefore I have to write a paper. The topic is relating to the criminal justice system and the impact of juvenile delinquents joining youth gangs in Australia. I would like both perspectives, the Australian First Nations and Non-First Nations to compare and contrast. I have used google for articles I was able to find a few criminology articles. The articles have to be criminology peer reviewed articles.

At-risk Youth and Juvenile Delinquency: The Impact of Preventive Intervention Methods and Reducing Juvenile Involvement with the Criminal Justice System.

People may wonder the reasons as to why so many juveniles are being found committing as many harmful crimes that they are in today’s society. There is a list of reasons that the ACS Distance Education organization has listed to being factors as to why juveniles may be committing crimes or becoming more susceptible for it. In their lists they name peer pressure, peer involvement in problem behavior, lack of supervision, criminal parents, lack of discipline, family income, drug or alcohol abuse, mental illness, family conflict, opportunity for crime, and poor education. There may be several other reasons that juveniles are becoming active in crime but these are the main ones that stick out (ACS, 2014). Teens can often find themselves interacting with the “wrong crowd” and find themselves engaging in acts that may be new to them that are also illegal. If a juvenile allows themselves to interact and engage in those activities then they will begin to duplicate what they see and commit the same criminal acts. Parents and

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On September 4 in 1989 Joan and her two daughters Jennifer and Melissa were found murder in there home. A neighborhood kid named Craig Price became the polices main suspect due his long history of criminal offense. After being interrogated he admitted to only wanting to rob the house but the mother and the two kids had awoken and he killed them to protect himself from getting arrested. Craig then admitted to murdering another woman from the area named Rebecca spencer when he was only thirteen. People often question how somebody so young could such a terrifying act but researches how found a couple of theories that could be the possible reason for this chaos. The theories of delinquent life course pretty much is the backbone of many other more specific theories in the studying of juvenile delinquency. Next in the book is the latent trait theory, which explains the flow of delinquency over a lifetime. Finally the third theory is a mix of latent trait and life course theory which states there is more then one path to crime and more than one class of offenders. The chapter starts of with life course theory, which tends to show how every person related experience can effect a child’s future behavior.

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.

     Some causes for conduct in adolescents are no discipline, unstructured discipline and a broken home. A broken home is one of the factors that can produce a delinquent child. A broken home reduces the opportunity for creating a strong attachment between child and parents and that reduces the parent’s ability to condition the child. Many theories concerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individual or on society as the major contributing influence. Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage in criminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previous delinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior through interaction with others.

James Lehman, an author who dedicated his life to troubled juveniles once said, “I believe that the kids who are labeled “good” are children who know how to solve their problems and manage their behavior and social life, and the kids who are labeled “bad” are kids who don’t know how to solve those problems.” Every day, kids are committing illegal acts of varying severity. Some are involved in petty robberies, others involved in murders and rape. These juveniles become the responsibility of the juvenile justice system which is tasked with the duty of properly helping and punishing these kids. However, this is precisely the issue, do we punish these juvenile offenders? Or do we help rehabilitate them into law abiding citizens?

Juvenile delinquency is very prevalent especially among adolescents because studies have shown that during the time of adolescence that is when delinquency tends to increase and once adolescence has passed at about 17 years of age then it tends to decrease (Adolescent Delinquency, 2002). There are many factors that can contribute to the increase of delinquency during adolescence, some of the factors can be personality, mental disorders, genetics, economic status, environment, family, and culture among others, also to understand better the causes of juvenile delinquency the social control theory is the best theory to explain juvenile delinquency as a whole (Adolescent Delinquency, 2002).

In the United States, juvenile delinquency is becoming a major problem in the communities across the country. Because of the actions that these juveniles engage in on a regular basis, taxpayers across the country are having to shell out hundreds upon thousands of dollars to rehabilitate these children in order to help them make better choices. This leads citizens to wonder what factors actually cause juveniles to live a life of crime rather than success. In short, there are three main factors that often cause children to live a life of crime. These three factors are social influences, psychological characteristics, and academic potential.

Juvenile offending is a concern in society today. Juveniles account for approximately 19% of the population but are responsible for 29% of criminal arrests (Cottle, Lee, & Heilbrun, 2001). Crime overall has been found to be decreasing throughout the last two decades. The issue is that the rate in which adult crime is decreasing is significantly greater than the rate in which juvenile crime is decreasing. Since the rate of juvenile crime is so high, juvenile delinquents are seen as predators and many believe they lack morals. The way in which media of today’s society constructs juvenile delinquency impacts the views of a community towards their youth and youth offenders. Media presents an inaccurate image of youth offenders as violent predators (Rhineberger-Dunn, 2013). This inaccurate image significantly promotes the myths that juvenile crime is rising, juveniles commit crimes that are primarily violent, and that juveniles are highly effected by recidivism and continue committing crimes into adulthood (Bohm, & Walker, 2013). It has already been stated though that crime rates have been decreasing over the last two decades so the first myth is refuted. The myth that juveniles primarily commit violent crimes is also very off. In most cases, juveniles are involved in property crimes and although there are some violent crime cases, they are very rare. When these rare violent crimes do occur, youth can be tried in adult court. The

The social environment of teens holds an enormous influence on how the teens act and behave. Teens are easily influenced by their surroundings and they look to others for guidance. Their behavior results from that of the parent and peer influences. Parents play a particularly influential role in their child’s life and it is up to them to make sure that they are leading their sons or daughters in the right directions. A teen’s peers also play a large role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not around. A teen’s social environment, consisting of family and peers, plays a vital role in their life, therefore becoming the ultimate cause of juvenile delinquency.