What Are the Major Issues That Cause Inner City Youth to Join Gangs and Become Delinquent? Discuss Whether the New Labour Government’s Policies Have Been Effective in Solving These Issues?

Using the stereotypes of the American Culture, this study by Alleyne and Wood is based on Gang Involvement in a British setting. The study examines individual, social and environmental factors that can have an impact on gang-involved youths or non-gang involved youths. In order to find which factors play a role on involved/non-involved gang youth, the authors test for measure of individual delinquency, neighborhood gangs, parental management, commitment to school, and deviant peers. To help differentiate amongst the factors, the authors use a structural equation modeling, which provided the results in a statistical measure. Based off of the results, gang-involved youths were older than non-gang involved youths and that individual delinquency and neighborhood gangs predicted higher chances of gang involvement. The other factors of parental management, commitment to school and deviant peer pressure provided an indirect relationship to gang involvement.

Youth crime is a growing epidemic that affects most teenagers at one point in their life. There is no question in society to whether or not youths are committing crimes. It has been shown that since 1986 to 1998 violent crime committed by youth jumped approximately 120% (CITE). The most controversial debate in Canadian history would have to be about the Young Offenders Act (YOA). In 1982, Parliament passed the Young Offenders Act (YOA). Effective since 1984, the Young Offenders Act replaced the most recent version of the Juvenile Delinquents Act (JDA). The Young Offenders Act’s purpose was to shift from a social welfare approach to making youth take responsibility for their actions. It also addressed concerns that the paternalistic

Gangs have been around for many years; the founders of some of the original gangs in the United States will be discussed. The statistics of youth gangs in Canada will be presented followed by an in depth discussion about why young adults can be persuade into

Young people have been a main focus in society. Since 1960 there has been an increase in youth crime which is the reason as to why there are major adult concerns (Newburn, 2013). “Government became more harsh and intrusive in dealing with young people who were seen to be a problem” (France, 2007, pg.19). Older generations perceive young people as having less morals and respect in comparison to what they did at their age (Newburn, 2013). In particular, society views the youth of today as troublemakers, lazy, untrustworthy and unreliable. There are different theories that provide an explanation between involvement in offending and different factors such as family factors and wider social factors which will be discussed below.

In 2009, 18% of all offences were committed by juveniles, with most of these offences being for minor crimes such as graffiti, vandalism, theft, fare evasion, and road traffic offences. (Qld Police Service, 2009.) Most of these offences were “unplanned and opportunistic, and occurred when the juvenile was under the influence of alcohol and drug use, and affected by peer pressure.” (Cunneen and White 2007). Research also shows that juveniles are often victims of crime , with young people aged 15 to 24 years of age being at higher risk of assault than any other age group ( Eikelhor et al, 2009 ), and that this sometimes leads them to offending

This essay will look to explore and discuss the minimum age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales and see if the minimum age should be brought into line with the rest of Europe or not. The first thing to look at is the current age of criminal responsibility which is set at 10 years of age. (https://www.gov.uk/age-of-criminal-responsibility). Looking at the law, the age of 10 seems to have been chosen on numerical grounds and belief that crime becomes too popular at the age of eleven. This was despite recommendation from the penal reform international which argued that children under 12 should not be punished and the age should be increased, with a potential rise to fourteen. (http://www.penalreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/justice-for-children-briefing-4-v6-web_0.pdf). In recent years the boldness and humour towards young offenders is high, due to an extensive public awareness of growth around youth crime and the death of James Bulger by Robert Thompson and Jon Venable, who were 10 at the time of the killing.

Firstly, some people believes that the youth crime still increases in recent years. (The Australian 2008) However, there is a little evidence show that a decline when we look at the government statistics. Figure A illustrates that the juvenile and the adult offenders from 1996-97 to 2006-07.

This essay seeks to discuss the statement of "The criminal justice system is failing children and young offenders in the UK" by considering both whether our justice system is delivering the overhaul of the youth justice systems aims of

During a House of Commons debates (June 2009), Chris Gray ling argued “ the truth is those who join gangs often come from the most difficult family backgrounds—from an environment where they feel neglected and unwanted” (they work for you 2009). Within the same debate it was further argued that if we mapped out the geographically rates of unemployment, family breakdown, educational failure and addiction within the family, we would uncover a high correlation linking social breakdown and gang culture. This would serve to remove any misconception of the relationship between deprivation, gang membership and knife crime. Contrary to this, research by the Sutton Trust has confirmed there is a correlation between certain types of violent crime and

As a policy, there are various factors the government of Scotland can put into perspective in order to effectively handle youth crime. These would combat the spread of youth crime. A recent study sought to explain the causes, as well as the

Since 1995, a year after the YOA came into effect; all areas of offences have increased. This would included all persons ages 17 and under or less charged with an offence that was dealt with informally by the police. The total of all offence in 1985 was at 188,958 and by the year 1989 it had jumped to 225, 766 so an increase of 36,808 in just 4 years. A big suprise was in the rise in numbers of the Drug offence. In 1985, it was at 4,290 and in 1986 it jumped up to 4,767, but by the year 1989 it was at 4,253. In that 5 year period it decreased by 43 but at least it is a start in one area (Ruffo, 4,1994). But it is not really young people committing the crimes because a

Camber (2012) in her media article, Daily Mail, reported on issue of youth offending in the United Kingdom (UK). She wrote that some teenagers have committed about 86 crimes by the age of 16, and many of them were serial offenders who begun committing crime before they were 12. She also commented that many teenagers are ‘highly versatile in their criminality’, who consistently commit a variety of crimes such as shoplifting, vandalism and violence.

An estimate number of 10 to 17 yr olds in UK in 1999 was 2704392 males and 2561681 females. These young people represent of the general population and are also often the group who elicit the most concern and discussion within local communities and the media. There is a big interest in the consistent crimes in this age group, resulted in a lot of research being made.

The topic I choose to write about is “Street Crime Particularly with Our Young Generation”. It seems to me that the young people have more guns and several style of artillery than some foreign impoverished countries. At the rate that they are killing each other and going to prison for on long stretches, life or being sentenced to death there won’t be a substantial number of young people in the work place or to carry on the next generation. More serious immediate problems come to mind as I think of how our young generation is they leave the next generation without mothers or fathers to care for them. Their children are left to be

The general public seems to associate a wide variety of crimes with young people. Drug offenses were the most common response, with about one quarter, followed in order by theft and stealing, vandalism, robbery, shoplifting and petty theft, murder, burglary, car theft and joy-riding, shootings and stabbings, and assault and battery. Overall, more respondents identified youth with non-violent crimes (drugs and property offenses such as theft and burglary) than violent crimes. The public believes that youth who break the law will commit other crimes in the future, even if youth have no prior record.