Free Essay on Juvenile Deliquency

Juvenile delinquency is a complex social problem that significantly impacts all members and processes of a social structure.   Delinquency refers to a set of behaviors that are not in line with the collective practices and/or ethics of the dominant social group.   Essentially, these behaviors deviate from societal norms and more specifically they violate established criminal codes and laws.   Juvenile delinquency
incorporates not only general criminal activity but conduct that is only unlawful for youths such as running away from home and skipping school.   Current research into this difficult and pressing issue reflects a vast range of theories about, and predictors of delinquency as well as a multitude of strategies to control and reduce overall delinquency.   The consensus among practitioners and researchers however maintains that juvenile delinquency is a dynamic, multifaceted problem with numerous potentially causal factors.

"Juvenile Justice Is Delinquent," a very well written argument, explains how juvenile delinquents have changed, and are getting away now with almost everything they do without a severe punishment. The Juvenile system is very similar to New York's Family Court. The New York Family Court was originally sought to protect children who were getting in trouble with the law that still considered them infants, because of their young age. The present juvenile court system actually encourages the young
delinquent to continue criminal behavior by showing them that they can get away with a crime. The juvenile court system is very similar to the New York Family Court system which was made to protect children who are usually under the age of 18 who kept on running into trouble with law. It was designed to function as helping parents of juveniles.

Youth that reside in communities that are deprived socially and economically, have ongoing violence, drugs, gangs, extreme poverty, and lack of employment opportunities can cause youth to feel overwhelmed and distressed. Certain issues in a youth's life such as social and economical deprivation and adversity can cause a strain, which causes them to exert their stress on others at school. When there is a lack of external ties communities are powerless in controlling policy decision that affects a communities conditions. Strong connections to organizations and resources that are outside of communities will not be formed if there are not strong formal and informal social ties within the community. Gangs have a propensity to cause a lot of trouble for schools. They contend for status, respect, and popularity, which obviously will produce hostility. In addition, because they are involved in the business of selling drugs, conflicts occur over sales and payments trigger more violence. Unfortunately, innocent bystanders such as students and teachers can end up being involved or caught in the middle of these fights between rival gangs. Constant fighting and intimidation by others cause many youth to join gangs for protection. Youth are aware that gangs engage in violence (which they are trying to avoid, but in order to save themselves from any harm or being the victim they still join.

Bullying has a tremendous impact on young people, because it causes a lot of suffering and unhappiness. Less powerful students are often targeted by bullies. Bullies use their physique and strength to intimidate others. Bullies maliciously pick on their victims for any little reason - and once they start it seems to go on ceaselessly. They only pick on victims they know they can defeat, such as passive or provocative victims. Passive victims are quiet, sensitive, and do not have many friends. Provocative victims are awkward, easily roused, and might have problems with learning. The easiest approach to stopping a bully is to tell an adult. However, students may feel as if the adult will not be helpful in protecting them. On the other hand, if the adult tries to intervene the situation may get worse for the victim. Victims can defend and protect their selves from bullies by not reacting, showing confidence, hanging around groups of people, telling teachers and parents, or just standing up to the bully. Our writers will highlight in a custom essay that families are the most important aspect in a youth's life. They are influential in the things they do and say - regardless if it is good or bad. Some families exhibit high-risk behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse, constantly being absent or too busy, poor family management, violence, lack of family bonding, poor communication, and participation in crime.

Juveniles who are incarcerated due to lack of opportunities should be educated in prison. Many young people enter and leave prison with numerous problems on their backs. A large amount of these juveniles are either literate or numerate, which in most cases, stem from school exclusion, truancy and other forms of disrupted education. Thom Gehring a Criminal Justice major looks at a school in the state of Texas named Witham; a survey he conducted throughout the high school proved that the majority of these students enrolled in Witham had a history of academic failure. Also he observed that the majority of those students eventually dropped out of school, and most of them ended up in prison within three years. I believe if kids begin their lives with a positive view on education it will motivate them to accomplish more, but in this case the students expectations are negative so usually the results are similar. This is the case when dealing with most juveniles who are growing up in corrupt environments.

Juvenile Delinquency held a series of hearings during 1954-55 on the impact of television programs on juvenile crime. These hearings were only the beginning of continuing congressional investigations by this committee and others from the 1950s to the present.   

One of the biggest causes of juvenile delinquency is in the home. In a broken home where both parents work a boy will be delinquent. He has no one to show him real love and affection, and he will seek it among the "fellows" and "gangs" will start. Authority in the home is necessary to. Children should be told what to do and what not to do.

When parents are divorced and there is just one parent to take care of the child, the child is apt to feel just "half there". If it is the mother who has the child, she may have to work to support him, and she won't be home when he comes home from school. If he comes home and finds the home empty, he won't stay there, but he will go out with the "gang". The "gang" will then get bored and look around for something to do. This will lead to stealing from automobiles or smoking marijuana, and these activities can go on until they end in murder or dope addiction and peddling.

The same thing is true if both parents work. The child will come home to an empty house, and he will decide that he is not wanted. He will want someone to look up to him and admire him; so he will try to be a leader where he can be. He can make other boys look up to him and admire him if he can do something they can't, like stealing a car or getting heroine.

Children should be told what to do and what not do in the home. They should be given a good foundation on how to act in school and should be told not to be smart alecs in the classrooms. They should be told that they should mind the teachers just as they have to mind their parents at home. Then when they get out into the world, they don't believe what the law says to them and they embark on a life of crime. Tom Brown was such a boy. His parents never disciplined him in his home and he wouldn't take corrections in the schools. He got expelled, but his parents always helped him get back in. He grew up to be a small time gangster and ended up in San Quentin.

Conventional practice has long associated early preventive measures with positive delinquency reduction results.   In particular, timely recognition of at-risk youth and correction of ineffective or minimally effective parenting techniques are critical to the prevention of future delinquency.    Numerous risk factors have been identified as indicators or predictors of juvenile delinquency and those factors represent dysfunction at several levels, specifically within the structure of the offender's family. Some of these factors include conflict within the family, a lack of adequate supervision and/or rules, a distinct lack of parent-child attachment, instability, poor home life quality, parental expectations, out-of-home...

In conclusion I would like to point out that the foregoing proves that the home is the biggest cause of juvenile delinquency because it lacks authority or is a broken home. We should have more playgrounds to keep children from broken homes off the street.