crime and juvenile delinquency essay

Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001)

Chapter: introduction, introduction.

Juvenile crime is one of the nation's serious problems. Concern about it is widely shared by federal, state, and local government officials and by the public. In recent years, this concern has grown with the dramatic rise in juvenile violence that began in the mid-1980s and peaked in the early 1990s. Although juvenile crime rates appear to have fallen since the mid-1990s, this decrease has not alleviated the concern. Many states began taking a tougher legislative stance toward juveniles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period during which juvenile crime rates were stable or falling slightly, and federal reformers were urging prevention and less punitive measures. Some of the dissonance between the federal agenda and what was happening in the states at that time may have been caused by significant changes in legal procedures that made juvenile court processes more similar—though not identical—to those in criminal (adult) court. The main response to the most recent spike in violent juvenile crime has been enactment of laws that further blur distinctions between juvenile courts and adult courts. States continued to toughen their juvenile crime laws in recent years, making sentencing more punitive, expanding allowable transfers to criminal (adult) court, or doing away with some of the confidentiality safeguards of juvenile court. Many such changes were enacted after the juvenile violent crime rate had already begun to fall. The rehabilitative model embodied in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, focusing on the needs of the young offender, has lost ever more ground over the past 20 years to punitive models that focus mainly on the offense committed. These puni-

tive policies have had a disproportionate impact on some minority groups, particularly black youngsters, an important issue that is explored in depth in Chapter 6 .

Crime policies in the United States have been moving in the direction of treating juveniles as adults, even though many young people continue to grow up in settings that “fail to provide the resources, the supports, and the opportunities essential to a healthy development and reasonable preparation for productive adulthood” (National Research Council, 1993a:2)—settings that put young people at high risk for delinquency. In 1997, 40 percent of all those living below the poverty level in the United States were under the age of 18 (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). Structural changes in society, including fewer two-parent homes and more maternal employment, have contributed to a lack of resources for the supervision of children's and adolescents' free time.

Government policy on juvenile delinquency must often struggle with the appropriate balance of concern over the healthy development of children and adolescents who violate the law and a public desire to punish criminals. This tension between rehabilitation and punishment when dealing with children and adolescents who commit crimes results in an ambivalent orientation toward young offenders. Criminal acts must be suppressed, condemned, and punished. Nevertheless, children and adolescents who commit criminal acts must be educated and supported in a growth process that should be the objective of government policy for all young people, including young offenders.

A number of cognitive and social features of childhood and adolescence influence the content of juvenile crime policy. Historically, children under the age of seven have been considered below the age of reason, and therefore unable to formulate the criminal intent necessary to be held accountable for criminal offenses. In practice, children younger than age 10 are rarely involved in the juvenile justice system. Arrests of those younger than 10 years old account for less than 2 percent of all juvenile arrests. By the age of 16 or 17, most adolescents are deemed to have sufficient cognitive capacity and life experience to be held accountable for intended wrongful acts. How to deal appropriately with those who commit crimes between the ages of 10 and 17 is the issue faced in juvenile crime policy. Adolescence is a period of dating, driving, and expanding social networks—all choices that can produce positive or negative consequences for the adolescent and the community. Public policies in the areas of education, medical care, alcoholic beverage control, and juvenile crime reflect beliefs that adolescents have not acquired the abilities or capacities necessary for adult status. Creating the appropriate public policy for a period of semiautonomy is no small task (Zimring, 1982). To

further complicate the matter, crime rates peak in mid- to late adolescence, making policy toward young offenders of special importance.

To best answer the questions of how to deal with young offenders requires knowledge of factors in the individual, family, social settings, and community that influence the development of delinquent behavior; of the types of offenses committed by young people; and of the types of interventions that can most efficiently and effectively prevent offending in the first place or prevent its recurrence. This study reviews literature in all of these areas to provide an objective view of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system in the United States.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT: NOT JUST LITTLE ADULTS

What is often missing from discussions of juvenile crime today is recognition that children and adolescents are not just little adults, nor is the world in which they live the world of adults. Physical, emotional, and cognitive development continue throughout adolescence. Although young people can approach decisions in a manner similar to adults under some circumstances, many decisions that children and adolescents make are under precisely the conditions that are hardest for adults—unfamiliar tasks, choices with uncertain outcomes, and ambiguous situations (see, for example, Beyth-Marom and Fischhoff, 1997; Cohn et al., 1995). Further complicating the matter for children and adolescents is that they often face deciding whether or not to engage in a risky behavior, such as taking drugs, shoplifting, or getting into a fight, in situations involving emotions, stress, peer pressure, and little time for reflection.

Young people are liable to overestimate their own understanding of a situation, underestimate the probability of negative outcomes, and make judgments based on incorrect or incomplete information (Quadrel et al., 1993). Although adults are also prone to the same misperceptions, children's and adolescents' lack of experience increases their vulnerability. Quadrel et al. (1993) found that high-risk adolescents (with legal and substance abuse problems, recruited from group homes) were more likely than middle-class youngsters to have incorrect information about risks, while being extremely confident in their information.

Emotions can affect decision making for both adolescents and adults. When people are experiencing positive emotions, such as excitement, happiness, love (as adolescents often do when with groups of their peers), they tend to underestimate the possibility of negative consequences to their actions. When experiencing negative emotions, such as anger, jealousy, sadness, people tend to focus on the near term and lose sight of

the big picture. This is particularly relevant for adolescents, who have been found to experience wider and more rapid mood swings than adults (Larson et al., 1980; Larson and Lampman-Petraitis, 1989; Larson and Richards, 1994).

Studies of young people's understanding of legal processing and the consequences of various legal choices, such as forfeiting the right to remain silent or to have an attorney, show differences between those younger and older than about 15 years (Grisso, 1997). Those under age 15 often misunderstand the concept of a right, in general, and of Miranda rights, in particular. They foresee fewer alternative courses of action in legal proceedings and tend to concentrate on short-term rather than long-term consequences (Grisso, 1980; 1981). For example, younger youth often misconstrue the right to remain silent, believing it means they should be quiet until they are told to talk. Nor do they completely understand the right to have an attorney present, without charge, before they talk (Abramovitch et al., 1995; Grisso, 1981). These misunderstandings raise concerns about children's and young adolescents' competence to stand trial in adult court. Children and adolescents from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and those with low IQs fare worse in understanding the legal process and their rights than do other children and adolescents of comparable ages (Grisso, 1997). Furthermore, experience with the justice system does not ensure that young people fully understand the process, their rights, or the implications of the decisions they make. Both Grisso (1981) and Lawrence (1983) have found that adolescent delinquents had much poorer understanding of their rights than did adult defendants.

Emerging research using magnetic resonance imaging of the brain demonstrates the cognitive and emotional differences between adolescents and adults. Children and adolescents process emotionally charged information in the part of the brain responsible for instinct and gut reactions. Adults process such information in the “rational” frontal section of the brain (Baird et al., 1999). Children and adolescents may be physiologically less capable than adults of reasoning logically in the face of particularly strong emotions. In a recent study, Thompson et al. (2000) found that the brain continues to develop and change through at least midadolescence, with the most active parts of the brain changing during development. These new insights on brain development may have implications for holding children and adolescents criminally responsible in the same way as adults and raise concerns about initiatives to transfer younger and younger defendants to adult courts.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE 1

Looking at the policies of other countries provides some perspective on criminal justice in the United States. An international study of 15 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland—notes that all have special provisions for young criminals in their justice systems, although some (such as Denmark, Russia, and Sweden) have no special courts for juveniles. Table 1-1 depicts some of the differences among countries, showing the range in variability for the minimum age of criminal responsibility, the age at which full responsibility as an adult can be assumed, the type of court that handles young people committing crimes, whether such young people can be tried in courts that also try adults, the maximum length of sentencing for a juvenile, and policies regarding incarcerating juveniles with adults.

The United States was not alone in seeing a dramatic increase in violent crime by juveniles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many European countries and Canada experienced increases in their rates of violent crime, particularly among juveniles (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Pfeiffer, 1998). It is difficult to compare rates across countries, because legal definitions of crime vary from country to country. For example, in Germany, assault is counted as a violent crime only if a weapon is used during the commission of the crime, whereas in England and Wales, the degree of injury to the victim determines whether or not an assault counts as a violent crime. Crime is also measured differently in each country. For example, the United States commonly relies on numbers of arrests to measure crime. In Germany, Austria, and Italy, among other countries, crime is measured by the number of cases solved by police (even if the offender has been apprehended) (Pfeiffer, 1998). Nevertheless, trends in juvenile violent crime appeared similar in many developed countries in the 1980s and early 1990s, 2 although the rates were different.

The United States has a high violent crime rate—particularly for homicide—in comparison to other countries, although property crime rates, particularly burglary, are higher than U.S. rates in Canada, England and Wales, and The Netherlands (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Mayhew and White, 1997). In 1994, the violent crime arrest rate (includes homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape) for 13- to 17-year-olds in the United

TABLE 1-1 International Comparisons of Juvenile Justice Systems

States was nearly 800 per 100,000 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995). In England and Wales, about 600 per 100,000 14- to 16-year-olds were convicted or cautioned by the police for violent crimes (homicide, assault, robbery, and rape) in 1994. In Germany, 650 per 100,000 14- to 17-year-olds and in The Netherlands 450 per 100,000 12- to 17-year-olds were suspects of violent crime in 1994 (Pfeiffer, 1998).

Comparing how different countries deal with juvenile offenders is equally challenging. Countries differ in the ages of young people considered legal juveniles, in how juvenile courts are organized, and in the types of institution used to sanction juvenile offenders. As Table 1-1 shows, the minimum age for being considered criminally responsible varies from 7 years (in Switzerland and the Australian state of Tasmania) to 16 (in Belgium and Russia). The age of full criminal responsibility (i.e., the age at which an offender is automatically handled as an adult) is 18 in most of the countries studied by Weitekamp et al. (1999), but is as low as 16 in some Australian states and is 20 in Japan. In the United States, both minimum and maximum ages of juvenile court jurisdiction vary by state, with most states having no minimum age (although in practice, children younger than 10 are seldom seen in juvenile courts). The maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is younger in many U.S. states than in the other countries studied, with 3 states having a maximum age of 15, 10 of 16, and the remaining states having a maximum age of 17.

At the same time that states and the federal government in the United States have been moving toward treating juvenile offenders more like adult criminals, many other countries retain a strong rehabilitative stance. The 1988 Youth Court Law of Austria, for example, describes juvenile offending as a normal step in development for which restorative justice, not punishment, is the appropriate response. The Belgium Youth Court Protection Act specifies that the only measures that can be imposed on a juvenile are for his or her care, protection, and education. In New Zealand, since 1989, Family Group Conferences have been used to replace or supplement youth courts for most of the serious criminal cases. In the early 1980s, England and Wales moved toward community-based sanctions for young offenders and away from institutional placements. This trend was reversed in the 1990s, however, when England and Wales reacted to the upswing in juvenile violence in a manner similar to the United States, focusing on the offense, rather than the offender. The U.K. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 made it easier to place offenders younger than 15 years in juvenile correctional facilities and extended the maximum length of allowable sentences. The U.K. Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 moved the English juvenile justice system even further toward a punitive, offense-based model.

Neither Sweden nor Denmark uses a separate juvenile court, but youthful immaturity is considered a mitigating factor in deciding their criminal responsibility. In Denmark, maximum punishments well below those available for adults are specified in law for juveniles 15 and older; juveniles under the age of 15 may not be punished, but may be referred to a social welfare agency. In Sweden, imprisonment may only be imposed on juveniles under exceptional circumstances, and even then, the sentences imposed are shorter than for adults.

The United States has a very high overall rate of incarceration. At 645 per 100,000, the U.S. incarceration rate is second only to that of Russia at 685 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 1999). Although adequate juvenile incarceration figures do not exist in the United States, the incarceration rate for homicides committed by juveniles is illustrative of the difference in incarceration rates. In 1992, 12.5 people per 100,000 were incarcerated in the United States for homicides committed as juveniles. Comparable numbers in other countries are 2.3 per 100,000 in The Netherlands, 1.6 per 100,000 in Italy, and 1.3 per 100,000 in Germany (Pfeiffer, 1998). Some of the differences in juvenile homicide incarceration rates are likely to be due to differences in homicide commission rates. In none of the 15 countries surveyed by Weitekamp et al. (1999) can a juvenile who commits a crime be executed, whereas this practice is allowed in the United States.

CHARGE TO THE PANEL

The Panel on Juvenile Crime: Prevention, Treatment, and Control was asked to identify and analyze the full range of research studies and datasets that bear on the nature of juvenile crime, highlighting key issues and data sources that can provide evidence of prevalence and seriousness; race, gender, and class bias; and impacts of deterrence, punishment, and prevention strategies. The panel was further asked to analyze the factors that contribute to delinquent behavior, including a review of the knowledge on child and adolescent development and its implications for prevention and control; to assess the current practices of the juvenile justice system, including the implementation of constitutional safeguards; to examine adjudication, detention and waiver practices; to explore the role of community and institutional settings; to assess the quality of data sources on the clients of both public and private juvenile justice facilities; and to assess the impact of the deinstitutionalization mandates of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 on delinquency and community safety.

To meet this charge, the study panel and staff gathered information in a number of ways. Relevant research studies were identified through

targeted searches of UnCover, Medline, Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the National Criminal Justice Research Service (NCJRS). The panel met six times between June 1998 and October 1999 to discuss data availability and research findings, identify critical issues, analyze the data and issues, seek additional information on specific concerns, formulate conclusions and recommendations, and develop this report. Four of these meetings were preceded by workshops at which experts presented information on selected topics and engaged in discussions with panel members. Workshops were held on education and delinquency, juvenile justice system issues, developmental issues relevant to delinquency, and racial disparity in the juvenile justice system. (See Appendix E for workshop agendas.) In addition to the workshops, Howard Snyder, research director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, spent part of one meeting discussing relevant datasets with the panel members. The panel commissioned three papers: “International Comparison of Juvenile Justice Systems ” by Elmar Weitekamp, Hans-Juergen Kerner, and Gernot Trueg; “Police Encounters with Juvenile Suspects” by Robert Worden and Stephanie Myers; and “The Indeterminancy of Forecasts of Crime Rates and Juvenile Offenses ” by Kenneth Land and Patricia McCall. Several members of the panel made site visits to juvenile detention and correctional facilities in Texas and New York. Study panel members and staff also consulted informally with various experts between meetings.

The charge to the panel was extremely broad, covering many topics that merit books unto themselves, and indeed some of the areas have been the subject of more than one recent book. The panel chose to provide a broad overview of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system, touching on all the topics in its charge, but going into various levels of depth depending on the amount and quality of data available. In organizing its plan for the study, the panel focused on answering several questions:

What have been the major trends in juvenile crime over the past 20 to 30 years, and what can be predicted about future trends?

What is the role of developmental factors in delinquent behavior and how do families, peers, communities, and social influences contribute to or inhibit that behavior?

What responses are in place to deal with juvenile crime today, are they developmentally appropriate, and do they work?

This report reviews the data and research available to answer these questions, suggests areas that require additional research, and makes recommendations about policies for dealing with child and adolescent offenders.

DEFINITIONS USED IN THIS REPORT

The terms juvenile and delinquency (or delinquent ) have specific legal meanings in state and federal law. In this report, however, the panel uses the term juvenile 3 in its general sense, referring to anyone under the age of 18, unless otherwise specified. The terms young person, youngster, youth, and child and adolescent are used synonymously with juvenile. For many of the analyses of crime trends in Chapter 2 , juvenile refers to those between the ages of 10 and 17, because those under the age of 10 are seldom arrested. We use the term adolescent to refer specifically to young people between the ages of 13 and 17.

The term delinquency 4 in this report refers to acts by a juvenile that would be considered a crime if committed by an adult, as well as to actions that are illegal only because of the age of the offender. The report uses the term criminal delinquency to refer specifically to the former and status delinquency to refer specifically to the latter. Criminal delinquency offenses include, for example, homicide, robbery, assault, burglary, and theft. The term juvenile crime is used synonymously with criminal delinquency. Status delinquency offenses include truancy, running away from home, incorrigibility (i.e., habitually disobeying reasonable and lawful commands of a parent, guardian, or custodian; also referred to in various statutes as unruly, uncontrollable, or ungovernable behavior), and liquor law violations. In some states, status delinquents are referred to the child welfare or social service systems, while in others status delinquents are dealt with in the juvenile justice system.

PLAN OF THE REPORT

Following this introduction, Chapter 2 discusses the datasets commonly used to measure juvenile crime rates, examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. The chapter then discusses the trends in juvenile crime rates over the past several decades and how trends differ depending on the dataset employed. Differences in crime rates and

types of offense by sex and race are noted. The chapter ends with a discussion of forecasting juvenile crime rates.

Chapter 3 examines factors related to the development of antisocial behavior and delinquency. Several other recent reports (Loeber et al., 1998; Rutter et al., 1998) have extensively reviewed the research on many of these factors, particularly as they relate to the development of serious, violent offending. In this report we have attempted to supplement these other reports rather than duplicate their literature reviews. In addition, this report does not confine its discussion to serious, violent offending.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover responses to the problem of youth crime. Chapter 4 focuses on preventive interventions aimed at individuals, peer groups, and families, interventions delivered in schools, and community-based interventions. Chapter 5 describes the juvenile justice system process in the United States and discusses treatment and intervention programs delivered through the juvenile justice system.

Chapter 6 examines the issue of racial disparity in the juvenile justice system, discussing explanations that have been put forth to explain that disparity and the research support for those explanations.

The panel's conclusions and recommendations for research and policy can be found at the end of each chapter.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem.

This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescents—trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistance—the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with age—and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates.

Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions:

• Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives.
• Intervention within the juvenile justice system.
• Role of the police.
• Processing and detention of youth offenders.
• Transferring youths to the adult judicial system.
• Residential placement of juveniles.

The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

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• BJPsych Bull
• v.41(1); 2017 Feb

Juvenile delinquency, welfare, justice and therapeutic interventions: a global perspective

Susan young.

1 Imperial College London, London, UK

2 Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, UK

Richard Church

3 South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

This review considers juvenile delinquency and justice from an international perspective. Youth crime is a growing concern. Many young offenders are also victims with complex needs, leading to a public health approach that requires a balance of welfare and justice models. However, around the world there are variable and inadequate legal frameworks and a lack of a specialist workforce. The UK and other high-income countries worldwide have established forensic child and adolescent psychiatry, a multifaceted discipline incorporating legal, psychiatric and developmental fields. Its adoption of an evidence-based therapeutic intervention philosophy has been associated with greater reductions in recidivism compared with punitive approaches prevalent in some countries worldwide, and it is therefore a superior approach to dealing with the problem of juvenile delinquency.

Recent years have seen sustained public and academic interest in criminality and mental health, with attention often focused on antisocial behaviour by children and adolescents. The scale of the problem of juvenile delinquency has provoked mixed responses from governments and the media across the world, with calls for improved rehabilitation and support for juvenile offenders competing with voices advocating more punitive approaches. 1 Meanwhile, decades of rigorous academic scrutiny have shed light on the complex and diverse needs of children who come into conflict with the law. 2 – 5 Much of the growing body of literature on juvenile offenders shows considerable overlap between criminological, social and biomedical research, with a consensus emerging around the significance of a developmental understanding of the emergence of juvenile delinquency.

Importantly, juvenile offenders have consistently been identified as a population that suffers from a markedly elevated prevalence and severity of mental disorder compared with the general juvenile population. 6 , 7 Meeting the needs of these young offenders presents practical and ethical challenges concerning treatment and management, including liaison with other agencies.

What is juvenile delinquency?

Who counts as juvenile.

Juvenile delinquency is a term commonly used in academic literature for referring to a young person who has committed a criminal offence, although its precise definition can vary according to the local jurisdiction. The specific reasons underlying these differences are unclear, but they may arise from the lack of an agreed international standard. 8

A ‘juvenile’ in this context refers to an individual who is legally able to commit a criminal offence owing to being over the minimum age of criminal responsibility, but who is under the age of criminal majority, when a person is legally considered an adult. The minimum age of criminal responsibility varies internationally between 6 and 18 years, but the age of criminal majority is usually 18 years.

In some cases individuals older than 18 years may be heard in a juvenile court, and therefore will still be considered juveniles; indeed, the United Nations (UN) defines ‘youth’ as between 15 and 24 years of age. The term ‘child delinquents’ has been used in reference to children below the age of 13 who have committed a delinquent act, 9 although elsewhere ‘children’ are often defined as being under 18 years of age. The term ‘young offenders’ is broad, and can refer to offenders aged under 18 years or include young adults up to their mid-20s.

What is a crime?

A ‘delinquent’ is an individual who has committed a criminal offence. Delinquency therefore encompasses an enormous range of behaviours which are subject to legislation differing from one jurisdiction to another, and are subject to changes in law over time. Whereas acts of theft and serious interpersonal violence are commonly considered to constitute criminal offences, other acts including alcohol consumption and sexual behaviour in young people are tolerated to very differing degrees across the world. Sometimes these differences arise as a consequence of historical or cultural factors, and they may be underpinned by traditional religious laws, such as in some Middle Eastern countries. Some offences may be shared between jurisdictions but be enforced to differing standards – for instance, ‘unlawful assembly’, often used to prevent riots, is applied in Singapore to young people meeting in public in groups of five or more as part of police efforts to tackle youth gangs. Furthermore, ‘status offences’ – acts that would be permissible in adults but criminalised in children, such as consumption of alcohol or truancy – not only vary between jurisdictions, but contribute to discontinuity when comparing juvenile delinquency with adult populations in the same jurisdiction.

Lack of clarity can also arise in jurisdictions where a young offender is processed via a welfare system rather than a youth justice process. Countries with a high minimum age of criminal responsibility may not technically criminalise young people for behaviour that would normally be prosecuted and therefore classed as ‘delinquent’ elsewhere.

Not all incarcerated juveniles are ‘delinquent’, since some may be detained pre-trial and may not be convicted of an offence. Even if convicted, it would be wrong to assume that every ‘juvenile delinquent’ meets criteria for a diagnosis of conduct disorder; offences vary considerably and may not be associated with a broad repertoire of offending behaviour. Also, most ‘juvenile delinquents’ do not pose an immediate risk of violence to others, and the vast majority of convicted juveniles serve their sentences in the community.

To meet the diagnostic criteria of conduct disorder requires evidence of a persistent pattern of dissocial or aggressive conduct, such that it defies age-appropriate social expectations. Behaviours may include cruelty to people or animals, truancy, frequent and severe temper tantrums, excessive fighting or bullying and fire-setting; diagnosis of conduct disorder can be made in the marked presence of one of these behaviours. 10

Overall, the term ‘juvenile delinquent’ is used extensively in academic literature, but requires some care. It can be a potentially problematic term, and in some contexts can strike a pejorative tone with misleading negative assumptions. For several years the UN has used the phrase ‘children in conflict with the law’ to describe the breadth of the heterogeneous group of individuals under the age of 18 who have broken the law or are at risk of doing so.

General principles of juvenile justice

Welfare v. justice models.

The sentencing of an individual convicted of a criminal offence is largely driven by three key considerations: retribution (punishment), deterrence and rehabilitation. In the case of juvenile offenders the principle of rehabilitation is often assigned the greatest weight. 11

Special consideration for juveniles within the criminal justice system is not a new concept. In Roman law, the principle of doli incapax protected young children from prosecution owing to the presumption of a lack of capacity and understanding required to be guilty of a criminal offence. Most countries have some provision for special treatment of children who come into conflict with the law, however, the degree to which this is provided varies across the world. 1 , 12 In some countries a ‘welfare’ model prevails, which focuses on the needs of the child, diagnosis, treatment and more informal procedures, whereas other countries favour a ‘justice’ model, which emphasises accountability, punishment and procedural formality.

Belgium is frequently cited as an example of a country with a strong welfare process, supported by a high minimum age of criminal responsibility of 18 years. Similarly, France built a strong welfare reputation by placing education and rehabilitation at the centre of youth justice reforms in the 1940s. New Zealand in 1989 established the widely praised system of Family Group Conferencing as an integral part of youth justice, with a focus on restoration of relationships and reduction of incarceration that would be considered part of a welfare approach. In contrast, the UK and the USA have traditionally been associated with a justice model and low age of criminal responsibility – 10 years in England and Wales, and as low as 6 years in several US states.

Within welfare or justice models, a young person may at some point be ‘deprived of liberty’ – defined as any form of detention under official authorities in a public or private location which the child is not permitted to leave. Locations in which children may be deprived of liberty include police stations, detention centres, juvenile or adult prisons, secure remand homes, work or boot camps, penitentiary colonies, locked specialised schools, educational or rehabilitation establishments, military camps and prisons, immigration detention centres, secure youth hostels and hospitals. 13

Between the less and more punitive systems

The UN supports the development of specialised systems for managing children in conflict with the law. When the first children's courts were set up in the USA in the 1930s, they were widely praised as a progressive system for serving the best interests of the child. Although informality was championed as a particular benefit, in the 1960s substantial concerns arose about due process and the protection of the legal rights of minors. The subsequent development of formal juvenile courts occurred in the context of a continuing ethos of rehabilitation of young people, with a move away from incarceration of juveniles in the 1970s, especially in Massachusetts and California. However, following a marked peak in juvenile offending statistics during the 1980s and 1990s, public and political opinion swung firmly in a more punitive direction. This was accompanied by legal reforms that increased the severity of penalties available to juvenile courts and lowered the age threshold for juveniles to be tried in adult criminal courts.

When the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child entered into force in 1990, the USA was not a signatory owing to 22 states permitting capital punishment of individuals who had committed their crimes as juveniles. It is reported that 19 juvenile offenders were executed in the USA between 1990 and 2005. Although this number may represent a small percentage of the total who faced the death penalty in the USA during that period, the practice was widely criticised by international bodies and organisations. 14 A landmark ruling in the US Supreme Court 15 outlawed the execution of juvenile offenders in the USA, but to date a small number of countries worldwide still implement this practice, sometimes as a result of religious laws.

However, it would be wrong to assume that welfare systems are automatically preferable to a juvenile justice approach, since welfare arrangements can be equally coercive in terms of deprivation of liberty of juveniles. They may lack due process, safeguards for obtaining reliable evidence from young people, processes for testing evidence, and procedures for scrutiny or appeal following disposal.

Trends in youth crime

The USA witnessed a dramatic increase in arrest rates of young people for homicide and other violent crimes in the 1980s and 1990s, sometimes referred to as the ‘violence epidemic’. 16 The ensuing moral panic led to harsh and punitive policy changes in juvenile justice and, although official statistics document a subsequent fall of 20% in court case-loads between 1997 and 2009, victimisation surveys have indicated a degree of continuity in high levels of offending, consistent with a reported increase in juvenile offending between 2000 and 2006. 17

In common with the USA and several other high-income countries, the UK also experienced a rise in juvenile offending in the 1980s and 1990s, but figures from the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales appear to indicate a general improvement in recent years. Between 2009/2010 and 2014/2015 a 67% reduction has been observed in the number of young people entering the juvenile justice system for the first time, a 65% reduction in the number of young people receiving a caution or court disposal and a 57% reduction in the number of young people in custody. 18 These figures support an overall decrease in juvenile offending noted since the early 1990s. 19

Youth crime figures from Australia have documented a 4% reduction in the overall number of young offenders in 2013/2014, 20 although the number of violent offences committed by young people in the urbanised and densely populated region of Victoria has increased by 75% between 2000 and 2010. 21

The Nordic countries have witnessed an increase in the number of law-abiding youths from 1994 and 2008. 22 In Sweden, both objective levels of juvenile crime 23 and self-reported involvement in juvenile crime 24 have fallen between 1995 and 2005. Similarly in Finland, where, despite fluctuating trends in juvenile drug use, juvenile property and violent crime is reported to have decreased between 1992 and 2013. 25

To summarise, whereas regional and annual trends in juvenile offending are observed and expected, a global trend characterised by decreased juvenile offending appears to have emerged in recent years. Indeed, UN data from a sample of 40 countries lend support to this conclusion, indicating a decrease in the proportion of juveniles suspected (10.9% to 9.2%) and convicted (7.5% to 6%) of crime between 2004 and 2012, respectively. 26

Juvenile gang membership

Influence on crime involvement.

One of the features of urbanisation across the world has been the rise of youth gangs, groups of young people often defined by geographical area, ethnic identity or ideology; recent reports indicate a rise in groups with extremist views. Explanatory models for the rise in youth gangs include factors such as economic migration, loss of extended family networks, reduced supervision of children, globalisation and exposure to inaccessible lifestyle ‘ideals’ portrayed in modern media.

Authorities in Japan attributed a surge in serious youth crime in the 1990s primarily to juvenile bike gangs known as ‘bosozoku’, who were deemed responsible for over 80% of serious offences perpetrated by juveniles, putatively bolstered by a crackdown on yakuza organised crime syndicates. 27 Although difficult to quantify, gang involvement appears to feature in a large proportion of juvenile offences, and there is evidence that gang membership has a facilitating effect on perpetration of the most serious violence including homicide. 28

Mental health

Compared with general and juvenile offender populations, juvenile gang members exhibit significantly higher rates of mental health problems such as conduct disorder/antisocial personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety disorders and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). 29 Gang members, compared with non-violent men who do not belong to a gang, are far more likely to utilise mental health services and display significantly higher levels of psychiatric morbidity, most notably antisocial personality disorder, psychosis and anxiety disorders. 30 Gang membership has also been positively correlated with an increased incidence of depressed mood and suicidal ideation among younger gang members. 31 Prevalence of ADHD is significantly greater in incarcerated youth populations (30.1%) than in general youth population estimates (3–7%), 32 therefore it may be reasonable to expect a similarly increased prevalence in juvenile gang members. ADHD has also been associated with a significantly increased risk of comorbid mood/affective disorder. 33

Forensic child and adolescent psychiatric services

Increased awareness of constitutional and environmental factors that contribute to juvenile offending has strengthened a public health perspective towards the problem, and in the UK entry into the youth justice system has been adopted as an indicator of general public health. 34

Dictionaries frequently define ‘forensic’ as meaning ‘legal’, implying a relationship with any court of law. Indeed, many forensic psychiatrists, particularly in child and adolescent services, undertake roles that encompass multiple legal domains relevant to mental health, including criminal law, family and child custody proceedings, special educational tribunals, and immigration or extradition matters.

Specialist forensic psychiatric services vary considerably between countries, 35 but usually forensic psychiatrists assess and treat individuals in secure psychiatric hospitals, prisons, law courts, police stations and in the community under various levels of security, supervision and support. In some countries there has been a trend towards forensic psychiatrists working almost exclusively with courts of law, providing independent specialist opinion to assist the court.

In the UK, forensic child and adolescent psychiatry has emerged as a clinical subspecialty. Some services are based in specialist secure hospitals for young people and cater for the relatively small number of high-risk young offenders with the most severe mental disorders. In the absence of such specialist resources, young people may be managed in suboptimal environments such as juvenile prisons, secure residential placements or secure mental health wards for adults, or even fail to receive treatment at all.

In light of growing evidence-based interventions for juvenile offenders within a public health framework, 36 the role of child and family mental health services may increase over time. Aside from direct clinical roles, practitioners in forensic child and adolescent psychiatry are also well placed to work with a wide range of partner agencies on the planning and delivery of broader interventions for the primary and secondary prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Prevalence of mental health problems among juvenile offenders

Rates of mental health problems among juvenile offenders are significantly higher than in their non-offender peers, with two-thirds of male juvenile offenders in the USA suggested as meeting criteria for at least one psychiatric disorder. 37 One in five juvenile offenders is estimated to suffer severe functional impairment as a result of their mental health problems. 38 Paradoxically, these needs are often unmet, 39 , 40 despite evidence of increased contact with mental health services, particularly among first-time juvenile offenders. 41 , 42 Of additional concern are the reported associations between mental health problems and mortality in incarcerated juveniles, 43 including an elevated suicide rate for males. 44 Mental health problems must be a target in interventions for juvenile offenders; however, treatments which focus solely on clinical problems are unlikely to result in benefit for criminogenic outcomes. 45 There is therefore a clear need for effective interventions which address both the clinical and criminogenic needs of these individuals.

Evidence-based treatments for mental health problems

Treatment of ptsd.

Estimates regarding the prevalence of PTSD among juvenile offenders suggest that 20 to 23% meet the clinical criteria, 46 , 47 with prevalence rates significantly higher among females than males (40% v . 17%). 46 Moreover, with 62% experiencing trauma within the first 5 years of life 47 and up to 93% experiencing at least one traumatic event during childhood or adolescence, 48 this should be a target for intervention.

Cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) is regarded as the most effective intervention for adults with PTSD 49 and also has demonstrated efficacy for juvenile non-offenders. 50 , 51 There is limited evidence suggesting a significant reduction in self-reported symptoms of PTSD following group-based CBT in male juvenile offenders, 52 and of an adapted version of CBT, cognitive processing therapy, 53 also resulting in a significant reduction in self-reported symptoms of PTSD and depression compared with waitlist controls. 54

A trauma-focused emotion regulation intervention (TARGET) has received preliminary empirical support for use in this population. TARGET resulted in nearly twice as much reduction in PTSD symptom severity as treatment as usual (TAU), 55 in addition to significant reductions in depression, behavioural disturbances and increased optimism. 56

Mood/anxiety disorders and self-harm

Juvenile offenders in the UK present with a high prevalence of mood and anxiety disorders (67% of females, 41% of males), self-harm (11% of females, 7% of males) and history of suicide attempts (33% of females, 20% of males). 57 Similarly high prevalence has also been observed cross-culturally, namely in the USA, 37 , 58 Switzerland 59 and Finland. 60

Despite such high prevalence, there appears to be a paucity of high-quality evaluations regarding the effectiveness of interventions for juvenile offenders with mood and/or anxiety disorders, or problems with self-harm. However, the limited evidence that is available suggests that group-based CBT may aid symptom reduction. 61 Recovery rates for major depressive disorder following group-based CBT are over double those for a life skills tutoring intervention (39% v . 19%, respectively), although no significant difference was noted at 6- or 12-month follow-up. CBT also resulted in significantly greater improvements in self- and observer-reported symptoms of depression and social functioning. 62

However, group-based CBT is not reported to be significantly different from TAU in reduction of self-harm, 63 whereas individual CBT is not significantly different from TAU in outcomes for depression, anxiety, conduct disorder or PTSD. 64 Yet recruitment to and retention in intervention seems good, suggesting that CBT is feasible to implement in juvenile offender populations. 64

Evaluations of alternative interventions have posited muscle relaxation as effective in improving juvenile offenders' tolerance of frustration. 65 Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) has also been reported to significantly reduce incidences of physical aggression in a juvenile offender population 66 and among juvenile non-offenders expressing suicidal ideation. 67 It significantly reduced serious behavioural problems and staff punitive actions among juvenile offenders within a mental health unit, although no similar significant reductions were observed for those without mental health problems. 68

Evidence-based treatments for conduct disorder: family approaches

Relationships with family and peers are recognised as key factors in the criminogenic profile of juvenile offenders. 69 Multisystemic therapy (MST) is a family-focused intervention targeting characteristics related to antisocial behaviour, including family relationships and peer associations, 70 with evidence from US and UK studies suggesting MST is a beneficial intervention for juvenile offenders. When compared with conventional services offered by juvenile offending services, MST was associated with a significant reduction in the likelihood of reoffending, 71 maintained 2 and 4 years post-treatment. 72 , 73 Offenders engaging in MST are reported to be significantly less likely to become involved in serious and violent offending. 73 , 74 Significant improvements have also been observed in both self- and parent-reported delinquency, 74 family relations and interactions, 73 and home, school, community and emotional functioning. 71 A cost offset analysis of MST among UK juvenile offenders suggested that combining MST and conventional services provides greater cost savings than conventional services alone, as a result of its positive effects on recidivism. 75 Qualitative impressions of MST from juvenile offenders and their parents indicate that key components of a successful delivery of MST include the quality of the therapeutic relationship and ability to re-engage the offender with educational systems. 76

Some evidence also exists regarding the efficacy of MST when delivered to non-offender antisocial juvenile populations outside the USA and the UK. Compared with TAU, MST resulted in a significantly greater increase in social competence and caregiver satisfaction, and a significant reduction in referrals for out-of-home placements, in Norwegian juveniles exhibiting serious behavioural problems. 77 However, no significant difference between MST and TAU was reported in outcomes for antisocial behaviour and psychiatric symptoms in Swedish juvenile offenders. 78 MST was also found to have no significant benefit over TAU in outcomes including recidivism in a sample of Canadian juvenile offenders. 79 These differing outcomes have been posited as the result of barriers in transferring MST from US and UK populations owing to differing approaches to juvenile justice between countries (i.e. a welfare v . justice approach). 78 The heterogeneous nature of studies concerning MST in juvenile offender populations prevent a firm conclusion being drawn as to its superiority over alternative interventions, although this does not diminish the positive outcomes which have been observed. 80

Substance misuse

Motivational interviewing represents a promising approach for juvenile offenders, particularly as a treatment for substance misuse. 81 Group-based motivational interviewing has received positive feedback from participants when implemented with first-time juvenile alcohol or drug offenders, 82 and compared with TAU, juvenile offenders in receipt of motivational interviewing have greater satisfaction and display lower, though not statistically significant, rates of recidivism at 12-months post-motivational interviewing. 83 There is therefore preliminary evidence for the acceptability and feasibility of motivational interviewing for substance-misusing juvenile offenders, but future research regarding long-term outcomes is warranted. To date, motivational interviewing for difficulties faced by juvenile offenders beyond that of substance misuse does not appear to have received much research attention. Juvenile offenders are known for their difficulty to engage in rehabilitative services, therefore further investigation of the effectiveness of motivational interviewing in encouraging engagement is warranted.

Preliminary investigations have also developed a conceptual framework for the delivery of mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) to incarcerated substance-misusing juveniles, with qualitative impressions suggesting this is a potentially feasible and efficacious intervention. 84 Although literature regarding the effectiveness of MBI in juvenile offenders is scarce, qualitative feedback has indicated positive reception of this style of intervention, with particular improvements in subjective well-being reported by juvenile participants. 85

Employment and education

Engaging juvenile offenders with education and skills-based training is an important component of successful rehabilitation, with positive engagement in meaningful activities associated with improvements in areas such as self-belief 86 and protection against future participation in criminal activities. 87 It is concerning therefore that an evaluation of the use of leisure time over a 1-week period by probationary juvenile offenders in Australia indicated only 10% of this time was spent engaging in productive activities, such as employment or education, with 57% used for passive leisure activities, a level 30% higher than that of their non-offender peers. 88

Efforts to engage juvenile offenders in vocational and/or occupational activities have shown benefits in a number of areas. A specialised vocational and employment training programme (CRAFT) emphasising practical skills was evaluated against conventional education provision to juvenile offenders in the USA. Over a 30-month follow-up period, those engaged in CRAFT were significantly more likely to be in employment, to have attended an educational diploma programme and to have attended for a significantly longer period of time. 89 Benefits have also been reported with regard to risk of reoffending, with an after-school programme in the USA incorporating practical community projects, educational sessions and family therapy resulting in a significant reduction in recidivism at 1-year follow-up. 90

Qualitative investigations of US juvenile offenders suggest there is not a lack of interest in pursuing education among this population, but rather a disconnection with educational systems when education providers are perceived not to care about students' progress. 91 Ensuring education providers are perceived as proactive and caring in this regard may therefore be an important consideration for efforts to engage juvenile offenders with educational systems. Significant barriers to engagement include difficulties in obtaining accurate information regarding the offender's educational history, in addition to identifying community-based education providers willing to accept previously incarcerated juveniles on their release. 92

Language and communication

Difficulties with language and communication skills appear to be prevalent among juvenile offenders, with estimates of those falling into the poor or very poor categories ranging from 46 to 67%; overall, up to 90% of juvenile offenders demonstrated language skills below average. 93 Specifically, high rates of illiteracy are reported in this population, 94 with evidence to suggest that an awareness of such problems among juvenile offenders themselves is associated with dissatisfaction and poor self-esteem. 95 These difficulties may act as barriers to engagement in therapeutic interventions, particularly those delivered in group settings, as well as re-engagement with educational systems. Awareness of the challenges these young people face with regard to confidence and ability to communicate is important, and potential involvement of a speech and language therapist could be considered. Preventing deficits in language and communication through effective schooling and appropriate support in the early years of life may serve as an aid to effective engagement in rehabilitative interventions, and may also mitigate the risk of engagement in criminal activities in the first instance.

Delivery of therapeutic services

Common challenges to a therapeutic youth justice pathway.

There are common obstacles to smooth care pathways between different parts of systems, such as in transitions between secure settings and the community, between prisons and secure psychiatric settings, and between child and adult services. In some jurisdictions individuals can only be treated pharmacologically against their will in a hospital setting, a safeguard which limits the extent to which individuals can be treated in prison, but there is still great scope for intervention by prison mental health teams in juvenile prisons.

Factors associated with good outcomes

A meta-analysis has revealed three primary factors associated with effective interventions for juvenile offenders: a ‘therapeutic’ intervention philosophy, serving high-risk offenders, and quality of implementation. 96 These findings are consistent with factors posited as correlating with good outcome in residential centres for troubled adolescents and juvenile offenders: good staff-adolescent relations, perception of staff as pro-social role models, positive peer pressure, an individualised therapeutic programme approach, developmentally appropriate programmes and activities, clear expectations and boundaries, and placement locations which allow for continued family contact. 97 , 98

In the community, coercive styles of engagement have been found to be less successful at achieving adherence among juvenile offenders than a client-centred approach. 99

Factors associated with poor outcomes

‘Scared Straight’ programmes expose juveniles who have begun to commit offences to inmates of high-security prisons, yet these approaches have been discredited due to evidence that risk of recidivism may in fact increase following such exposure. 100 Similarly poor outcomes have been observed in programmes modelled on military boot camps, in which harsh discipline is considered to be of therapeutic benefit, 101 and initiatives such as curfew, probation and hearing juvenile cases in adult court were also shown to be ineffective in reducing recidivism. 13

Over recent years it has been repeatedly demonstrated that exposure to juvenile court itself appears to have a detrimental effect on juvenile offending. 102 – 104 This may be partially explained by effects of labelling, stigma and negative self-image associated with a criminal conviction, but also the practical consequences of sentences, including assortment of delinquent peers in community or prison sentences. Incarceration presents several additional harms, including disturbance of care and pro-social relationships, discontinuity in education, association with delinquent peers, and exposure to violence. Half of detained young offenders in the UK reported victimisation during their current prison term, 57 while 12% of incarcerated youth in the USA reported sexual victimisation in the previous year. 105 International agreements state that deprivation of liberty (such as juvenile prison) should be used as a last resort and for the shortest time necessary, so should be reserved for the highest-risk offenders. The cost of juvenile antisocial behaviour is known to be high, and to fall on many agencies. 106 The current climate of austerity in public services demands that any interventions should be not only effective, but also cost-effective, raising a clear challenge – and opportunity – for the implementation of interventions for this population of vulnerable young people. For example, parenting programmes have demonstrated sustained benefits for this population, 107 , 108 with economic analysis indicating gross savings of £9288 per child over a 25 year period. 109 Considered together with wider costs of crime, these gross savings exceed the average cost of parenting programmes (£1177) by a factor of approximately 8 to 1.

Conclusions

Many argue that we have a long way to go before arriving at ‘child friendly’ juvenile justice. 110 Around the world there are variable and inadequate legal frameworks that are not age-appropriate, there is a lack of age-appropriate services and establishments, and a lack of a specialist workforce, leading to challenges around training and supervision to work with this vulnerable population. In the UK and other high-income countries worldwide, forensic child and adolescent psychiatry is a multifaceted discipline incorporating legal, psychiatric and developmental fields. This approach has navigated clinical and ethical challenges and made an important contribution to welfare and justice needs by its adoption of an evidence-based therapeutic intervention philosophy.

Declaration of interests S.Y. has received honoraria for consultancy, travel, educational talks and/or research from Janssen, Eli Lilly, Shire, Novartis, HB Pharma and Flynn Pharma.

Essay on Juvenile Delinquency

Introduction.

Juvenile delinquency is criminality committed by children. Despite being less severe than adult crimes, these offences may have significant consequences for the person and society. Understanding juvenile crime and delinquency may assist in preventing child crime. Teenage misconduct has the potential to hurt people, families, and communities. Criminal histories may have an impact on housing, work, and education. Delinquency may also result in a vicious cycle of unemployment and crime.

Biological, psychological, and sociological variables explain delinquency. Biological theories connect hormones, brain problems, and genetics to criminality. Psychologists believe mental illness, cognitive deficits, and personality abnormalities may cause crime. Sociological views say peer pressure, social dysfunction, and poverty cause crime. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency, it will also explore integrated theories and preventive and intervention strategies. It may be possible to lessen juvenile crime and enhance adolescent outcomes by comprehending the reasons for delinquency and discovering efficient preventative and intervention techniques.

Biological Theories

According to biological theories of delinquency, there are underlying biological causes of criminal conduct. These ideas suggest that criminals have a hereditary or early-life environmental propensity. Italian physician and criminologist Cesare Lombroso promoted atavism in the late 1800s. According to proponents of this view, those who commit crimes are “born criminals” or evolutionary relics who retain certain features of their caveman ancestors (Griffiths et al., 2023). Lombroso said these biological traits led to criminal conduct and made convicts inferior to the general population. American psychologist William Sheldon established somatotypes in the 1940s. This theory states that mesomorphs are more likely to commit crimes. Sheldon believed mesomorphs were naturally hostile and criminal (Nickerson, 2022). Sheldon believed that mesomorphs, by virtue of their physique, were predisposed to hostility and criminal activity.

Biological theories have the advantage of offering a potential biological explanation for criminal conduct. However, these ideas also include a number of caveats. The problem of establishing cause and effect is a significant constraint. Simply because a biological element is linked to antisocial conduct does not entail that it causes it. Social and environmental variables may also contribute to criminal conduct, although they are often ignored by biological explanations. Antisocial behaviour has been found to have associations with genetics, brain abnormalities, and hormones. Genetics, brain disorders, and hormones may cause antisocial behaviour. Brain imaging has shown that delinquents have different brain structures and functions than non-delinquents. Certain genes may increase criminal risk, according to research. High amounts of testosterone and other hormone abnormalities have also been related to antisocial conduct.

Psychological Theories

According to psychological theories of delinquency, mental components like cognition and emotion have a role in criminal conduct. It is the basic idea of these explanations that cognitive impairments, socialization processes, and unconscious conflicts contribute to offending conduct.

According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, criminal conduct stems from repressed emotions. Freud theorized that antisocial conduct is the outward manifestation of latent urges and impulses that have been denied or repressed. Deviant conduct might surface as a result of an individual’s inability to regulate these drives and impulses in a healthy way.

According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, antisocial conduct is the product of positive reinforcement and the normalization of previously antisocial behaviour. This idea proposes that people pick up antisocial habits by emulating those around them and having their own actions rewarded (Baştan & Dülek, 2023). If a person sees their friends participating in delinquent conduct and being applauded or rewarded for it, that person may be more motivated to follow suit.

According to the theory of cognitive development advanced by Jean Piaget, mental impairments may lead to antisocial conduct. Piaget argues that intellectual growth is essential to the maturation of moral thinking and decision-making. A person’s inability to make good choices and engage in lawless activity may be the consequence of a delay or deficit in cognitive development. Psychological theories have the advantage of offering a potential psychological explanation for antisocial conduct. These theories have some disadvantages. Psychological theories, like biological ones, neglect social and environmental factors in antisocial behaviour. In addition, the intricate interplay between personal and societal influences is frequently overlooked by these ideas. behaviour may lead to learning impairments, mental illness, and personality disorders. Criminals may have conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder. Due to impulse control and decision-making issues, ADHD and other cognitive disorders may increase delinquency.

Sociological Theories

According to sociological theories of delinquency, variables including poverty, social disorganization, and peer pressure all play a role in shaping antisocial conduct. These hypotheses postulate that delinquency stems from problems within the home, the classroom, and the wider community. According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, antisocial conduct develops when people feel pressured to conform yet are unable to accomplish their cultural aspirations. The idea behind this thesis is that those who fail to succeed in society via proper channels may resort to more questionable methods, such as criminal activity (Levesque, 2020). According to the social disorganization hypothesis proposed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, criminal activity thrives in areas where social institutions have collapsed. This hypothesis proposes that high rates of delinquency may be explained by the absence of social control and order in impoverished and socially disorganized communities (Sampson, 2017). However, according to Edwin Lemert’s labelling hypothesis, people engage in antisocial conduct because they have been socially stigmatized. This idea proposes that the stigma and prejudice experienced by those who have been branded as deviant or delinquent makes them more inclined to continue participating in such activity.

One of sociology’s strong points is that it helps us understand how upbringing and peer pressure play a role in shaping antisocial conduct. However, these theories may fail to explain why some people in identical social and environmental situations do not participate in delinquent conduct because they fail to account for individual variances in behaviour. Poverty, social disorder, and peer pressure are just a few of the sociological elements that have been linked to antisocial conduct. People in poverty, for instance, may resort to criminal activity as a method of escaping their precarious living situations. Similarly, communities with high levels of social disorder and little social control may be ideal breeding grounds for criminal activity. Peer pressure to participate in dangerous or unlawful activities is another important contributor to the emergence of delinquent conduct.

Integrated Theories

Integrated theories of delinquency give a more holistic explanation for antisocial conduct by taking into account not just one but many potential causes. These hypotheses hold that antisocial conduct develops as a consequence of a combination of personal and societal influences. According to Terrie Moffitt’s theory of development, antisocial conduct is a product of internal and external influences at play throughout a person’s lifetime. It proposes a dichotomy between “life-course persistent” and “adolescent-limited” delinquents (Belsky et al., 2020). There are two types of delinquents: those whose criminal behaviour starts in infancy and continues throughout maturity and those whose criminal behaviour is confined to adolescence.

Life cycle theory, developed by psychologists Robert Sampson and John Laub, holds that repeated negative experiences lead to criminal behaviour. Poor people and those in unstable families, for example, are more inclined to commit crimes in accordance with this hypothesis. Integrative theories have the potential to better explain antisocial behaviour since they take into account additional variables. However, the intricacy of these ideas may make them harder to evaluate and put into practice. Some suggested integrated theories take into account both biological and social contexts, as in the biosocial theory, and both psychological and social contexts, as in the social learning theory. These theories point to the necessity for a more all-encompassing strategy of intervention and prevention by positing that various variables interact to impact antisocial behaviour.

Intervention and Preventive Measures

The prime objective of early intervention programs is to promptly recognize and provide support to vulnerable children and adolescents. Early intervention schemes include preschool, parenting as well as mental health services, among others. The aim of these undertakings is not only to prevent the development of delinquent behaviour but also to strengthen protective factors while weakening circumstances that promote its occurrence (Kumpfer & Magalhães, 2018). Restorative justice endeavours are intended to repair relationships ruptured by criminal actions through candid dialogues and community engagement. In such initiatives, the perpetrator takes responsibility for their wrongdoings, whereas perpetrators and victims both undergo healing procedures via restorative justice approaches. Community service projects, together with negotiations between offenders and victims, constitute examples so restorative justice schemes.

Prevention and intervention programs have the potential to be customized to fit the needs of people and communities. However, if these strategies fail to address the basic sociocultural and ecological factors that trigger delinquent conduct, their efficacy may be limited. Some juvenile intervention and preventive initiatives may also stigmatize and label participants, which may encourage even more antisocial behaviour.

In summation, the exhibition of felonious activities involves multiple elements: physiological, mental and societal. When considering possible roots for this type of conduct due to genetic makeup, cerebral function or hormonal balance based on some assumptions, one can find a connection between biology and crime. Psychological concepts indicate that an individual’s comportment involves more than just physical factors. Sociologists suggest that environmental conditions such as poverty or peer pressure contribute significantly towards delinquency while looking at Social aspects as causative agents too. Integrated ideas propose a multifaceted array of influencing elements upon criminal activities along with its resultant effects.

To decrease the occurrence of juvenile delinquency and improve outcomes for adolescents, it is necessary to implement a combination of preventative measures and interventions. Restorative justice programs, as well as early intervention initiatives, have proven effective in mitigating deviant behaviour while also rehabilitating both victims’ and perpetrators’ lives. Given that genetics, along with upbringing, play significant roles in developing antisocial tendencies, multiple layers of prevention/interception are required when dealing with such matters. Future studies on adolescent offences ought to keep dissecting how personal/environmental variables interact together; experts should study means by which social & environmental factors fostering criminal activity can be reduced too. Lastly, researchers need to try eliminating negative associations linked exclusively towards youth who’ve committed infractions so that all young people’s prospects may become more promising, successfully moving forward into adulthood without fear or stigma attached due solely based upon their past mistakes made during childhood.

Sampson, R. J. (2017). Family management and child development: Insights from social disorganization theory. In  Facts, frameworks, and Forecasts  (pp. 63-94). Routledge.

Levesque, M. (2020).  Juvenile Delinquency and General Strain Theory  (Doctoral dissertation).

Belsky, J., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Poulton, R. (2020).  The Origins of You: How childhood shapes later life . Harvard University Press.

Kumpfer, K. L., & Magalhães, C. (2018). Strengthening Families Program: An evidence-based family intervention for parents of high-risk children and adolescents.  Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse ,  27 (3), 174-179.

Baştan, A., & Dülek, A. (2023). Learned Violence: Bandura’s Social Learning Theory In Edward Bond’s The Children.  Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli Üniversitesi Sbe Dergisi ,  13 (1), 106-118.

Griffiths, S., Jalava, J., & Colaguori, C. (2023). Crime, Psychopathology, and the Idea of the Natural-Born Criminal.  Crime, Deviance, and Social Control in the 21st Century: A Justice and Rights Perspective , 235.

Nickerson, C. (2022). Sheldon’s Constitutional Theory: Somatotyping.  Simply Psychology .

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Juvenile Delinquency Causes and Effects

Causes and effects of juvenile delinquency: essay abstract, effects and causes of juvenile delinquency: essay introduction.

• Juvenile delinquency statistics
• Causes of juvenile delinquency
• Effects of juvenile delinquency
• Prevention of juvenile delinquency
• Solutions to juvenile delinquency

Effects and Causes of Juvenile Delinquency: Essay Conclusion

Works cited.

Given the widespread family, societal, community, and individual costs that come with high rates of juvenile delinquency, one cannot help to wonder what the government is doing about it. It is also everybody’s concern that the government may not be doing enough to make a difference.

At this point, it is important to note that one can effortlessly appear non-delinquent after a correctional program while the delinquent characteristics are intact deep inside him/her. Delinquency programs for the youth have continually focused on individual behavior while ignoring community, family, and neighborhood factors, which are the most critical factors contributing to delinquent behavior.

It is common knowledge that the problem of juvenile delinquency is immense in society, and thus a change of tact is critical if society is to overcome this problem. This paper will explore other factors that lead to juvenile delinquency and propose solutions to this problem.

Delinquency refers to the violation of a law by a child. It is analogous to the commitment of a crime by an adult. Juvenile delinquency is an issue of great concern in law enforcement and correctional circles.

Every state in the U.S. aims to reduce the number of juveniles being recruited to delinquency and the number of juvenile delinquents recidivating.

Despite the efforts taken in a bid to reduce the number of delinquents and recidivists, the U.S. continues to record high numbers of juvenile offenders in juvenile correctional facilities. This situation, therefore, calls for a nuanced approach to the issue of juvenile delinquency.

It is critical to understand the extent of the growth of juvenile offending. Statistics released by bureaus in various states indicate that the rate of juvenile offenses is increasing. Offending patterns among groups previously described as risk groups for juvenile delinquency are worsening or, at least, unchanging.

There is, therefore, the need to analyze the causes of juvenile delinquency, evaluate the effects that delinquency has on society, and develop interventions that can lead to a reduction in the rate of delinquency and recidivism among juveniles. This paper describes the problem of juvenile recidivism and suggests ways to reduce the delinquency rate.

Juvenile Delinquency Statistics

A substantial percentage of arrests made each day in the U.S. comprises people below the age of 18. It is estimated that the percentage of violent crime arrests currently stands at about 17 % (Barker 1). “Juveniles accounted for 16% of all violent crimes arrests and 32% of all property crime arrests in 1999. They accounted for 54% of all arson arrests, 42% of vandalism arrests, 31 % of larceny arrests, and 33% of burglary arrests” (“Juvenile Justice” 1).

The number of juveniles engaging in delinquent behavior in various states depends on racial disparities. Currently, black juveniles constitute the highest number of youths being held in residential custody. Their number is almost twice the number of Hispanics held in residential custody and five times the number of white juveniles held in residential custody in the United States (“Juvenile Justice” 1).

In several cases, Juveniles are tried in adult courts. In fact, the Kansas and Vermont states in the U.S. have statutory provisions that allow the trial of juveniles as young as 10 years of age in adult courts. This situation may need review. It is because youth held in adult prisons tend to have a higher recidivism rate than those in juvenile systems (“Juvenile Justice” 1).

More than 1.7 million juvenile delinquency cases in the United States were disposed of in 1997. Two thousand of the aforementioned cases were criminal homicides. Forcible rape constituted 6,500, while aggravated assault cases totaled 67,900. Out of the 1.7 million, 180,000 cases were drug-related (“Juvenile Justice” 1).

The statistics outlined above show the seriousness of the issue of delinquency in the United States. Given the effects of delinquency on society, it is vital to understand the causes of delinquency. It is also critical to develop solutions and prevention strategies for delinquency.

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency

There have been heated debates among criminologists, psychologists, and sociologists concerning the possible causes of juvenile delinquency. The causes included in the following discussion have been proven through practical research.

One of the leading causes of delinquent behavior among juveniles is peer influence. Research shows that young people who form relationships with positive individuals and groups that pursue positive commitments tend to shun delinquent behavior. However, juveniles can engage in activities that do not have concrete objectives and commitments.

These activities will likely lead to volatile relationships that may encourage delinquent behavior. Examples of these behaviors include drinking and smoking. Other behaviors without commitment that juveniles may engage in include watching television and spending too much time watching movies.

Although most people attach no harm to these activities, research has proven that the more time peers spend watching television, the more likely they are to engage in delinquent behaviors (Mandel 1).

Family influence is another factor that has been proven to contribute to juvenile delinquency. It is even suspected that family influence contributes to delinquent behavior more than peer pressure. Research has proven that families in which there is no strong emotional bonding tend to have juveniles who turn out to be delinquent.

The reason is that the juveniles may develop psychological problems like rejection and low self-esteem, leading to delinquent behavior. Other causes of psychological problems like trauma and low self-esteem are also linked to delinquency. The two can originate from sources outside the family.

Children abused or exposed to family violence are likely to be delinquents. Some studies have linked genes to delinquency, arguing that children whom criminals and drug addicts raise are likely to become delinquent. Another risk is a family in which there are no effective communication channels. Children raised in this kind of family may have issues they want to address, but they may lack an audience.

This cause is likely to make them result in delinquent behavior. Non-traditional families like reconstituted families and single-parent families may also be a factor. Research has shown that children raised by single parents or divorcees tend to be more delinquent than their counterparts raised in traditional families (Mandel 1).

Race is a significant factor in predicting delinquent behavior. The main reason why race is a determinant factor for delinquency is that minority groups are not accorded the same treatment as other races. This makes them live disgruntled lives, which may make them have delinquent behavior.

Once the delinquency trend is set in a certain race, peer influence fuels recidivism and fresh offense. It is important to note that numerous scholars argue that race is not the factor, but racism is (Mandel 1).

Effects of Juvenile Delinquency

Juvenile delinquency is a big problem that affects not only the victims of the delinquents but also the juvenile delinquents themselves, their families, and even society as a whole. Juvenile delinquents may not be able to predict the effect of their crimes on themselves, but, as stated, they are seriously affected by these crimes.

Most of these crimes make the juvenile lose his/her freedom because he/she may be placed on probation or even incarcerated. This will also affect the academic welfare of the juvenile because he or she will miss academic activities that will take place during probation or incarceration.

In cases where the juvenile is placed in a residential center for the detention of juveniles, he/she may be influenced by more experienced juvenile delinquents (Barker 1). It will make the juvenile more likely to recidivate and suffer re-offense consequences. The delinquency of the minor may even dictate his or her career choices in the future.

The trauma of having a juvenile delinquent in a family can create instability for other family members. The family has to meet the needs of the juvenile in trouble and raise lawyer’s fees. The family also has an ethical obligation to the victim of the delinquent. Families are required to attend counseling sessions as a group. This is usually costly and disruptive (Barker 1).

Juvenile delinquency is closely related to sexual behavior, drug use, gang involvement, etc. All these negatively affect the community because it makes the community unsafe and makes the government spend colossal sums of money on school safety and law enforcement.

As stated, juvenile delinquency has severe effects on some societal groups. It, therefore, affects society negatively by affecting the community, families, individuals, etc. The problem also challenges government agencies, organizations, educators, faith communities, and politicians (Barker 1).

Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency

Due to the contribution of family influence to juvenile delinquent behavior, it is vital to ensure that families positively impact children. This can be achieved by ensuring strong emotional bonding in the family and by laying out effective strategies for communication.

Children raised by families that do not conform to the traditional family should be closely watched to curb the development of delinquent behavior. Schools should also ensure that they know the backgrounds of children in order to fill the gaps that may be left by the parents (Saminsky 1). For instance, teachers can help to counsel a child who witnesses violence at home or a child whose parent is a criminal.

Parents should ensure that they closely monitor the kind of company that their children keep. They should ensure their children engage in productive social activities (Saminsky 1). These measures will help reduce the chances of their children becoming delinquents. In school, teachers should keep a close eye on pupils to ensure that they know their activities.

Pupils should be appropriately searched in school to ensure they do not carry guns and drugs. This step will ensure that delinquent pupils do not influence others. It will also help identify delinquent children so they can be counseled or even sent for correctional services.

Although controversial, another way of preventing delinquency is reducing or eradicating racism. This method will target delinquents in minority groups. It will help reduce the number of juveniles in these minority groups who commit offenses because they will not commit racism-inspired crimes.

It will also help boost teenagers’ self-esteem in these minority groups. Thus instances of offenses caused by low self-esteem will be limited in these minority groups (Saminsky 1).

Solutions to Juvenile Delinquency

The best way to reduce the number of delinquency cases is by using the preventative measures outlined in the paragraph above. The preventative measures should be holistic in the sense that they should include all the people in the lives of the juveniles.

The juveniles should be monitored and guided while at home and counseled and monitored while in school. Juveniles who are at high risk of developing delinquent behavior should be watched closely and given special treatment so that they do not end up offending (Rose 1).

Another way of reducing the number of delinquency cases is by reducing the rates at which juvenile delinquents recidivate. It can be achieved by having legislation that ensures that juveniles are corrected differently and in facilities different from the ones used for adult correction.

The reason is that, from the statistics section, juveniles corrected in the same facilities as adult offenders are more likely to recidivate than their counterparts in juvenile facilities. The recidivism rates of young offenders can also be reduced by having a program to correct delinquents. This is most appropriately implemented while the delinquents are in custody.

The program should be holistic, and thus it should consist of counseling services offered by a psychologist, recreational facilities, and training (Rose 1). The counseling services will give a platform in which the juveniles can freely share their experiences, and thus their healing process can be sped up.

The recreational facilities will give the juveniles alternative hobbies that will occupy their time after they are released from custody. Thus they will have less time to consider re-offending. Lastly, the training will equip the juvenile who may have quit school with entrepreneurial skills that they can utilize to make money after they are released from custody. It will, therefore, help to reduce the number of cases where juveniles re-offend due to financial problems.

Juvenile delinquency can also be reduced by effective policing that will ensure that community criminals do not recruit juveniles into crime. It is common to hear of gangs using schoolchildren to market drugs and carry assault weapons. This practice should be discouraged by vigilance from parents and teachers and effective community policing.

From the discussion above, it is clear that delinquency is an enormous societal problem. Juvenile delinquency is caused by several factors, including peer influence, influence by the juvenile’s family, race, and other related factors like low self-esteem and trauma.

The effects of delinquency are far-reaching, and they, therefore, affect the community, victims of the delinquent, society as a whole, and even the delinquents themselves. Therefore, it is vital to address this issue to reduce the rates of offense and re-offense.

Several interventions can be used to prevent and reduce delinquency and recidivism. These interventions can be implemented in the family, school, or even correctional facilities. School and family-level interventions are mainly aimed at preventing recidivism, while the interventions implemented at correctional facilities are aimed at reducing recidivism.

Thus, these interventions must be taken seriously to reduce the number of delinquents in society. This will, in turn, reduce the number of delinquency victims, the number of affected families, and the amount of resources that the government will spend on law enforcement and correctional services. Therefore, it will lead to a better society.

Barker, Leslie. “ The Effects of Juvenile Delinquency ”. Ehow.com . 2011.

Juvenile Justice. “Basic Statistics”. Pbs.org . 2011.

Mandel, Sharon. “ What Causes Juvenile Delinquency? ” Filthylucre.com . 2008.

Rose, Nancy. “ The Solution to Juvenile Delinquency is Simple ”. Public.asu.edu . 2010.

Saminsky, Alina. “ Preventing Juvenile Delinquency : Early Intervention and Comprehensiveness as Critical Factors”. Studentpulse.com . 2011.

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NIJ Brief Highlights Research-Based Findings on Youth and Delinquency

The  National Institute of Justice  (NIJ) has released " Five Things About Youth and Delinquency, " a brief highlighting the latest data and research-based findings on youth and delinquency for identifying strategies to support positive youth development.

The five findings are:

• Youth risk-taking is part of the normative developmental process that continues into early adulthood.
• Engagement in offending tends to increase through adolescence, and then decline.
• Only a small percentage of youth are arrested for any crime, and even fewer are arrested for violent crime.
• Youth arrests for violent offences have declined from historic highs in the mid-1990s.
• The proportion of all violent crime arrests involving youth is significantly lower than that of other age groups, including young adults.

Download Brief

RESOURCES:  

• Read  NIJ's "Five Things" series  for research and evaluation on a variety of topics.
• Follow OJJDP on  X formerly known as Twitter  and  Facebook .

Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Intervention Essay

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Introduction

Mike threatened his mother, stole her stove, sold it, and used the money to get himself drunk. In the process, he tried to commit a robbery and was arrested. His mother later turned him over to the juvenile court. Some children drink, others fight while others are involved in violent robberies where they use guns causing injury or even death of innocent folks. These children, Mike included, can be considered juvenile delinquents.

Juvenile relates to age and varies from state to state. In some states, the maximum age for which a child can be tried in a juvenile court is 14 years while in others it is 21 years. Nonetheless, the 16 to 20 olds are considered to be adults in most states. (Colombia encyclopedia, 2008) There are two types of juveniles. Delinquent offenders and the status offenders. (Roberts, 2008) But what is delinquency? The juvenile justice system has always approached juvenile justice from two perspectives. Firstly, that the juvenile offenders are primarily troubled children who are in need of help (rehabilitation). On the other hand, that the offenders are criminal and the solution is punishment so that they can refrain from such behaviors. From this, there are at least two definitions of delinquents. The legal definition and the case workers definition. (Tappan, 1949) In the legal definition, a juvenile delinquent is one who has decided to act contrary to laid down law and rules (offender). As such, this person deserves to be dealt with accordingly to deter him and others like him from engaging in such behaviors. However, no offender can be classified as a delinquent unless the court has established it to be so. In the case workers definition, a delinquent is one who is personally and socially maladjusted in his behaviors, which is the root cause of his problems (involvement in offences). The type of child who maybe involved in such offences as running away from home or disobedience thus a status offender. (Tappan, 1949) A juvenile delinquent can therefore be regarded as a child offender.

According to Heilbrun, Goldstein and Redding (2005), the nature of juvenile offences have been changing/evolving over the years. Nowadays there are far more serious and violent crimes committed by juveniles than ever before in history. The very first juvenile court had been established way back in 1899 in Cook County Illinois. Before, this the children were mainly put into the same jails as the adults. The reformers were concerned with this situation and called for the establishment of a separate court system for the minors. However, the court was not established for punishment purposes rather to identify the causes of delinquency in addition to formulating individual based rehabilitation programmes. Hence, the principle of Parens Patriae which meant that the court was to act as the child’s guardian with a view to protecting the minor.

Fast forward, today all states have separate court systems for juveniles. (Roberts, 2000).

Boys seem to be the most susceptible to juvenile delinquency more than the girls though there has also been an increase over the years in the number of girls involved. This could be attributed to the fact that juvenile offences are related to peer pressure and anti social behaviors such as drug and substance abuse. The role of the family and parents cannot be discounted in the causes of juvenile delinquency. With parents holding more than one job, they have little or no time for their children. The result is that the children do as they please because they have no one to discipline them. According to Kulla, parenting practices have considerable impact on children. Accordingly, delinquent parents more often than not bring up delinquent children. (2006) For instance, an alcoholic abusive father has a very high chance of bringing up children who may be just like him. The other aspect of parenting that may contribute to delinquency is the single parent family resulting from divorce, abandonment or even separation. The mother is all alone and the duty of bringing up the children and also disciplining them rests squarely on her. She might fail. In a large family the same is true because then all the children do not get the attention they deserve. This then brings into close focus the environment that the child lives in and other people who live in this environment too. Peer pressure is a cause of juvenile delinquency. Children get involved in certain activities because everyone else in their families and communities seems to be involved. They may also get involved just to fit in with their friends. This is the reason they might engage themselves in drug or substance abuse and in violent crimes. (Kulla, 2006) Other causes include early child bearing and maternal substance abuse when pregnant. The result is that the mother is less likely to become an effective parent while the child may be born already an addict which makes them more likely to become delinquents. Another reason has to do with the social economic status. Children born to poor households may become delinquents as they engage in criminality to supplement incomes. There are also situational influences where the child maybe seeking an activity for the thrill of it. (Kulla, 2006).

With the rise of juvenile related crimes from the 1990’s, the stakeholders, policy makers, legislators and the public were calling for more serious and effective ways of dealing with juvenile crime. There was a 28% increase in the number of juvenile offenders held in both public and private facilities between 1991 and 2003. (Juvenile offenders and victims report, 2006) The call was for federally enacted laws because then the juvenile courts were appearing to be too lenient on juvenile offenders with the rehabilitation efforts failing. In 1993, for instance, the Gallup Poll passed the state proposition that would result in the trial of juveniles like adults especially those accused of violent crimes. A whooping 75% of the public voted in favor of this proposition. (Heilbrun et al, 2005) At the time, there were high numbers of juvenile related crimes including in schools. The media is involved in highlighting issues pertaining to juvenile delinquency including the failures and successes of existing prevention rehabilitation and intervention strategies. The courts and the lawyers are involved in the trial and sentencing of juvenile offenders. They are charged with the duty of openly laying out the offences and penalties leveled so as to protect the same offenders from undue process or ill treatment by the police. The juveniles also have the right to a fair trial. More over, communities and health workers are also involved in the rehabilitation and subsequent re-entry into the community of juveniles.

There is general consensus that the juvenile justice system is working. However, it needs to be strengthened. More over, Heilbrun et al are of the opinion that early intervention, adoption of prevention programmes in addition to rehabilitation make better alternatives to punishment of juvenile offenders especially in minor crimes. Accordingly, only very serious offences should result in jail terms. According to statistics, about 63% of the public seemed to be in favor of rehabilitation while a paltry 19% was in favor of punishment. (2005) Over the past few years the juvenile system has undergone considerable changes/reforms. More serious offenders have found themselves in criminal courts as new laws have been enacted that places them outside the juvenile courts jurisdiction. More over, the new laws seem to be in favor of punishing offenders as opposed to rehabilitation. Further more, laws have also been revised such that some offences can only be tried and sentenced in criminal courts. For instance, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 permitted the transfer of 13 year old offenders, especially those who had committed crimes using weapons such as guns, to criminal courts. Concomitantly, prosecution decision making jurisdictions have been widened. This has resulted in the restriction of confidentiality laws in juvenile courts.

Ultimately, there have been calls from stakeholders that the juvenile system is not working like it should and therefore needs to be abolished. However, current reforms seek to combine punishment of juvenile offenders with treatment and rehabilitation. The Office of Juvenile Justice System and Delinquency Prevention through the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders proposes that juveniles who enter the system should first be subjected to an assessment after which they are to be subjected to early intervention. The strategy also proposes the employment of various intervention strategies, to address the numerous risk factors, mental health, social service systems and even after care. The main problem with the juvenile delinquency system seems to lie in the fact that is has been somewhat ‘adultified’. According to Heilbrun et al, the solution lies with the understanding that the prevention and intervention methods adopted will serve the public and the juvenile offenders better if only the policy makers could understand that the offenders are not innocent children neither are they mature adults. The enhancing of the authority of the courts as far as sentencing goes is one strategy that has been adopted as part of the reforms. With this it is well within the mandate of the juvenile courts to extend their sentencing into early adulthood. (2005).

There has also been the establishment of specialized courts that are to deal with particular offences and by extension offenders. This is in line with the development of a prevention and treatment programme in the juvenile justice system. In the United States, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has been key in juvenile prevention/intervention programmes. Among the strategies adopted include the use of the media to educate the public and also the use of partnerships. Through the media, information is provided about the causes and the nature of juvenile delinquency including ways of prevention. This calls for partnerships with individuals, community groups and other institutions. First, is the community/faith involvement. The Office funds delinquency prevention efforts that are community based. Through the use of art (music, dance, drama) the Office also seeks to educate the youth on the problems that their communities face including the importance of preventing crime and the best ways of doing so. Secondly, the Office focuses on effective intervention programmes and ways of dealing with conflict. These include anger management classes, training on social and communication skills plus the use of mediation and legal services. Thirdly, is family strengthening and parenting through the safe start initiative. The Office aims at early prevention, intervention treatment and response including the delivery of quality services to children who are exposed to violence in their families and also those who are a risk. The Office has included the cross age teaching techniques in it mentoring programme. The youth are able to share knowledge and skills with others their age, or others who are younger or older. The programme is also involved in providing information to community based organizations on how to start and run effective mentoring programmes on their own. In the risk and protective factors programme, the gang reduction initiative is central. The aim is to reduce gang activities in certain neighborhoods. More over, in this programme there is also the girls study group where information pertaining to risk and protective factors of female juvenile offenders is obtained. Within the youth involvement programme the activities of the youth courts, which is a community intensive programme, are highlighted. The youth are involved in judging their peers on minor offences. (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2008).

The use of the mass media in the dissemination of information is a workable intervention. It has the potential to reach many people. However, it may not reach as many people depending on the medium used. Various methods need to be used together for the success of this intervention, thus newspapers, pamphlets, seminars may all be used together. Involving the community and community groups is a good endeavor because they involve many different people and groups all who have something to offer. However, some groups need funding so that they can effectively carry out their programmes. The strategy of teaching the youth various social and communication skill is important in conflict resolution as they may not have been taught at home. However, this requires dedicated personnel who are also patient. The interventions have a high probability of success though the drawbacks lie in as far as misplaced priorities, unclear responsibilities, lack of information and resources. This in turn results in poor implementation of the interventions and policy gaps. Leadership then becomes indispensable. The Office of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has set the pace.

Reforms in the juvenile justice system will highly influence the prevention and intervention strategies even in future. According to Roberts, existing justice systems are unsuccessful when they fail to satisfy the need of the victims, communities and the juvenile offenders. The future lies in the balanced approach strategy that focuses on compensation for harm to victims and the community. (2004) In addition, the offender competencies need to be increased and the public protected through the inclusion of victims, offenders and the community as equal participants. This requires the formulation of new intervention goals and objectives, the reallocation of funds plus the formulation of new reporting measures as well as methods of data collection. Moreover, the provision of programmes that are well supervised out of school and detention may be of immense help. Investing more into the strategies that have been successful in reducing re-entry of offenders into the justice system will also produce results. (King County Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan, 2000).

Juvenile delinquents are common in our communities. There are various reasons why they became delinquents. The failure of the family institution is the most important reason. The parents not being keen on disciplining their children because they might be too busy. Divorce, separation and the parents themselves being delinquents. Society has however contributed through the presence of social classes. As these children try to get out of theses classes they become delinquents. Peer pressure from friend and neighbors alike is another cause of delinquency.

The justice system established juvenile courts for the trial and sentencing of these minors. However, there is need for more proactive approach aimed at preventing the causes of delinquency in addition to offering solutions. These prevention and intervention strategies require the use of the media for effective sharing of information pertaining to juvenile delinquency. Besides, partnership with other individuals, community groups and agencies who are stake holders serves to strengthen the intervention strategies. The future however lies in the improvement of these strategies and strengthening those that have currently been the most successful.

Colombia encyclopedia, 6 th Edition. (2008). Juvenile delinquency . 2008. Web.

Heilbrun, K., Goldstein, S. E. & Redding, R. E. (2005). Juvenile delinquency: Prevention assessment and intervention. New York: Oxford University Press.

King County Juvenile Justice Operational Master Plan . (2000). Web.

Kulla, C. (2006). The causes of juvenile delinquency. Associated content . 2008. Web.

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2008). Juvenile offenders and victims report, 2006 . Web.

Roberts, A. R. (2004). Juvenile Justice source book: Past, present and future . New York: Oxford University Press.

Roberts, C. H. (2008). Juvenile delinquency: Causes and effect. Yale-new Haven Teachers Institute. Web.

Tappan, P. W. (1949). Juvenile delinquency . New York: McGraw – Hill.

• Juvenile Offender: Prevention, Diversion and Treatment.
• Individual Causes of Delinquency
• Theories of Juvenile Delinquency
• The Problem of Juvenile Delinquency
• Juvenile Delinquency is a Product of Nurture
• Juvenile Offences and Modern Law
• Juvenile Delinquency: The Columbine Shootings
• The Cognitive Theory in Juvenile Delinquency
• Why Some Juveniles Violate the Law?
• Children’s Rights: Article 12 of UNCRC
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2021, September 29). Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Intervention. https://ivypanda.com/essays/juvenile-delinquency-causes-and-intervention/

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IELTS Writing Task 2 Cause/Solution Essay Topic: Juvenile Delinquency

Updated On Aug 05, 2024

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The article discusses an IELTS problem-solution essay, focusing on juvenile delinquency. It explains how to outline the essay, presenting causes such as lack of supervision and negative media influence, and suggests solutions.

Table of Contents

Band 8 sample essay, band 9 sample essay, more writing task 2 essay topics.

IELTS Writing Prediction Questions for 2024

One of the various types of essays that can be asked in the IELTS Writing Task 2 is a problem solution essay. IELTS problem solution essay requires candidates to talk about a specific problem or its causes and suggest possible solutions to the same. The problem-solution essay topics like Juvenile Delinquency are based on real-life situations and issues and are essential to be familiar with the pattern of the essay topics in order to perform well in Writing Task 2. If you want to practise regularly, check out the Writing Task 2 practice tests .

Given below is an example of a problem & solution essay. Let’s understand how to frame the essay from the ideas we have.

In some countries, a high proportion of criminal acts are committed by teenagers. Why has this happened? What can be done to deal with this?

Cause solution Essay

Introduction

• Give insight about the topic and elaborate briefly.
• Give prelude to what can be expected in the essay
• Paragraph 1: Cause (Without supervision from parents or caregivers, children’s extreme behaviours such as aggression, hostility or defiance are given free rein to develop in their later lives. In addition, there is a direct correlation between the lack of engagement in educational activities and serious criminal offending in children.)
• Paragraph 2: Solution (The better cure for young criminals is rehabilitation. Throughout education and training, the youth can realise their wrongful actions and be given opportunities to turn over a new leaf and transform themselves into useful members of society later in life.)

Reparaphrase the question and end up with the solution stated.

Today, youth crime is rife. Theft, burglary or even murder are now committed by people of younger and younger ages. The aim of this essay is to investigate the factors responsible for the increase in juvenile delinquency and put forward a number of ways to appropriately punish young offenders.

It is observed that extreme behaviours are exhibited by most children from dysfunctional families. Without supervision from parents or caregivers, children’s extreme behaviours such as aggression, hostility or defiance are given free rein to develop in their later lives. In addition, there is a direct correlation between the lack of engagement in educational activities and serious criminal offending in children. Out of boredom, children befriend antisocial peers and will gradually copy their behaviours. Media also plays an enormous role in shaping children’s criminality. For example, games such as grand theft auto can desensitise younger players to extreme acts of violence and cruelty, encourage them to commit crimes while giving them the impression that it is morally acceptable to do so.

Imprisonment is often cited as a way to punish juvenile offenders. However, it is my view that this approach can produce extremely destructive effects. The youth can potentially be victims of physical or sexual abuse from older prisoners, as well as can adopt their negative behaviours. I feel that the better cure for young criminals is rehabilitation. Throughout education and training, the youth can realise their wrongful actions and be given opportunities to turn over a new leaf and transform themselves into useful members of society later in life.

There are reasons to explain why today antisocial behaviour among the youth nowadays has reached a historically unprecedented high and rehabilitation is the answer for this.

It has been pervadingly seen that the crimes by the hands of juveniles, due to various reasons, is seen a menace to society and more so, their conditioning. This essay discusses the causes of this and the possible solutions to cope up with this increasing plight.

It is generally observed that such heinous offences by teenagers, which are today hysterically expanding, are because of the clamorous and derisive environment children are being subjected to. The environment in which they thrive and prosper is somehow the most pronounced cause of such misdemeanour. Reportedly, the type of personality one develops is often predetermined by the parenting, and upbringing one goes through in childhood. Secondly, the prospering technology and its directly proportional deleterious side effects, which includes unsupervised and disproportional exposure to provocative and misleading content. Some online games promote burglary, while some might cause one to have a belligerent attitude. Misleading television shows and graphical content percolates in the innocent and malleable mindsets of the children, thereby causing them to commit such serious actions.

A possible remedy to this starts right away from the way children are brought up. Being extra vigilant while they are around and cutting the unnecessary vulnerability of being influenced in the wrong helps children a great deal. Digital usage is understandably ineludible. However, in the supervision of a responsible adult and the perusal of them, the risks and perils of children being guided in a corrosive way are palliated to a much greater extent. Schools should alarmingly and intensively monitor the children who are being browbeaten by the hands of bullies, as surveys have often suggested that those are the children who are usually more susceptible to committing a crime.

Therefore, it could be summed up that though it is undoubtedly a problem to society as a whole, by proper monitoring, parenting, and supervision, juvenile misconduct could be largely contained and alleviated.

Have a look at the IELTS Vocabulary for the sample answer on the essay topic 'Juvenile Delinquency'.

• Youth crime is rife: Youth crime is very common.
• Juvenile delinquency: act of crime committed by the young
• Defiance (n.): behaviour in which you refuse to obey others
• Aggression (n.): behaviour that is threatening or involves harm
• To be given free rein to develop: go uncontrolled.
• Desensitise (v.): cause people to experience emotion less strongly than before.
• Out of boredom: Because they are bored
• To produce extremely destructive effects: have bad results.
• Wrongful actions: Actions which are unfair and illegal
• To turn over a new leaf: To become another person.
• Rehabilitation (n.): the act of returning someone to a good condition, normal life.

Here are some related topics for you to practice:

• The problem of juvenile delinquency is increasing day by day. What are the reasons for this? Suggest a few solutions.
• It is often thought that the increase in juvenile crime can be attributed to violence in the media. What do you think is the reason for this phenomenon? Suggest some measures to combat this problem.
• In many countries, the age of criminals is getting lower. Provide reasons for this problem, along with solutions. Support your arguments with examples.

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Do you have an essay on this topic? Please post it in the comments section. One of our IELTS trainers will evaluate your essay from an examiner’s point of view and reply to the comment. This service is completely FREE of cost.

• Every year several languages die out
• Some People Think That Parents Should Teach Children How to be Good Members of Society
• Happiness is considered very important in life
• In some countries the average weight of people is increasing
• Young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school
• Research Indicates That the Characteristics We are Born With Have Much More Influence On Our Personality

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• Tips to write introduction in IELTS Writing Task 2
• Tips to write great writing essay
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• IELTS Writing task 2 Preparation Tips
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• How to get band 8 in IELTS Writing Task 2
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Janet had been an IELTS Trainer before she dived into the field of Content Writing. During her days of being a Trainer, Janet had written essays and sample answers which got her students an 8+ band in the IELTS Test. Her contributions to our articles have been engaging and simple to help the students understand and grasp the information with ease. Janet, born and brought up in California, had no idea about the IELTS until she moved to study in Canada. Her peers leaned to her for help as her first language was English.

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Examining the Relationship Between Childhood Trauma and Involvement in the Justice System

A dangerous or life-threatening experience may become a traumatic event for a child. The child may see the event as an intense threat to his or her safety and will typically experience a high level of fear or helplessness. [1] Trauma may result from a wide range of events, including accidents and natural disasters. Of great priority to those in the public safety and justice fields, traumatic experiences may be caused by exposure — as a victim or a witness — to community violence, domestic violence, sexual abuse, or terrorist attacks.

Trauma experienced during childhood may result in profound and long-lasting negative effects that extend well into adulthood. The direct effects may be psychological, behavioral, social, and even biological. [2] These effects are associated with longer-term consequences, including risk for further victimization, [3] delinquency and adult criminality, [4] substance abuse, [5] poor school performance, [6] depression, [7] and chronic disease. [8]

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has supported many studies over the years to help increase our understanding of the complex dynamics of childhood exposure to violence. [9] The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) has also supported research, programs, and training to better understand and improve responses to children exposed to violence and childhood trauma. [10] Together, these efforts help inform the development and enhancement of programs, practices, and policies designed to prevent violence, reduce the impact of violence on children and youth, and improve the capacity of the criminal and juvenile justice systems.

In 2016, OJJDP funded seven research projects in response to a competitive solicitation titled Studies Program on Trauma and Justice-Involved Youth ( see exhibit 1 ). [11] These studies — now managed by NIJ [12] — look at trauma and justice system involvement from multiple perspectives to provide a better understanding of the pathways from violence exposure and trauma to involvement in the justice system. They also explore possible protective factors that reduce the likelihood of delinquency as a negative consequence of trauma, as well as the effectiveness of trauma-focused interventions for youth. This article discusses findings from this collection of studies and their implications for the field.

Exposure to Trauma Among Juvenile who Commit Offenses

Five studies examined the relationship between childhood trauma and juvenile justice system involvement. Three of these studies drew on existing longitudinal research on justice-involved or high-risk youth. Another study analyzed linked administrative datasets from multiple systems in Chicago. The final study involved primary data collection from justice-involved youth in a Minnesota county.

Exposure to Trauma and Trauma Trajectories

Researchers at the University of Maryland used data that were originally collected for the Pathways to Desistance study, which analyzed multiple waves of interview data gathered between 2000 and 2010 from 1,354 justice-involved male and female participants. Participants in the Pathways to Desistance study were you who commit serious offenses in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, and Maricopa County (Phoenix), Arizona, who were between the ages of 14 and 17 at the time of their offense. [13]

Using the Pathways to Desistance data, the University of Maryland researchers examined the prevalence and patterns of trauma exposure, as well as the most strongly associated psychological symptoms. They also identified and described trajectories of trauma exposure and trauma symptoms from adolescence into early adulthood (i.e., ages 16 to 23). [14]

These justice-involved youth witnessed and experienced high levels of violence likely to cause trauma. For example, almost one-half (49%) witnessed someone being shot, and 30% witnessed someone being killed. The symptoms most strongly associated with exposure to violence were hostility and paranoid ideation.

The researchers categorized participants into four groups:

• Minimally exposed to violence.
• Witnessed gun and non-gun-related violence.
• Exposed to non-gun-related violence.
• Exposed to gun and non-gun-related violence.

These groups differed in important ways. For instance, in comparison to those minimally exposed to violence, all other groups had significantly higher scores on depression, hostility, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism.

Across all study participants, the average level of exposure to violence and psychological distress decreased slightly over time. However, this pattern was not uniform across participants. For example, white and Hispanic youth experienced a significant decrease in exposure to violence that was not experienced by African American youth.

Facility Exposure and Continuous Exposure to Violence

Researchers at Loyola University Chicago also analyzed data from the Pathways to Desistance study to examine issues related to exposure to violence within correctional and residential facilities, as well as continuous exposure to community violence. [15] Seventy-five percent of study participants reported witnessing violent encounters between other residents in correctional and residential facilities, and 17% reported being victimized by other residents. Almost two-thirds of participants witnessed violence between staff and residents, and almost 10% reported being victimized by staff, with 5% reporting being beaten by staff.

To better understand the effects of multiple traumatic experiences, the researchers focused on a series of six interviews that occurred at six-month intervals over a three-year period. They used the term “continuous exposure to violence” to characterize the experiences of those who reported witnessing violence or being victimized in more than one interview during this period. Of the 1,354 study participants, 83% witnessed community violence at more than one time point, and 43% were direct victims of violence in the community at more than one time point.

Exposure to violence in the community during adolescence significantly increased the risk for rearrest. Similarly, the researchers found that continuous exposure to community violence during adolescence predicted higher levels of self-reported reoffending during early adulthood. This relationship was particularly pronounced for those who displayed callous unemotional traits. That is, adult reoffending was more likely to occur for adolescent who committed offenses and experienced continuous exposure to trauma and exhibited a lack of emotion or who learned emotional detachment as a method of self-protection from trauma.

Exposure to Violence and Juvenile Court Involvement

Researchers at the University of Alabama examined exposure to violence and juvenile court involvement among African American adolescents living in extreme poverty. [16] They performed a secondary analysis of 9,215 adolescents between ages 9 and 17 living in Mobile, Alabama, who participated in the Mobile Youth and Poverty Study. Data sources included annual surveys of youth, school records, and juvenile court records from 1998 to 2011.

The researchers found that adolescents who witnessed violence or were victimized by violence were more likely to be charged with a crime against a person at a later time. Court outcome severity was higher for this group — that is, youth exposed to violence in this sample experienced more adjudication, were more likely to be assigned to residential placement, and were more likely to be put on probation. The researchers included statistical controls for previous levels of crime and court outcome severity, which, together with the temporal quality of the research, increases confidence in the primary finding that exposure to community violence is associated with changes that lead toward more court involvement and more severe court outcomes.

The researchers also identified factors that influence the strength of the relationship between exposure to violence and juvenile court involvement. They found that academic progress reduces the strength of the relationship between exposure to violence and juvenile court involvement, while psychological symptoms of hopelessness as a result of exposure to violence strengthen the likelihood of court involvement.

Trauma and Crossover From the Child Welfare System to the Juvenile Justice System

Researchers from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago examined how exposure to trauma may be related to later involvement in the juvenile justice system. [17] The study focused on 1,633 Chicago youth born between 1996 and 2002 who had one or more out-of-home foster care placements, had completed an intake assessment that included measures of traumatic experiences, and had no prior juvenile justice involvement at the time of intake. Using linked administrative data from multiple state and local agencies (Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, Chicago Police Department, Cook County Juvenile Probation and Court Services Department, and Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice) available through 2017, the researchers conducted survival analyses [18] to identify the timing of, and factors related to, initial justice involvement.

The researchers found evidence to suggest that some specific types of traumatic experiences may increase the risk for juvenile justice involvement for those who are involved in the child welfare system. Specifically, when youth experienced violence in the community and at school, their likelihood of crossing over into juvenile justice system involvement increased. However, this study did not find evidence to support the broader hypothesis that greater total trauma exposure is related to increased probability of justice system involvement among youth in the child welfare system. In this sample, trauma exposure as a whole showed no significant relationship with arrest, detention, court filing, probation, or juvenile corrections when controlling for other factors such as youth characteristics, child welfare history, community characteristics, and individual risks and strengths.

Trauma Exposure for Justice-Involved LGBTQA and GNC Youth

Researchers at the Department of Community Corrections and Rehabilitation in Hennepin County (Minneapolis), Minnesota, examined the role of trauma and violence exposure on justice-involved lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning/unsure, and asexual (LGBTQA) youth and gender nonconforming (GNC) youth. [19] A total of 150 surveys and 60 in-person interviews were completed by youth ages 14 to 20 who were involved in Hennepin County corrections. [20] The researchers examined findings for two groups: one that included only LGBTQA and GNC youth, and another that included only heterosexual, cisgender youth. [21] Youth in both groups had similar levels of child welfare involvement, human services placement stays, prior detention and correctional placements, and criminal history scores.

LGBTQA and GNC youth appear to have significantly more pronounced experiences of trauma and victimization than their heterosexual, cisgender peers. This group reported more cumulative trauma and victimization on a scale of adverse childhood experiences. LGBTQA and GNC youth were also more likely to report harassment by peers, verbal abuse by adults, and neglect by a caregiver. The largest differences were reported for exposure to sexual trauma and violence. LGBTQA and GNC youth were more likely to report having experienced forced intercourse, sexual assault by a known adult, and other forms of sexual assault.

Protective Factors and Treatment Programs

The remaining two studies focused on issues that may directly inform prevention and intervention efforts with youth who have been exposed to violence and other forms of trauma.

Factors That Reduce the Strength of the Relationship Between Maltreatment and Offending

Researchers at Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization that focuses on children’s issues, carried out secondary analyses of data collected in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) to further examine the relationship between childhood maltreatment and delinquent and criminal behaviors. The researchers analyzed three waves of Add Health interview data for a sample of 10,613 respondents at different stages from adolescence to young adulthood. These waves of interviews occurred when respondents were 13 to 19 years old, then at 18 to 26 years old, and later at 24 to 30 years old.

The study found that a history of childhood maltreatment was associated with higher frequencies of overall violent and nonviolent offending. [22] Violent offending was nearly three times as high for those who experienced childhood maltreatment compared to those with no history of childhood maltreatment, and these differences continued from adolescence into adulthood. The relationship between maltreatment and offending did not differ by race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. However, males with a history of childhood maltreatment were more likely to be involved in later delinquent and criminal behavior than females with a similar history.

The researchers identified a number of protective factors that reduced the likelihood of violent and nonviolent offending. In multiple cases, these protective factors had positive effects, regardless of whether the individual had experienced childhood maltreatment. Specifically, a strong connection to school, high-quality relationships with a mother or father figure, and high levels of neighborhood collective efficacy all had protective effects that reduced the likelihood of violent offenses, regardless of whether the individual experienced maltreatment during childhood. For nonviolent offenses, neighborhood collective efficacy had protective effects that did not vary by childhood maltreatment status. However, for those who experienced childhood maltreatment, a strong connection to school and high-quality relationships with a mother or father figure were especially protective in reducing the likelihood of nonviolent offenses. None of the protective effects varied by sex, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

Effectiveness of Trauma-Informed Treatment Programs

Lastly, researchers at George Mason University carried out a meta-analysis to assess the effectiveness of trauma-informed treatment programs for justice-involved youth and youth at risk of justice system involvement who experienced some form of trauma in their lives. [23] Trauma-informed treatments include specialized interventions that focus on treating symptoms of trauma, such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, and other affective disorders. The researchers set out to analyze data from a number of independent studies on the subject in an effort to examine overall trends. They searched 24 electronic databases and identified 29 publications that met the eligibility criteria. Eligible studies included evaluations of trauma-informed programs for youth who were involved in the juvenile justice system. Also eligible were evaluations of trauma-informed programs for youth who were not involved in the juvenile justice system, but that included delinquency as an outcome, or that included an outcome highly associated with later delinquency (e.g., aggression, substance use, antisocial behavior). Both experimental (random assignment) and quasi-experimental studies that included a credible comparison group were eligible.

The 29 publications included 30 programs for analysis. Six of the programs focused specifically on justice-involved youth. The researchers found that the evidence base from these studies did not allow for any strong conclusions about the effectiveness of the trauma-informed programs for youth already involved in the justice system. The remaining 24 programs served at-risk children and youth who experienced trauma. Findings suggest that these programs as a whole can produce meaningful reductions in problem behaviors and may reduce future delinquency among youth with histories of trauma.

The researchers highlighted cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) — specifically trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) — as an effective approach for reducing problem behaviors in youth with histories of trauma. But, they noted, the evidence base is insufficient to assess the effectiveness of CBT and TF-CBT for justice-involved youth. [24]

What We Have Learned

The seven OJJDP-funded studies further our understanding of the relationship between childhood trauma and juvenile justice system involvement. They provide strong evidence to support and further refine knowledge about the high levels of childhood trauma that justice-involved youth experience.

Within samples of justice-involved youth, the studies found high levels of previous trauma as well as ongoing exposure to trauma during and following justice system involvement. Researchers at Loyola University Chicago highlighted how continuous exposure to violence was related to reoffending and rearrest in adulthood. Another study shed light on the differences in traumatic experiences for justice-involved youth who identify as LGBTQA or GNC.

Three studies started with broader samples of youth and examined how trauma was related to offending and juvenile justice system involvement. One found strong support for the relationship between trauma and justice system involvement, and another found support for the relationship between trauma and later offending. Researchers at the University of Chicago found more limited support for the relationship between specific forms of trauma (community-based and school-based) and justice system involvement with a sample of youth in the child welfare system.

Researchers identified several potential prevention or intervention points for youth exposed to violence and trauma. Researchers at Child Trends found that a strong connection to school, high-quality relationships with a mother or father figure, and high levels of neighborhood collective efficacy were protective factors that reduced the likelihood of later offending. Similarly, researchers at the University of Alabama found that academic progress was a protective factor, while psychological symptoms of hopelessness appeared to strengthen the relationship between trauma and court involvement. Another study highlighted that a lack of emotion or learned emotional detachment — which are coping methods resulting from trauma — were associated with higher levels of reoffending.

A study in Minnesota highlighted the importance of addressing potential exposure to sexual assault with youth who identify as LGBTQA or GNC. Finally, researchers at George Mason University found that trauma-informed practices as a whole produced positive results with at-risk youth who experienced trauma and highlighted CBT and TF-CBT as programs with particularly strong evidence of effectiveness with this group.

All of these findings underscore the importance of preventing child maltreatment and children’s exposure to violence as victims or witnesses. One conclusion that may be drawn from several of the studies is that it will likely require coordination across sectors, including, but not limited to, the justice system, to carry out effective strategies for mitigating the harm from childhood trauma and reducing the link to justice system involvement. Policymakers and practitioners can help by focusing on prevention, intervention, and treatment modalities across child-serving systems that address factors known to influence the relationship between childhood exposure to violence and later justice system involvement.

For More Information

Learn more about NIJ’s research on children exposed to violence .

About This Article

This article was published as part of NIJ Journal issue number 283. This article discusses the following awards:

• “A Longitudinal Investigation of Trauma Exposure, Retraumatization, and Post-Traumatic Stress of Justice-Involved Adolescents,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0070
• “Violence Exposure, Continuous Trauma, and Repeat Offending in Female and Male Serious Adolescent Offenders,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0067
• “Exposure to Violence, Trauma, and Juvenile Court Involvement: A Longitudinal Analysis of Mobile Youth and Poverty Study Data (1998-2011),” award number 2016-MU-MU-0068
• “Trauma Exposure, Ecological Factors, and Child Welfare Involvement as Predictors of Youth Crossover Into the Juvenile Justice System,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0069
• “To Understand the Role of Trauma, Exposure to Violence, and Retraumatization for Justice-Involved Youth, Particularly for Clients Who Identify as LGBTQI or GNC,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0066
• “Maltreatment and Delinquency Associations Across Development: Assessing Difference Among Historically Understudied Groups and Potential Protective Factors,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0064
• “Trauma-Informed Interventions for Justice-Involved Youth: A Meta-Analysis,” award number 2016-MU-MU-0065

[note 1] The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, “ About Child Trauma .”

[note 2] Vincent J. Felitti et al., “Relationship of Childhood Abuse and Household Dysfunction to Many of the Leading Causes of Death in Adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 14 (1998): 245-258; and Emily M. Zarse et al., “The Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire: Two Decades of Research on Childhood Trauma as a Primary Cause of Adult Mental Illness, Addiction, and Medical Diseases,” Cogent Medicine 6 no. 1 (2019): 1-9.

[note 3] Katie A. Ports, Derek. C. Ford, and Melissa T. Merrick, “ Adverse Childhood Experiences and Sexual Victimization in Adulthood ,” Child Abuse & Neglect 51 (2016): 313-322.

[note 4] Isaiah B. Pickens et al., “ Victimization and Juvenile Offending ,” The National Child Traumatic Stress Network; Heather A. Turner et al., “ Polyvictimization and Youth Violence Exposure Across Contexts ,” Journal of Adolescent Health 58 no. 2 (2016): 208-214; and Cecilia C. Lo et al., “ From Childhood Victim to Adult Criminal: Racial/Ethnic Differences in Patterns of Victimization-Offending Among Americans in Early Adulthood ,” Victims & Offenders 15 no. 4 (2020): 430-456.

[note 5] Silvia C. Halpern et al., “ Child Maltreatment and Illicit Substance Abuse: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Longitudinal Studies ,” Child Abuse Review 27 no. 5 (2018): 344-360.

[note 6] Elizabeth Crouch et al., “ Challenges to School Success and the Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences ,” Academic Pediatrics 19 no. 8 (2019): 899-907.

[note 7] Kathryn L. Humphreys et al., “ Child Maltreatment and Depression: A Meta-Analysis of Studies Using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ,” Child Abuse & Neglect 102 (2020): 104361.

[note 8] Leah K. Gilbert et al., “ Childhood Adversity and Adult Chronic Disease: An Update From Ten States and the District of Columbia, 2010 ,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine 48 no. 3 (2015): 345-349.

[note 9] National Institute of Justice, Compendium of Research on Children Exposed to Violence (CEV) 2010-2015 , Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, June 2016.

[note 10] Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, “ Children Exposed to Violence. ”

[note 11] Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention funding opportunity, “ OJJDP FY 2016 Studies Program on Trauma and Justice-Involved Youth ,” grants.gov announcement number OJJDP-2016-10040, posted May 9, 2016.

[note 12] In October 2018, the juvenile justice and delinquency prevention research, evaluation, and statistical functions of the Office of Justice Programs moved from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to the National Institute of Justice.

[note 13] Edward P. Mulvey, Carol A. Schubert, and Alex Piquero, “ Pathways to Desistance — Final Technical Report ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2008-IJ-CX-0023, January 2014, NCJ 244689.

[note 14] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Thomas A. Loughran and Joan Reid, “ A Longitudinal Investigation of Trauma Exposure, Retraumatization, and Post-Traumatic Stress of Justice-Involved Adolescents ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0070, August 2018, NCJ 252015.

[note 15] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Noni Gaylord-Harden, “ Violence Exposure, Continuous Trauma, and Repeat Offending in Female and Male Serious Adolescent Offenders ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0067, January 2020, NCJ 254493.

[note 16] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Anneliese Bolland and John Bolland, “ Exposure to Violence, Trauma, and Juvenile Court Involvement: A Longitudinal Analysis of Mobile Youth and Poverty Study Data (1998-2011) ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0068, January 2020, NCJ 254496.

[note 17] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Leah Gjertson and Shannon Guiltinan, “ Youth Trauma Experiences and the Path From Child Welfare to Juvenile Justice ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0069, December 2020, NCJ 255928.

[note 18] Survival analysis refers to a set of statistical approaches used to investigate the time it takes for an event of interest to occur. In this case, the event of interest is initial justice involvement (e.g., arrest).

[note 19] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Andrea Hoffmann et al., “ Understanding the Role of Trauma and Violence Exposure on Justice-Involved LGBTQA and GNC Youth in Hennepin County, MN ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0066, January 2020, NCJ 254495.

[note 20] Surveys were completed by youth at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Center and the County Home School, and in juvenile probation.

[note 21] Cisgender is a term that applies to a person whose gender identity corresponds with the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth.

[note 22] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from Andra Wilkinson et al., “ How School, Family, and Community Protective Factors Can Help Youth Who Have Experienced Maltreatment ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0064, December 2020, NCJ 255937.

[note 23] Unless otherwise noted, all data in this section come from David B. Wilson, Ajima Olaghere, and Catherine S. Kimbrell, “ Trauma-Focused Interventions for Justice-Involved and At-Risk Youth: A Meta-Analysis ,” Final report to the National Institute of Justice, grant number 2016-MU-MU-0065, December 2020, NCJ 255936.

[note 24] More information about cognitive behavioral therapy and trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy is available on CrimeSolutions.ojp.gov .

About the author

Phelan Wyrick, Ph.D., is a supervisory social science analyst and director of the Research and Evaluation Division in NIJ’s Office of Research, Evaluation, and Technology. Kadee Atkinson was a graduate research assistant with NIJ and is a doctoral student at Howard University.

Cite this Article

Read more about:, related publications.

• NIJ Journal Issue No. 283

Related Awards

• A Longitudinal Investigation of Trauma Exposure, Retraumatization, and Post-Traumatic Stress of Justice-Involved Adolescents
• Violence Exposure, Continuous Trauma, and Repeat Offending in Female and Male Serious Adolescent Offenders
• Exposure to Violence, Trauma, and Juvenile Court Involvement: A Longitudinal Analysis of Mobile Youth and Poverty Study Data (1998-2011)
• Trauma Exposure, Ecological Factors, and Child Welfare Involvement as Predictors of Youth Crossover into the Juvenile Justice System
• To Understand the Role of Trauma, Exposure to Violence, and Retraumatization for Justice Involved Youth, Particularly for Clients Who Identify As LGBTQI or GNC
• Maltreatment and Delinquency Associations across Development: Assessing Difference Among Historically Understudied Groups and Potential Protective Factors
• Trauma-informed interventions for justice-involved youth: A meta-analysis

Criminal Behavior and Youth Crime: A Juvenile Delinquency Perspective on Adverse Childhood Experience

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Psychology Discussion

• Essay on Juvenile Delinquency

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In this essay we will discuss about Juvenile Delinquency. After reading this essay you will learn about: 1. Introduction to Juvenile Delinquency 2. Meaning of Juvenile Delinquency 3. Incidence 4. Causes 5. Variables 6.  Treatment.

• Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency

Essay # 1. Introduction to Juvenile Delinquency:

Delinquency has always been considered as a social problem over and above the fact that it is a legal problem. It is also a psychological problem. Hence to avoid this social evil one has to tackle the complex problem of delinquency from the social psychological and to familial angles.

Although laws regarding Juvenile delinquencies have been formed long since, they are also being changed from time to time. Currently, in all the progressive and civilized countries of the world the laws with regard to the Juvenile delinquents have been changed.

Special courts are established with specially trained Magistrates for the trial of the delinquents. Today delinquency is being considered as a misbehaviour, a social nuisense than a crime. So, in every state the children’s Act (1944) required custody, control and punishment of young offenders.

It also provides for the establishment of reformatory schools for them. But the revised Bombay children’s Act of 1948 provided not only for custody and control but also for treatment and rehabilitation of young offenders.

Essay # 2. Meaning of Juvenile Delinquency:

Crime committed by children and adolescents under the age of 18 years, is called delinquency. The maximum age limit and also the meaning of delinquency varies from country to country. But it is always below 18 years of age which is the statutory age for delinquency.

In India any person between the age of 7 and 18 years, who violates the provisions of the children’s Acts, the IPC and the CPO will be considered as delinquent. Persons above this age are considered as criminals.

Juvenile delinquency is defined by the Pensylvania Juvenile Court Act as “A delinquent child is one who violated any laws of the common wealth ordinance of the city, a child who by reasons of being way ward or habitually disobedient is uncontrolled by his parents, guardian, custodian or legal representative, a child who is habitually trunt from school or home or child who habitually so deports himself is to injury or endanger the moral or health of himself or others”.

Delinquency in the view of the Coleman (1981) refers to “behaviour of youths under 18 years of age which is not acceptable to society and is generally regarded as calling for some kind of admonishment punishment or corrective actions”.

Delinquency includes all sorts of crimes committed by children. Starting from the business and use of illegal drugs and homicide murder, it may include various types of dangerous criminal offences.

Delinquency undoubtedly is a social evil. It is a socially unacceptable behaviour committed by boys and girls below the age of 18 years. Instead of giving these delinquents punishment, they are kept in Juvenile jail and correction homes where various corrective measures are taken to change their behaviour in the positive direction.

It is observed that crime and delinquency are increasing day by day with the increase in population and complexity of culture. As population increases the small societies become bigger ones and are found in the form of mass society.

In mass societies there is less scope for mutual interaction and face to face contact. The family bonds and community bonds thus become weak to weaker. Now a days no one knows or cares to know who is staying next door. Parents and children do not meet.

While motivation is derived from the Latin word “Movere” which means move, social motivation refers to those social factors and situations which influence the person to behave in a particular style in a society. To eat is a biogenic need, but what to eat and how to eat is influenced by social forces and social interaction.

One feels hungry, it is a biogenic need but how to satisfy these hunger need and where to ask for food is determined by socialization process.

A child who has gone to a neighbour’s house to play, feels hungry, but he has been taught not to ask for food from outsiders. He is taught only to ask for food at his own house. This is a case of biological motive being influenced by socialization process.

Most of our needs and motives, attitudes and aspirations regarding food, dress, style of living are determined by our cultural values and norms of the society. The process of socialization puts a strong stamp mark on the behaviour of an individual in the society.

Essay # 3 . Incidence of Juvenile Delinquency :

Coleman’s Study (1981) indicates that the rate of delinquency increased by 100 per cent within seven years i.e., between 1968-1975. Though, mainly boys are involved in delinquency, now a days it is found that girls are also actively engaged in this antisocial work.

During these 20 years delinquency has further increased. One may not believe, but it is true that almost half of the serious crimes in U.S.A. are committed by juveniles.

Common delinquent acts in females are sexual offences, small thefts, drug usage, running away from home etc. Among the males delinquents are more engaged in stealing, drug usage, robbery, aggravated assaults, sexual abuses etc. Particularly, now a days, the incidence of delinquency is increasing alarmingly in large metropolitan cities and this has become a matter of great concern for the public and country.

While evidences from some studies show that children from lower class families and those residing in slum areas are more engaged in delinquency, other studies do not support this view. In an important study, Heary and Gold (1973) found significant relationship between social status and delinquent behaviour.

In another significant study, it was noticed that the rate of delinquency in case of socially disadvantaged youths appears about equal for whites and non-whites.

Like any other country, as reports of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Govt, of India, shows, there is a steady rise in the percentage of delinquency in India. While it was 16,160 in 1961, it was, 40,666 in 1974. Thus, in 13 years the increase in the incidence of delinquency, as reports show, has the highest percentage of Juvenile crimes (24.8%).

Second place goes to M.P. (20.5%) and third place to Gujarat (10.9%). Kerala has an incidence rate of only 0.2%.

Essay # 4 . Causes of Delinquency :

In many under-developed and developing countries including many parts of india, criminal tendency of a person is looked upon as the results of evil deeds in the past life of the parents. this is undoubtedly a misconception and prejudice., in the other extreme of the case, when a child develops delinquency many believe that it is due to the fault actions, omissions and commissions of his parents during his childhood..

Delinquents lack ethical standards and emotional ties. They are very impulsive and indulge in acts at the spur of the moment. They are socially insensitive and lack guilt feeling. Delinquents, inspite of their socially unacceptable behaviours, created difficulties for the self as well as for others.

Considered as a learned behaviour, delinquency was found to be highly correlated with low life styles with lack of recreational facilities and lack of permanent residence.

Essay # 5. Variables of Juvenile Delinquency:

The variables of delinquency may broadly be divided into:

(A) Personality characteristics of individual factors

(B) General socio-cultural factors indulging family pattern and interaction, delinquent gang and subculture.

(A) Personality Characteristics/ Individual Factors:

No social factors alone-can contribute to the causation of delinquency though social and cultural factors contribute their share to delinquency. Personality characteristics and individual factors also contribute a lot to the causation of delinquency.

(i) Brain Damage:

As per the reports of Caputo and Mandell (1970), Kiestor (1974) in about one per cent of the delinquents brain damage leads to lower inhibitory controls and a tendency to show violent behaviour. The genetic theorists argue the presence of an extra ‘Y’ chromosome in delinquents.

(ii) Psychopathic Personality :

Large number of persistent delinquents have been found to possess the traits and characteristics of antisocial and psychopathic personalities. A number of studies conducted in UK and India using Eysenck’s personality inventory show delinquents to be more extroverts, more neurotic, more psychotic and to have more criminal tendencies than the control group.

They seem to be quite impulsive, callus, and socially insensitive, they do not have the feelings of sorrow, guilt and repentance. They are not able to establish suitable interpersonal relationship and they do not learn anything from experience in a constructive way.

The persistent delinquents also do not seem to have any reality control or inner conscience or morality. So, they indulge in whatever they wish, which give them pleasure and satisfy their ego with assessing its impact upon the society and their final consequence.

For example, they may steal a very little money actually they do not need or they may steal a scooter, a car or snatch a golden chain without any need or necessity.

Just to fulfil their aggressive and sadistic tendency they may drive their car to a small distance, break some parts of the car and leave it there. They just want to satisfy their destructive tendency, which gives them pleasure. Many psychopathic delinquents are found to cut the brand new cushions in theaters and movie halls.

This author has also observed many delinquents of 10-12 years age who are in the habit of breaking the electric bulb in every lamp post on the road without any reason, in the presence of other people in broad day light. They just did not care, use abusive language and again repeat their aggressive behaviour with more vigour.

Actually, the delinquents do not involve themselves in such nuisance for personal gain, but it really reflects their underlying resentment and hostility towards the outer world, the world for which they have no feeling of involvement or belongingness.

There are others who just move around in a gang aimlessly and get pleasure in eve teasing, in passing filthy remarks whenever a member of the fair sex passes by. Such people are really at the mercy of their uncontrolled, uninhibited impulses.

It would be interesting to note that currently the incidence of psychopathic personality in female delinquents has increased quite rapidly as reports suggest. Fine and Fishman (1968) conducted a study on 155 girls in a State Correctional Institution in Kentuky to know their general personality characteristics.

They found rebelliousness, inadequacy, impulsiveness, instability and immature characteristics commonly found in the psychopathic personality.

It was also found by Ganzer and Sarason (1973) that females more frequently come from personally and socially disorganised families than did males. The theories of both sheldon and Eysenck stress genetic aspects along with environmental aspects to explain delinquent behaviour.

(iii) Drug Abuse :

Quite a large number of delinquents particularly those who are engaged in theft, prostitution and physical assault are found to be addicted to drugs, like heroin, secobarbital and alcohol. Drug addicted females are usually engaged in stealing and prostitution.

(iv) Mental Retardation/Mental Deficiency :

Various studies have been conducted to find out the relationship between intelligence and delinquent behaviour to solve the controversy whether delinquency is environmental or genetic. Long ago, an Italian Scientist Lumbroso made certain empirical studies on crime, and held that criminals have defective physical structure and defective intelligence.

Therefore, various steps have been taken to measure the I.Q. of Juvenile delinquents to verify this view. The study conducted by Healy, Burt and others have demonstrated clearly that delinquents are not mental defectives.

But, nevertheless, the average intelligence of the delinquent group is lower than the average intelligence of the normal group. It is also found that compared to the normal children a larger proportion of mental defectives are found in the Juvenile group.

Various investigators have reported different percentage of average I.Q. for the delinquents, compared to the average I.Q. of the normal as 100. Healy and Bronner (1926) found it to be 90, Burt (1925) found it to be 85, Merril (1947) found it to be 92.5.

The above data of different investigators reveal that the average intelligence of delinquents happen to be lower than the average I.Q. of normals. These data also give clear signal that the Juvenile delinquents as a group, at large, are not mentally defective though they are below average.

However, a low intelligence and mental retardation among 5% of the delinquents may be accounted to delinquent behaviour. Such people have no foresight to the consequences and significance of their action.

That is why, they commit various impulsive behaviour, like small aggressive acts, petty stealing and various other sexual offences. Even more intelligent psychopaths and gangs exploit them and include them in their group. In some cases, mental retardation is associated with serious brain damage and leads to a combination of features of both the organic and the mentally retarded delinquents.

The above facts lead one to conclude that Juvenile delinquents differ from normal persons in degree and not in kind so far, as their I.Q. is concerned. Hence, Juvenile delinquents cannot be looked upon as a group of mental defectives.

Some other studies also show that below 70 I.Q. there are only about 3% of the children who are mental defectives in an unselected population of children. But in the delinquent groups there are 12 to 15 per cent mental defectives.

Thus, the number of mentally defective children among the delinquents is about 4-5 times larger than in a normal population says Kupuswamy. Uday Sankar (1958) conducted a study 011 the mental ability of the delinquents and found that the proportions of mentally defective children is very high among the 140 Juvenile delinquents he has studied. 27.4% of them are below 70 I.Q.

Merril made a comparative study of the average intelligence of the delinquents and non-delinquents. It was found that the average intelligence of juvenile delinquents from socially and economically handicapped group is low.

While those coming from higher socio economic groups was higher. The average intelligence of children from the non- delinquent, but lower groups is also low. Merril took a controlled group and an experimental group, each group with 300 boys and girls.

In the experimental group, the 300 boys and girls were delinquents while in the control group they were non-delinquents. The socio-economic status of both the groups were kept constant. Results showed that while the average I.Q. of the 300 delinquents children was 86.7, the average I.Q. of the 300 non-delinquent children was 89.3.

The results, thus, did not show any significant difference between the I.Q. of the controlled and the experimental group though there was some obtained difference. So, Merril held that it is not justified to assume that larger proportion of the delinquents have lower I.Q. However, it is possible that the higher I.Q. delinquents and criminal may utilize the lower I.Q. children for their criminal purpose and gang work.

In case, they are caught by the police, the intelligent juveniles escape while the less intelligent juveniles arc trapped. Such incidents are not rare in our society. The innocent ones are caught easily because of their lack of understanding and lack of capacity to solve the immediate problems facing them.

(v) Neurosis :

About 3 to 5 per cent of delinquent behaviour, seems to be directly associated with psychoneurotic disorders. Here, the delinquent act is mainly tinged with compulsive behaviour, such as stealing things which one actually does not need, or compelled to do.

He will not be stable and remain at peace unless he does these acts. This type of compulsive acts also lead to sexual deviant behaviour because of the sexual restrictions and beliefs that masturbation and other forms of overt sexual behaviour are very much undesirable and a sin.

(vi) Psychosis :

In a limited number of cases, i.e. about 3 to 5%, delinquent, behaviour is associated with psychotic disorders. In Bandurar’s opinion (1973) often this involves prolonged emotional and social withdrawal arising out of long standing frustration.

Then, there is an explosive outburst of violent behaviour like volcanic eruption. Here, the delinquent act is the function of terrible personality, maladjustment and disturbances rather than a consistent antisocial orientation.

(vii) Emotional Problems :

Delinquency as an antisocial personality is the function of certain pathological and ill developed social environment. Wrong handling and faulty upbringing of the child lead to several emotional problems in the child. Various observations, case histories and interviews have indicated that quite a high percentage of the delinquents displayed emotional disturbances.

Heally and Bronner found that 92% of the delinquents showed emotional disturbances. Feeling of inadequacy, inferiority etc. were frequently found in them. In about 50% of the group, they were persistently present.

The feeling of insecurity, rejection of the parents and other members of the family were next important factors causing delinquent behaviour. About 33% of the group experienced strong feeling of being thwarted. Disharmony and problems of discipline were found in one third of the delinquents.

Quite a number of them also expressed sibling rivalry and jealousy. All these data lead to show that various emotional problems like insecurity, inferiority, jealousy, feeling of being neglected and let down were very common among the delinquent children.

The need for recognition and resentment against the sense of insecurity provides enough scope for a person to be delinquent. Rebellious feeling in oneself makes one antisocial and delinquent.

Because of these emotional problems which are created by dehumanised social conditions the person becomes a delinquent and tries to take action, against others. It is a fact that by their antisocial, sadistic and aggressive action they try to get pleasure and mental satisfaction.

Because of their emotional problems, they should be considered as maladjusted personalities and not as peculiar human beings, who differ from other human beings not in degree but in kind. They should not be considered as abnormal human beings.

Their needs and desires are very much normal, but they have become so because of faulty family upbringing. They become hostile and aggressive because they feel threatened and insecured.

According to Friedlander, delinquent character is the result of three factors:

(i) The strength of the unmodified instinctive urges,

(ii) The weaknesses of the ego and

(iii) The lack of independence and strength of the super ego. He is not able to control his impulsive needs. In his case neither realistic considerations, nor moral considerations operate to check his impulsive actions. Stott (1950) holds that delinquent breaks down is an escape from emotional situation which for the particular individual with the various conditioning of his background becomes almost temporarily invariable.

(viii) Faulty Discipline and Child Rearing Practice :

When the parents or one of them use rigid discipline, it increases hostility in the child. Why? Because of rigid discipline all his wishes and desires are suppressed and restrained. This leads to the development of an antisocial, rebellious and hostile personality in the growing child.

By constant suppression of desires the child never feels free and clear. Conflicting views of parents and teachers regarding discipline also contribute.

If the child rearing practices are faulty and are based on rigid, dictatorial principles, if the child is always left to cry and cry, if the child is not handled with due love and affection, if the discipline is harsh, inconsistent and irrational, his suppressed and repressed aggression is vented through anti-social and delinquent behaviour.

Prolonged parental deprivation particularly at the early age of life, between 1-5 years is extremely adverse for the normal personality development of the child. The affectionless and loveless life due to proper parenting and judicious child rearing practices lead to several maladjustments and in some cases juvenile delinquency.

Bowlby (1946) compared 44 children who committed various thefts and hence were kept in the London child Guidance Clinic for treatment with 44 normal children of the same age and Socio-economic status, who came to the clinic for treatment but who did not steal.

Results showed that 17 of the 44 thief’s had suffered from prolonged separation from their mothers. But in the control group only 02 were separated from their mothers.

Of course, the question why the remaining 27 thief’s of the experimental group inspite of being with their mother took recourse to thefts has not been explained by this factor. But there are other factors besides parental deprivation which influence the development of delinquency.

Stott is of opinion that security, affection, love and proper attention from the parents are basically required for the proper growth of personality of the child. Those children who do not get this from their parents become susceptible to delinquency.

By becoming delinquents they try to get attention from their parents. Further they with an attitude of revolt try to teach their parents a lesson. Some also become vindictive and develop antisocial, reactionary, negative behaviour. They get sadistic satisfaction by giving pain to their parents and causing them worry. They get pleasure by seeing them suffering.

Lower socio-economic status parents usually remain absent from home for earning their bread. Both the father and mother work from morning to evening outside. So the child is deprived from parental care and is neglected.

They also cannot provide a baby sister to take care of the baby because of their poverty. Since the parents of low S.E.S. are not properly educated and properly trained, they cannot take proper care of their children. To add to this the school going children do not get scope for going to good school for their educational and social development. All these factors either separately or in combination pave the way for delinquency.

(ix) Broken Homes :

Studies show that children coming from broken homes, where parents are separated or divorced, lead to delinquent behaviour, than those children coining from broken homes where the home is broken by the death of the parents or one of the parents. In Western countries, where separation and divorce of parents are more common, this is a major cause of delinquency.

But in India, though currently separation and divorce cases are increasing day by day, they are not so rampant like their Western counterparts and hence, is not a major cause of delinquency.

In a study of institutionalized delinquents in the State of Colorado, Barker and Adams (1962) found that only about one-third of the boys and girls come from complete home setting, i.e. where they live with both their original parents. British and American Investigations reveal that nearly 50 per cent of the delinquents come from broken homes.

(x) Socio-pathic Parental Models :

Glueck and Glueck (1969), Ulmar (1971) and Bandura (1973) have found high presence of socio- pathic traits in the parents of the delinquents. Socio-pathic traits include alcoholism, brutality, anti­social attitudes, failure to provide unnecessary frequent absences from home, lack of communication with the child etc. All these traits make the father an inadequate and unacceptable model for the child.

According to Scharfman and Clark (1967) the chief variables of the delinquent behaviour of girls were:

(a) Broken homes combined with emotional deprivation,

(b) Irrational, harsh and inconsistent parental discipline,

(c) Patterns of only aggressive and sexual behaviour modelled by psychopathic parents.

(xi) Parental Absenteeism :

In studies on juvenile delinquency, Martin (1961) and others have emphasized the feeling of unrelatedness and detachment from the family and society as a key cause of delinquency. Communication gap with one or both parents leads to the failure to learn appropriate social values. This finally leads to a tendency to act out inner tension in hostile and destructive manner.

The question is why this feeling of unrelatedness or insecurity arises in young people who differ vastly in age I.Q., personality make up and socio-economic standard. A key source of this feeling appears to be parental absenteeism.

When parents are too much absorbed in their own occupations and activities and do not provide the youth optimum attention, necessary support and encouragement during the crisis period of the growing age, they turn to peers and others as models who might be lacking the qualities of ideal models for the child.

(xii) Mother Dominance :

When the father is mostly busy with his own work and commitments or in other works, and if he plays a submissive role in the family, the mother takes over the function of providing affection and discipline of the boy.

In certain cases, it is found that by nature the mother because of her aggressive personality pattern or earning capacity plays a dominant role compared to the father. When the child grows up with a mother dominance atmosphere in the family, he starts identifying with the mother and greatly depends upon him as a role model.

With this type of attitude when he reaches adolscence, it becomes difficult for the boy to develop a masculine self concept. Thus, now he tries to express his masculanity, independence courage and finally the so called male ego in rebellious and proving offences. By being engaged in such anti-social acts, he gets the satisfaction that he is really masculine.

(xiii) Father Rejection :

Andry, on the basis of the findings of his studies, concluded that the delinquent boys felt rejected by their fathers but loved by their mothers. Non-delinquent boys on the other hand felt to be equally loved and cared by both the parents. A child who is rejected by his parents day in and day out, develops, naturally, an inner feeling of hostility towards him.

The gap in communication and lack of understanding between the father and the child paves the way for anti-social behaviour in the form of anguish, aggression and hostility. When he finds that a large part of his world is unable to deal with him properly, he in turn does not like to understand the world either.

This hostility is transformed in the form of anti-social and delinquent behaviour. He, infact, lacks normal inner controls. He does not have the basic values of life. So, he tends to act out his aggressive impulses.

(xiv) Undesirable Peer Relationship :

Delinquency is said to be a gang experience. In support of this view, Haney and Gold (1973) found that about 66 per cent of the delinquent behaviours are committed in association with other persons. Usually it is a homogenious group so far, as sex is concerned. But in selected cases, as found now a days girls and boys also form gangs and delinquent groups.

(B) General Socio-Cultural Factors:

(i) Alienation and Rebellion :

Many ego psychologists view that the modern youth is only a bundle of confusions as far as his values of life is concerned. Most surprisingly, it is common in youths coming from all socio-economic levels. There is a communication gap and a generation gap.

They do not accept the values of their parents or grandparents and they are even confused of their so called own values and sense of identity. There is also identity crisis in many of them. Thus, in short, they are all in a mess.

They do not know what to accept and what to reject. They always experience a feeling of alienation from family as well as society. This lack of identification and development of clear values turn them to the outer world to peers gangs and friends for guidance and approval. They may take drugs and engage in illegal anti­social activities like thefts, pick pockets, violences etc.

There are innumerable instances where many modern youths who run away from home as a sort of reaction to their rebellious feeling, tend to join gangs indulged in delinquent behaviour, prostitution etc. In the same manner, socially disadvantaged youths, such as belonging to lower income groups, lower caste groups and having very little education, having lower status in the society may turn to delinquency also.

(ii) The Social Rejects :

With the increase in urbanization and industrialization, family ties grow weaker. Joint family systems are gradually disintegrating. People prefer to have their own family of husband and wife and children.

With the formation of mass society, influence of technology on society and erosion of values, social disintegration is increasing day by day. Joint family system has now become a dream. Tolerance and sense of sacrifice and feeling of cooperation is decreasing day by day.

Divorce and remarriage are quite common in the Western countries and urban areas. Though some decades back in India the public opinion was very strong against divorce and remarriage, now it has changed to some extent with the increase in industrialization and urbanization.

The effect of social disintegration, erosion of values, lack of sense of social sacrifice and commitment for the society may make many children social rejects. Young boys and girls who lack the motivation to do well in school because of various familial and social factors and become drop outs who are social isolates as soon as they can.

Normally, they do not qualify for any job. Irrespective of class, sex social status and wealth, they generally feel useless and unneeded by the society. This lack of hope, feeling of uselessness and that they are rejected by the society, lead them to show undesirable anti-social behaviour.

Many of them remain unemployed. Those who somehow get some employment are funnily unable to hold the job, and so, they shift from job to job, engage in delinquent behaviour, partly as a result of frustration and partly due to confusion and hopelessness.

(iii) Delinquent Gang Subculture :

This includes the rebellion with the norms of the society. If a person is rejected by the society, his inner tension is often revealed in serious delinquent acts beating and fighting leading to serious physical injury.

As Jenkins has put it, the socialized delinquents represent not a failure of socialization but a limitation of loyalty to a more or less pedatory peer group. The basic capacities for social relationship has been achieved. What is lacking in an effective integration with the larger society as a contributing member.

(iv) Gangs and Companions :

In addition to other important causes of delinquency, those who feel inadequate and rejected by the group and society join gangs, peer groups and companions and indulge in anti-social activities. As a child grows, he mixes with the members of the neighbourhood and always becomes an important member of their play group. The norms set up for the child at home may not be similar to the norms set up by the play groups.

Because of such differences there may be conflict of values, ideas and norms. Even in the school these norms may be different. He has to conform and adjust with one set of norms at home and another set of norms in the play group and another in the school.

Various studies indicate that secondary groups, like neighbourhood, playmates, peers and school, and others in the society which the child comes in contact more often than not all have tremendous effects on the personality of the child. All these agents of socialization play important role in the process of socialization of the growing child.

Overcrowding of cities, lack of space at home, residence at slum areas, location of various shops and business centres in various residential areas of the city, environmental pollution create a lot of social problems. Such problems have an adverse effect on the social development of the child. Children of such areas do not have a park to play, do not have many recreational facilities.

Some of these children of the slum areas invade the industrial belts nearby for some occasional job and are sometimes thrown out because of their inefficiency. Being frustrated and finding no way out, they mix with other children of the similar category and form gangs. Street corner gangs have tremendous contribution to Juvenile delinquency.

Initially, the gang starts as a play group. In the absence of play ground facility, the children start playing in the streets and eventually organise themselves in to gangs. Various groups of the same or nearby area then start fighting.

Very recently one incident occurred in my residential colony. There is one ‘paan’ (bettle) shop in front of my house. Two days before the last Ganesh Puja when I reached home from market, I found that the two boys of the paan shop along with some outside teenagers are constructing a pendal adjacent to the paan shop.

On enquiry, my orderly peon told me that these boys belong to another nearby colony and they are going to celebrate Ganesh Puja here. They decorated the pendal and also started playing film songs using a mike two days before the Puja.

We were very much disturbed by these unnecessary loud sounds. But nobody dared to object with the apprehension of being misbehaved and malhandled by them. On the night prior to the Puja day this gang of 10 to 12 boys prepared a feast near the pendal and ate to their heart’s content.

At about 2 A.M. we heard loud noise of fighting and shouting in front of our house. We got up from sleep and saw that two gangs are fighting with each other. Some of them broke the image of Ganesh and broke the mike.

Consequently one members of a gang fell down on the ground with severe blows and head injury. After this incident immediately the culprits lied from the spot leaving the injured boy there. After ten minutes two persons came and took away the injured boy in a rickshaw.

After 3-4 minutes Police came to the spot and after necessary enquiry booked the culprits. Members of both the gangs were kept under the custody of the Police for the whole day.

Alas! the Puja could not be performed in time. Why the two gangs fought? Gang No. 1 did not want gang No.2 to celebrate a separate Ganesh Puja. Gang No. 1 wanted Gang No. 2 to contribute to their Puja. So there was conflict and quarrel between the two gangs.

Numerous such quarrels, violence’s and conflicts occur every day between the street corner and Zhopodi gangs. Some members of these gangs are involved in petty theft and anti-social behaviour. They are famous for creating social nuisense.

Why a person becomes a member of a gang? Gang membership provides them a sense of status and approval and a sense of belongingness which they did not get from their family and other social agents. In a gang, the responsibility or blame of threat is not shouldered by any individual member, but by the gang as a whole just like in a mob.

Thus, some prefer to steal or booze and do other illegal acts in the name of gang. Studies have indicated that the groups outside the home have a tremendous impact on the personality of the adolescent. The gang starts as a play group.

In the absence of play ground facility, the children start playing in the streets and eventually form a gang and the behaviour of the person is mostly influenced by the gang and so he develops delinquent tendencies.

Though the gang has all the qualities of an in group like cooperation, unity, fellow feeling and belongingness, it is also associated with crimes, like stealing, eveteasing, rioting, homicide, rape, murder, boozing, taking various drugs and abusing them, dacoity, assault and murders etc.

Thus, they form a racket and in an organised way they create terror in the area. Studies have indicated that these children are roughly between 10-16 years age. They also come from poor families with constant friction between parents and family members. Those children who usually become the members of the gang have often little or no parental guidance.

Studies also indicate that delinquency is committed in groups and in companies. Shaw analysed 6,000 cases of crime and observed that in 72 per cent of the cases two or more companions were involved.

Healy reported that companionship was a single factor causing delinquency in 34 per cent of the cases while Burt gives the figure at 18 per cent. Uday Sankar gives the figure at 23 per cent. Sometimes parents are seen complaining that their child became a delinquent by mixing in bad company.

But bad companionship is not the only cause of delinquency unless there are some defects in the character formation of the individual. However, bad companionship is never the less an important factor which lead to delinquency, since delinquency is also a learnt behaviour.

In a gang or a restricted group the influence of social norm is there, sense of responsibility is divided and a boy feels that cinema and various electronic medias, like TV, Video films of violent and sexual nature lead children to delinquency by being helped through various techniques of delinquency shown in the screen.

However, it is quite reasonable to assume that early childhood training and parental attitude, how the child is reared up, all these have tremendous impact in deciding delinquent behaviour. These predisposing characters are precipitated in a gang thus leading to delinquency.

Recently female delinquents have also formed their gangs with a purpose to protect and defy themselves. They find a sense of acceptance, belongingness and give and take, sympathy, understanding, companionships, loyalty, power and authority which they do not find in a socialized world which they consider to be an out group.

(v) Poverty :

Ample evidences are there to hold that a large percentage of the delinquent children come from poor homes. It is found that even 50 per cent of the delinquents come from lower strata of the society with very poor economic background and hand to mouth living standard. Glueck’s (1934) study revealed that only 28.8% of the children came from comfortable homes with good economic status of parents.

Those who are disadvantaged and under privileged due to their poverty had to take recourse to some anti-social action for their living also.

Hence, keeping all other factors constant, a child coming from a comfortable home has relatively less chance for becoming a delinquent than a child coming from a poor under privileged family, Glueck’s study also showed that 37% of the fathers of delinquent children were skilled labourers while 23% were semi-skilled labourers and 40% were unskilled labourers.

Findings of his study showed that not a single parent of the delinquent children came from the clerical services. Glueck’s study, thus, brings the fact to light that the nature of job of parents is also an important determinant of delinquency.

Of course, Glueck’s study was conducted about sixty four years back and much changes have taken place during these six to seven decades. Children of some well to do highly educated parents doing very good jobs in government and non-govt.

Offices also, now a days, are engaged in delinquency and the percentage is growing up day by day. But compared to their lower SES counterparts the percentage is very low. According to Uday Sankar’s Study 83% of the Juvenile delinquents came from poor homes, 13% from border line (neither poor nor rich) homes and only 4% came from comfortable homes.

But poverty cannot be the role cause of delinquency. Had it been so, in India where poverty is found in most homes, the number of delinquents would have been more than the rich and better off countries which is not a fact. In India the percentage of Juvenile delinquency is very low and most people are peace loving and disciplined unlike other developed and developing countries.

A study conducted by the Ministry of Education (1952) Govt, of India indicates that 32,400 children were awarded sentences for delinquency in 1949. But in 1950 it was noticed that 40,119 children of all the states of India except U.P. were put up for trial in the Juvenile courts. But besides these recorded cases, there might have been some unrecorded cases also.

Poor parents have to leave their children and go for work. Thus, the mother is not available to take proper care of the child. They are neglected and the child becomes wayward. Children from poor homes also do not get scope for education as they have to supplement the earning of their parents. Poverty is, therefore, a contributing cause of delinquency, although it is not the sole cause.

(vi) Stress :

Serious traumatic experiences may lead one to become a delinquent. Clark (1961) found that one- third of the cases studied by him were found to be suffering from trauma. These traumatic experiences may range from death of parents, children husband or wife, broken homes, disorganised families etc.

Burks and Harrison (1962) have also stressed the function of stresses which directly threaten the adolescent feeling of inadequacy and worth as precipitating events in some cases of aggressive antisocial behaviour. Finkelstein (1968) holds that accumulation of emotional tensions also lead to a final outbreak the form of delinquency.

(vii) Delinquent Areas :

Studies of Burt in England indicates that there are certain localities from which majority of delinquent children come. In these areas, there are poor housing overcrowding and lack of recreational facilities. Most delinquents also come from the areas where cinema houses and hotels are located.

Burt found a high correlation of 77 between delinquency and density of population. Shaw in a similar study found that the majority of the Juvenile delinquents came from the centres of Chicago and the number of juveniles decreased from centre to periphery. But this is not applicable to all children staying in the crowded localities.

Essay # 6 . Treatment of Juvenile Delinquency :

What is a crime after all? An act which is a crime in one society may not be a crime in another society as crimes are acts which violate the rights of a person or property as envisaged by law or tradition. But never the less certain acts are considered as criminal in every society like murders, theft etc.

Inspite of the cultural variations in different parts of the world, criminals are always punished by the society or law, although the degree of punishment may vary from society to society. Many in the society believe that punishment should be exemplary so that others will not dare to commit it.

This purpose of giving punishment to the culprit in a major way is to prevent criminal acts. But the question arises whether Juvenile delinquents who are below 18 years of age should be punished like the convicts and criminals or not.

Rehabilitation of delinquents has been a great social issue. Delinquency is an anti-social behaviour and it creates unrest and indiscipline in the society. It makes social life hazardous and dangerous. It also affects the peace and prosperity of the nation. It is, therefore, imperative that the readjustment problem of delinquents should be dealt very sincerely and effectively.

Many people in the society feel that Juvenile delinquents should be given severe punishment so that not only they, but others will not dare to repeat such illegal, anti-social action in future. But sociologists and psychologists strongly hold that since Juvenile delinquency refers to the cases of young minds and children at their tender age, one has to deal with such cases very cautiously and carefully.

Juvenile delinquency being a social disease the child or the adolscent has to be treated in such a manner, so that he can readjust with the society. His maladjustment with the society has to be changed.

Since delinquency is mainly caused in the society under social conditions mostly because his basic needs are not fulfilled, efforts should be made first to fulfil the basic needs of every child in a socially approved manner whether delinquent or non-delinquent and extra care should be taken of the delinquent child.

Each delinquent child tries to fulfil his needs in an anti-social manner. But it would be the job of the social reformers and psychologists dealing with the care of the delinquents, to fulfil their needs in a socially accepted manner according to the norms of the society and legal sanctions.

Further, each delinquent has to be considered individually focussing attention on the fulfillment of his needs for power, prestige and recognition. Each individual case of delinquency has to be studied separately keeping in view his specific problems. Then only, it will be possible to rehabilitate, recondition and readjust the individual in the society.

In recent years there has not only been any transformation in the past attitude of the society and social thinkers towards delinquency there has also been change in law with regard to Juvenile delinquency. The outlook is now more progressive and dynamic. Special courts have been established with specially trained Magistrates to handle the cases of delinquents.

They are also sheltered in special homes instead of jails and special care is taken so that they can be rehabilitated in the society. Remand homes are established by law to which the young offenders are sent. Trained social workers are also engaged to study each case. For each case a separate file is built up with the detailed case history, type of crime committed and further improvement in behaviour.

Clinical psychologists and psychiatrists are also engaged in many remand homes to reform these anti-socials. Instead of giving physical punishment to the offenders, constant efforts are made to bring change in their outlook and attitude towards society, towards themselves. In short, the aim of everyone involved is to rehabilitate the individual in the society as a normal individual.

Special schools are also established otherwise known as ‘Reformatory Schools’ with specially trained teachers to help the delinquents to overcome the deficiencies in their socialization and develop the right kind of attitude towards themselves. The teachers of such schools gradually try to become substituted parents and help the children in generating a sense of security, self confidence, right attitude towards society.

They are given various craft and other vocational training to earn their livelihood, once they are rehabilitated in the society. The schools also develop a number of group activities to change the ego and super ego of these children.

In Western countries delinquents in small groups are brought up in residential areas and given individual treatment, to have in them a feeling that they are part and parcel of the society. Thus, they are removed from the aversive environment and allowed to learn about the world of which they are a member.

If required, they are given individual therapy, group therapy and psychological counselling. Here, their behaviour is resocialized by the help of group pressure. Counselling with the parents in the rehabilitation centre is also of great help for the rehabilitation of the Juvenile delinquents.

Institutionalization may not be quite successful in case of Juvenile offenders, i.e. youths whose offenses have involved acts that world not be considered criminal, if committed by an adult such as running away from home or engaging in sexual relations. If such types of delinquents are kept with those who have committed serious crimes, they would in turn learn these from them.

It may, therefore, aggravate their behavioural problems instead of correcting them. The teachers of reformatory schools should also keep in mind to act as substitutes of good, warm and understanding parents and help the children to generate a sense of security and involvement. They should give up the idea that their life is meaningless and their birth is useless.

The school also should make efforts to develop a number of group activities in debate, sports, various social functions, picnics, exhibitions and study tours to change the ego of the delinquent child, to create a feeling of togetherness, belongingness, we feeling, sense of sacrifice and cooperation along with healthy competition.

Positive human values like honesty, sociability, amiability, truthfulness etc. are to be developed through teaching and action. One has to remember that changes are to be made from negative to positive outlooks and values of life.

Parents have also tremendous role to play in the rehabilitation of their delinquent children. They, therefore, must be helped to develop insight to their own behaviour and analyse their own behaviour which might have led to the maladjustment in the child.

They should, therefore, try to rectify their own behaviour so that in future there is no problem from the side of parents when the child returns from the reformatory home to be rehabilitated in the society. Since a lot depends upon parental behaviour and attitude, they should be very cautious.

Finally, the society and public should also change their outlook and attitude towards delinquency in general. They should not hate or distrust the delinquents. The delinquents must be dealt with sympathy, understanding and good behaviour.

They should not be hurt emotionally. Society as a whole should give up its fear and hostility towards the delinquents and anti-socials. It should develop a flexible attitude so that proper analysis of the causes of delinquency is made and adequate steps are taken both with respect to the prevention and treatment of delinquency.

Mentally retarded children should be specially and cautiously, dealt with parents and teachers. Otherwise, they may become susceptible to delinquency. They should be handled with proper care and should be taught in such a way so that their attention can be sustained.

The psychopathic and neurotic children should be given the opportunities of necessary therapeutic measures and prevent the development of delinquent behaviour.

All kinds of delinquents should not be treated identically, in a group or and should not be given similar rehabilitation facilities. For this purpose, differential diagnosis of the delinquents is essentially required. This can be possible by the, services of psychiatrists and clinical psychologists.

Increase of population without proportionate increase of space and other living conditions is one of the major causes of rise in delinquency. Particularly people migrate to cities from villages and the cities, semi-urban and urban areas for earning their livelihood.

So they are overcrowded. Various difficulties crop up and so problems of socialization are also experienced. Slum areas in cities create more problems leading to the growth of anti-social feelings in children.

Therefore, vast programmes are now being undertaken to clear the slum areas and for providing educational and recreational facilities for the slum children like parks, gardens, play grounds, doll house. As a result, the children need not play in street corners and constitute consciously or unconsciously street corner gangs.

Large amount of money are being spent in Western countries to rehabilitate the delinquents through various remedial measures. Various steps are also being taken at different quarters to prevent the rise of delinquents. But since delinquency is a very complex problem being caused by multifarious factors, it is difficult, though not impossible, to control it and prevent it.

Inspite of the various rehabilitation programmes developed by different countries of the world, they do not appear to be sufficient to reduce the percentage of delinquency from the society or prevent it significantly.

The inadequacies of the correctional system are being changed as and when necessary. Effective rehabilitation programmes, long range programmes to prevent delinquency should also be prepared to combat the rise of delinquency in the society.

This can be made possible by improving the conditions of the slum areas, providing suitable educational facilities for children staying in slum areas, near railway station, bus stand, market etc.

Along with this minimum education, vocational training and training in different trades should also be provided. By being engaged in work and earning some money during the training period, they can be normalized and can also adjust with the main stream.

The manual training will not only encourage their creative abilities, but also would give them satisfaction. When a child or an adolscent produces a bag or a basket, a toy in mud or a painting he gets immense satisfaction. This sense of achievement produces in him a sense of security and confidence, a sense of adequateness.

Orphanage and destitute homes are not sufficient to rehabilitate the juvenile delinquents in view of their increasing numbers during the recent years. Hence, these along with recreational centres should be increased.

In the school the teacher should show sympathetic treatment to the Juveniles. They should not hate them. Their approach should be different from what they show to the normal children and each Juvenile delinquent should be given individual attention. Mentally handicapped and retarded children should not be ridiculed by class mates and peers. The teacher should give special attention to this.

The rehabilitation programmes are not enough keeping in view the rapid growth of Juvenile delinquency in the entire world. The inadequacies of the correctional system are being changed. Besides effective rehabilitation programmes, long range programmes to prevent delinquency should be prepared.

This can be made possible by improving the conditions of the slum areas, provision for suitable educational and recreational facilities, education of parents disciplined and organised society with role relationship defined, development of proper ego identity and etc.

Odell (1974) has developed a programme that combined educational development and job placement facilitating entry in to the opportunity structure more effective than traditional case work methods in preventing Juvenile recidivision. Finally, it can be said that the emphasis should be more on rehabilitation than punishment.

Juvenile delinquency cannot be curbed fully from the society. No society can ever completely prevent or eliminate crime, practically speaking. However, delinquency and crime can be reduced social scientists and psychologists can plan to reduce delinquency and crime.

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IELTS Writing Task 2 Cause/Solution Essay Topic: Juvenile Delinquency

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Introduction

• Give insight about the topic and elaborate briefly.
• Give prelude to what can be expected in the essay
• Paragraph 1: Cause(Without supervision from parents or caregivers, children’s extreme behaviours such as aggression, hostility or defiance are given free rein to develop in their later lives. In addition, there is a direct correlation between the lack of engagement in educational activities and serious criminal offending in children.)
• Paragraph 2: Solution(The better cure for young criminals is rehabilitation. Throughout education and training, the youth can realise their wrongful actions and be given opportunities to turn over a new leaf and transform themselves into useful members of society later in life.)

Conclusion Reparaphrase the question and end up with the solution stated.

Sample Essay Today, youth crime is rife. Theft, burglary or even murder are now committed by people of younger and younger ages. The aim of this essay is to investigate the factors responsible for the increase in juvenile delinquency and put forward a number of ways to appropriately punish young offenders.

It is observed that extreme behaviours are exhibited by most children from dysfunctional families. Without supervision from parents or caregivers, children’s extreme behaviours such as aggression, hostility or defiance are given free rein to develop in their later lives. In addition, there is a direct correlation between the lack of engagement in educational activities and serious criminal offending in children. Out of boredom, children befriend antisocial peers and will gradually copy their behaviours. Media also plays an enormous role in shaping children’s criminality. For example, games such as grand theft auto can desensitise younger players to extreme acts of violence and cruelty, encourage them to commit crimes while giving them the impression that it is morally acceptable to do so.

Imprisonment is often cited as a way to punish juvenile offenders. However, it is my view that this approach can produce extremely destructive effects. The youth can potentially be victims of physical or sexual abuse from older prisoners, as well as can adopt their negative behaviours. I feel that the better cure for young criminals is rehabilitation. Throughout education and training, the youth can realise their wrongful actions and be given opportunities to turn over a new leaf and transform themselves into useful members of society later in life.

There are reasons to explain why today antisocial behaviour among the youth nowadays has reached a historically unprecedented high and rehabilitation is the answer for this.

Band 9 Sample Essay

It has been pervadingly seen that the crimes by the hands of juveniles, due to various reasons, is seen a menace to society and more so, their conditioning. This essay discusses the causes of this and the possible solutions to cope up with this increasing plight.

It is generally observed that such heinous offences by teenagers, which are today hysterically expanding, are because of the clamorous and derisive environment children are being subjected to. The environment in which they thrive and prosper is somehow the most pronounced cause of such misdemeanour. Reportedly, the type of personality one develops is often predetermined by the parenting, and upbringing one goes through in childhood. Secondly, the prospering technology and its directly proportional deleterious side effects, which includes unsupervised and disproportional exposure to provocative and misleading content. Some online games promote burglary, while some might cause one to have a belligerent attitude. Misleading television shows and graphical content percolates in the innocent and malleable mindsets of the children, thereby causing them to commit such serious actions.

A possible remedy to this starts right away from the way children are brought up. Being extra vigilant while they are around and cutting the unnecessary vulnerability of being influenced in the wrong helps children a great deal. Digital usage is understandably ineludible. However, in the supervision of a responsible adult and the perusal of them, the risks and perils of children being guided in a corrosive way are palliated to a much greater extent. Schools should alarmingly and intensively monitor the children who are being browbeaten by the hands of bullies, as surveys have often suggested that those are the children who are usually more susceptible to committing a crime.

Therefore, it could be summed up that though it is undoubtedly a problem to society as a whole, by proper monitoring, parenting, and supervision, juvenile misconduct could be largely contained and alleviated.

• Youth crime is rife: Youth crime is very common.
• Juvenile delinquency: act of crime committed by the young
• Defiance (n.): behaviour in which you refuse to obey others
• Aggression (n.): behaviour that is threatening or involves harm
• To be given free rein to develop: go uncontrolled.
• Desensitise (v.): cause people to experience emotion less strongly than before.
• Out of boredom: Because they are bored
• To produce extremely destructive effects: have bad results.
• Wrongful actions: Actions which are unfair and illegal
• To turn over a new leaf: To become another person.
• Rehabilitation (n.): the act of returning someone to a good condition, normal life.
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Victorian government cops criticism over youth crime as crucial debate over justice bill approaches

Analysis Victorian government cops criticism over youth crime as crucial debate over justice bill approaches

When the Victorian government announced its plans last year to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 14, it was a signature Daniel Andrews move — bold, progressive, and tackling a politically dangerous issue.

In the year since state cabinet approved the decision, three innocent people have allegedly been killed in incidents involving young people in Victoria.

The most recent was on Sunday — when 19-year-old Davide Pollina was killed in a collision with an allegedly stolen car in Melbourne's north .

Police said the two occupants of the car fled. A 16-year-old boy was arrested a short time later. It's alleged he was a passenger in the car.

In July, a 28-year-old man was tragically killed after allegedly being hit by a stolen vehicle driven by a teenager — who breached bail within 48 hours of being arrested.

In January, 33-year-old doctor Ash Gordon was fatally stabbed following a confrontation with two teenagers who allegedly broke into his house in Doncaster.

In all three cases, the alleged offenders are youths, but not young — aged 16 and 17.

But with the state in the grip of a spike in violent youth crime, that hardly seems to matter.

This week, Victoria's upper house will debate the government's youth justice bill, which would cement the first step of Daniel Andrews's plan by raising the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12.

But the next stage — raising the age from 12 to 14 in 2027 — has now been abandoned by the government , drawing condemnation from a broad range of legal groups.

'We're getting smashed on it': Labor MPs voice concerns over policy

Labor MPs have been openly voicing deep concern over community perceptions of crime for months.

In July, Police Minister Anthony Carbines conceded to The Age: "At 14, there are more serious offenders causing more serious crimes, and that's why there's a far longer lead time the government has put on that.

"The jury's out on whether we'll be able to demonstrate that, but it remains our commitment at this time."

But as one senior Labor figure told the ABC: "There's no way we're doing it. We're getting smashed on it."

And so it was that on Sunday — the day of the most recent death, and in the week Victoria's upper house is due to debate the bill that would raise the age to 12 — Andrews's successor Jacinta Allan was refusing to commit.

"I am not going to be drawn on what further changes the government may be considering," she said.

"There is a pattern of behaviour here that is causing harm and it's also causing me, and so many in the community, concern. We know we need to do more."

On Monday, she was evasive once again.

"We're having discussions … with Victoria Police, the courts, and the youth justice sector about what more we need to do," Allan said.

"I'm not going to pre-empt any discussions we're having as a cabinet or with colleagues. We are open to considering all options that are available to us."

Finally, on Tuesday, the premier fronted journalists to announce she would break the promise made by her predecessor.

"Twelve is where it [the criminal age of responsibility] will stay," she said.

"This decision has been made at a different time, by a different government, with a different premier."

Victoria pledges to go it alone on raising the age

In hindsight, it's not hard to see why Andrews went big on the age of responsibility. He first flagged the idea in February 2023, just three months after a landslide election win (and seven months before his surprise retirement).

At the time, there was a push for a national consensus between the states and the Commonwealth on raising the age to 14, but it was faltering.

As the nation's most senior premier, in its most progressive state, Andrews characteristically decided Victoria would go it alone.

Youth justice advocates from the Law Institute to the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service (VALS) strongly backed the move.

The dumping of phase two of the plan is not the first time Victorian Labor's progressive ambitions on youth justice reform have been mugged by political reality.

In October last year — one month after a 14-year-old boy was abducted and attacked walking home from school — the government pulled the youth elements out of its bail reform legislation.

At the time, Attorney-General Jaclyn Symes acknowledged "public perceptions of a youth crime crisis" influenced the decision.

Instead of the planned change to a presumption of bail for all but the most serious youth offenders, it instead announced trials of ankle bracelets in March this year.

Government faces criticism from both sides of youth justice debate

The response from some legal groups to the government's decision on Tuesday to walk away from its promise to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14 has been thunderous.

 The VALS said the demonstration of "weak leadership and regressive decision making" demonstrated that the Victorian government wrote its promises "in the sand".

Its CEO, Yorta Yorta and Narrandjeri woman Nerita Waight, said it was "devastating" to see "hundreds of hours" of work on the reforms abandoned in the face of media scare campaigns over youth crime.

"We trusted the Victorian government and we have been betrayed by their treacherous decision to abandon our children," Ms Waight said.

"It will be very hard for Aboriginal communities to trust this government now that we know she [Premier Jacinta Allan] will ditch their commitments."

Victoria Police, on the other hand, has always opposed raising the age to 14. 

"Because of the seriousness of offending — the levels of offending that we see with 12 and 13-year-olds involved in some really, really significant crimes — [raising the age to 14 is] not something I would support," Commissioner Shane Patton told Channel Seven in March.

Law and order is tough for governments, particularly Labor governments. Youth justice especially so.

In Queensland, a select cross-party committee fell apart amid bickering over how to manage the issue.

Victoria has a statistically lower rate of youth crime than all other jurisdictions except SA and the ACT, and a youth crime rate that was actually falling in the years before the pandemic.

But since then, not only have crime rates spiked, there's been a change in the type of crime being committed by young offenders — towards more crimes against the person — the kind of crime that goes the heart of community safety.

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Bjs releases socio-emotional consequences of violent crime, 2022.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics, a program office within the Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, today released Socio-Emotional Consequences of Violent Crime, 2022 . This brief Just the Stats report presents key findings on violent victimizations and socio-emotional consequences reported by victims.

The report provides data on the percent of violent victimizations where the victim reported experiencing one or more socio-emotional consequences of crime, defined as moderate to severe emotional distress, significant problems with friends or family, or significant problems with their job or schoolwork.

"In nearly half of all violent victimizations (47%), victims reported experiencing moderate to severe distress,” noted Kevin M. Scott, Ph.D., BJS Acting Director. “The proportion varied by type of violent crime, ranging from 63% of rape or sexual assault victimizations to 40% of simple assault victimizations.”

BJS used data from the 2022 National Crime Victimization Survey to produce these statistical estimates.

About the Bureau of Justice Statistics

The Bureau of Justice Statistics is the U.S. Department of Justice’s principal federal agency responsible for collecting, analyzing and disseminating reliable statistics on crime and criminal justice in the United States. Kevin M. Scott, Ph.D., is the acting director. More information about BJS and criminal justice statistics can be found at bjs.ojp.gov .

About the Office of Justice Programs

The Office of Justice Programs provides federal leadership, grants, training, technical assistance and other resources to improve the nation’s capacity to prevent and reduce crime; advance equity and fairness in the administration of justice; assist victims; and uphold the rule of law. More information about OJP and its program offices – the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office for Victims of Crime, and SMART Office – can be found at www.ojp.gov .

OFFICE: bjs.ojp.gov CONTACT: OJP Media at [email protected]

42 Facts About Lipetsk

Written by Drusie Sargent

Modified & Updated: 29 Jul 2024

Reviewed by Sherman Smith

Lipetsk, a vibrant and historic city located in western Russia, is often overlooked by travelers in favor of the more popular destinations in the country. However, this hidden gem has a lot to offer visitors who are willing to venture off the beaten path. From its fascinating history to its stunning natural beauty, Lipetsk is a city that deserves to be explored and appreciated.

In this article, we will dive into 42 interesting facts about Lipetsk that will give you a deeper understanding of this captivating city. Whether you are planning a trip to Lipetsk or simply curious about its rich culture and heritage, these facts will surely broaden your knowledge and pique your interest in this lesser-known Russian destination.

Key Takeaways:

• Lipetsk, a city in western Russia, offers a rich blend of history, culture, and natural beauty. From steel industry to horse breeding traditions, Lipetsk has something for everyone to explore and enjoy.
• Lipetsk is a vibrant city with a diverse population, strong focus on education and innovation, and a thriving business environment. Visitors can expect warm hospitality, rich folklore, and a captivating blend of traditional and modern attractions.

Lipetsk is the administrative center of the Lipetsk Oblast.

The city serves as the capital and economic hub of the Lipetsk Oblast, a region in western Russia .

Lipetsk was founded in 1703.

With over three centuries of history, Lipetsk has a rich historical legacy that is reflected in its architecture and landmarks.

The name “Lipetsk” comes from the river named Lipovaya.

The city is named after the Lipovaya River, which flows through the region and adds to the scenic beauty of the area.

Lipetsk is famous for its steel industry.

With numerous steel production facilities, Lipetsk has earned a reputation as a major industrial center in Russia.

The city is home to Lipetsk State Technical University.

Lipetsk State Technical University is one of the leading educational institutions in Lipetsk, offering a wide range of courses in engineering and technology.

Lipetsk is surrounded by picturesque natural landscapes.

The city is blessed with beautiful countryside, including lush forests, tranquil rivers, and scenic hills, making it a perfect destination for nature lovers.

Lipetsk has a continental climate.

The region experiences hot summers and cold winters, with average temperatures ranging from -10°C in winter to 30°C in summer.

Lipetsk is known for its delicious cuisine.

Indulge in the local flavors of Lipetsk, including traditional Russian dishes such as borscht, pelmeni, and blini.

The city hosts various annual cultural events.

From music festivals and art exhibitions to theatrical performances, Lipetsk offers a vibrant cultural scene that attracts visitors from all over.

Lipetsk is home to several historical monuments.

Explore the rich history of Lipetsk through its iconic landmarks like the Cathedral of St. Nicholas and the House-Museum of Peter I.

Lipetsk has a developed transportation network.

Getting around the city is easy with a well-connected transportation system that includes buses, trams, and taxis.

Lipetsk is a center for sports and recreation.

The city offers a wide range of sports facilities, parks, and recreational areas, ensuring that residents and visitors can enjoy an active lifestyle.

Lipetsk is a hub for aerospace manufacturing.

The city is home to several aerospace companies , contributing to Russia’s space exploration efforts.

Lipetsk has a thriving art scene.

Discover the local talent through art galleries and exhibitions that showcase the works of both established and emerging artists .

Lipetsk is known for its horse breeding traditions.

The Lipizzaner horse, a famous breed originating from Lipetsk, is highly regarded for its elegance and intelligence.

Lipetsk has a vibrant nightlife.

Experience the energetic nightlife of Lipetsk with its bars, clubs, and entertainment venues, offering a lively social scene.

The local language in Lipetsk is Russian.

As with most regions in Russia, Russian is the predominant language spoken in Lipetsk.

Lipetsk is a center for higher education.

Besides Lipetsk State Technical University, the city is home to other reputable educational institutions, providing various academic opportunities.

Lipetsk has a rich literary history.

Many renowned Russian writers and poets have ties to Lipetsk, which has contributed to its cultural prominence.

Lipetsk has modern shopping malls and markets.

Shopaholics can enjoy a variety of retail experiences, from high-end boutiques to bustling local markets.

Lipetsk is known for its beautiful parks and gardens.

Take a stroll through Lipetsk’s green spaces, such as Gagarin Park and Solnechny Park, which offer a peaceful retreat from the hustle and bustle of the city.

The city is a popular filming location.

Lipetsk’s picturesque landscapes and well-preserved historical sites have attracted filmmakers, making it a sought-after destination for movie and TV productions.

Lipetsk has a diverse and multicultural population.

The city is home to people from various ethnic backgrounds, contributing to its vibrant cultural tapestry.

Lipetsk has a strong focus on environmental sustainability.

The city actively promotes eco-friendly practices and initiatives to preserve its natural resources.

Lipetsk has a history of traditional crafts.

Discover the city’s traditional crafts like pottery, weaving, and woodcarving, which are still being practiced by local artisans.

Lipetsk is well-connected to other major cities in Russia.

With its favorable location and transportation infrastructure, Lipetsk serves as an important link between different regions of the country .

The city has a strong agricultural industry.

Lipetsk is known for its fertile lands, which support a thriving agricultural sector, including crop cultivation and livestock farming.

Lipetsk is home to serene lakes and rivers.

Enjoy water activities like boating and fishing in Lipetsk’s beautiful lakes and rivers, providing a refreshing escape for outdoor enthusiasts.

The city has a rich folklore and traditional music heritage.

Immerse yourself in the captivating folklore and melodious traditional music of Lipetsk, which is deeply rooted in the local culture.

Lipetsk has a renowned theater scene.

The city boasts several theaters, including the Lipetsk Drama Theater and the Lipetsk Puppet Theater, showcasing a variety of performances throughout the year.

Lipetsk has hosted international sporting events.

The city has welcomed athletes and spectators from around the world for events like the World Sambo Championships and international martial arts competitions.

Lipetsk is home to a wide range of museums and art galleries.

Explore the city’s cultural heritage through its museums, including the Lipetsk Regional Museum and the Museum of Russian Steadfastness and Valor .

The city has a strong sense of community.

Lipetsk residents take pride in their city and actively participate in community events and initiatives that promote unity and camaraderie.

Lipetsk has a growing technology sector.

The city is attracting tech companies and startups, contributing to the development of a thriving technology ecosystem.

Lipetsk has a well-developed healthcare system.

The city is equipped with modern medical facilities and healthcare institutions that provide quality healthcare services to its residents.

Lipetsk is a gateway to the Black Earth region.

Located in the heart of the Black Earth Belt, Lipetsk offers easy access to the fertile agricultural lands of the region.

The city has a strong tradition of winter sports.

Embrace the winter season in Lipetsk with activities like ice skating, skiing, and snowboarding.

Lipetsk has a thriving business environment.

The city’s strategic location, well-developed infrastructure, and business-friendly policies make it an ideal destination for entrepreneurs and investors.

Lipetsk has a distinct architectural style.

The city’s architecture combines elements of Russian classical, modernist , and Soviet-era styles, creating a unique visual appeal.

Lipetsk has a strong focus on education and innovation.

The city promotes a culture of learning and creativity, supporting educational initiatives and fostering innovation across various sectors.

Lipetsk is a center for the automotive industry.

The city hosts automobile manufacturing plants, contributing to Russia’s automotive sector and employment opportunities.

Lipetsk welcomes visitors with warm hospitality.

Experience the warmth and friendliness of Lipetsk’s residents, who are known for their welcoming nature and hospitality.

Explore the enchanting city of Lipetsk and discover its hidden gems, immerse yourself in its culture and history, and experience the warmth and charm that make it a truly remarkable destination.

Remember, these 42 facts about Lipetsk are just the beginning of what this vibrant city has to offer. Whether you’re interested in history, natural beauty, or modern attractions, Lipetsk has something for everyone. Visit Lipetsk and create unforgettable memories in this captivating corner of western Russia .

In conclusion, Lipetsk is a fascinating city located in central Russia. It has a rich history, vibrant culture, and offers various attractions for both tourists and locals alike. From its beautiful parks and gardens to its historical landmarks and museums, Lipetsk promises a memorable experience for visitors.Whether you are interested in exploring the city’s industrial heritage, tasting local cuisine, or simply immersing yourself in the laid-back atmosphere , Lipetsk has something to offer for everyone. Don’t miss the opportunity to visit this hidden gem in Russia and discover all the wonders it has to offer.

1. What is the population of Lipetsk?

The population of Lipetsk is approximately 509,000 people.

2. What is the best time to visit Lipetsk?

The best time to visit Lipetsk is during the summer months from June to August when the weather is pleasant and there are various outdoor festivals and events taking place.

3. Are there any famous landmarks in Lipetsk?

Yes, Lipetsk is home to several famous landmarks, including the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, the Lipetsk Regional Museum of Local Lore, and the Monument to Peter the Great .

4. What are some popular activities to do in Lipetsk?

Some popular activities in Lipetsk include visiting the Lipetsk Botanical Garden, exploring the Lipetsk Zoo, and enjoying the picturesque landscapes of Gorky Park .

5. Is Lipetsk a safe city for tourists?

Yes, Lipetsk is generally a safe city for tourists. However, it is always recommended to take normal precautions and be aware of your surroundings, especially in crowded areas.

6. Can I try local cuisine in Lipetsk?

Absolutely! Lipetsk is known for its delicious traditional Russian cuisine. Don’t miss the opportunity to try local specialties such as borscht, pelmeni, and blini .

7. Is Lipetsk well-connected to other cities in Russia?

Yes, Lipetsk has good transportation connections , including train and bus services, making it easily accessible from other major cities in Russia.

8. What are some nearby attractions to visit from Lipetsk?

Some nearby attractions to visit from Lipetsk include the Yelets Historical and Architectural Museum Preserve, the Tula Kremlin, and the Voronezh State Nature Reserve.

Lipetsk's fascinating history, vibrant culture, and stunning landscapes make it a must-visit destination for anyone exploring Russian cities . From its thriving industries to its picturesque surroundings, Lipetsk offers something for every traveler. If you're curious about other captivating places in Russia, why not discover the unique charm of Orenburg or uncover the hidden gems of Ivanovo in Central Russia ? Each city has its own story to tell, waiting for adventurous souls to experience their distinctive atmospheres and create unforgettable memories.

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KU Professor Appointed to Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency

from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania

Governor Josh Shapiro has appointed Kutztown University’s Dr. Jonathan Kremser to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency . Kremser, a professor and department chair in KU’s criminal justice department, brings a wealth of expertise and experience to his role on the committee.

Established by law in 1978, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) serves as the justice planning and policymaking agency for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. By bringing together a wide range of experts in the fields of criminal and juvenile justice, victim services, and related professions, PCCD coordinates the collective examination of problems, proposes solutions, and evaluates the impact of those solutions. Among its primary functions, PCCD:

• Facilitates partnerships among federal, state, and local policymakers.
• Fosters interagency coordination and cooperation.
• Develops and coordinates policy issues.
• Provides statewide criminal statistical and analytical services.
• Fosters community-based initiatives in the areas of delinquency prevention and offender reintegration.
• Promotes the use of information technology and information sharing to enhance operational effectiveness in criminal justice agencies.
• Grants federal and state funds to provide monies to support best practices and innovation.

Kremser earned a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from Kutztown University, a Master of Arts in criminology from the University of Ottawa, and both a Master of Arts and a doctorate in criminal justice from Rutgers University.

“I am honored to answer the Governor’s call to serve the commonwealth on the Commission,” Kremser said. “I encourage our students to get involved in public service, where they will have the opportunity to make positive contributions within their communities.”

For more information about the PCCD, please visit their website .

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Governor Josh Shapiro has appointed Kutztown University’s Dr. Jonathan Kremser to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Kremser, a professor and department chair in KU’s criminal justice department, brings a wealth of expertise and experience to his role on the committee.

Established by law in 1978, the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) serves as the justice planning and policymaking agency for the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. By bringing together a wide range of experts in the fields of criminal and juvenile justice, victim services, and related professions, PCCD coordinates the collective examination of problems, proposes solutions and evaluates the impact of those solutions. Among its primary functions, PCCD:

Facilitates partnerships among federal, state, and local policymakers. Fosters interagency coordination and cooperation. Develops and coordinates policy issues. Provides statewide criminal statistical and analytical services. Fosters community-based initiatives in the areas of delinquency prevention and offender reintegration. Promotes the use of information technology and information sharing to enhance operational effectiveness in criminal justice agencies. Grants federal and state funds to provide monies to support best practices and innovation.

Kremser earned a Bachelor of Science in criminal justice from Kutztown University, a Master of Arts in criminology from the University of Ottawa and both a Master of Arts and a doctorate in criminal justice from Rutgers University.

“I am honored to answer the Governor’s call to serve the commonwealth on the Commission,” Kremser said. “I encourage our students to get involved in public service, where they will have the opportunity to make positive contributions within their communities.”

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Kudykina Gora – the most popular sight of Lipetsk Oblast

No comments · Posted by Sergei Rzhevsky in Entertainment , Regions , Travel

“Kudykina Gora” is a park located on the bank of the Don River near the village of Kamenka, Lipetsk Oblast , about 74 km west of Lipetsk .

This large park of 500 hectares, opened in 2007, is one of the most visited tourist attractions in Lipetsk Oblast offering entertainment for children and adults. “Kudykina Gora” on Google Maps . Photos by: Alexandr Lipilin .

The main symbol of the park is the 15-meter sculpture of Zmei Gorynich – a Slavic folklore three-headed dragon bursting with fire. On weekends and holidays, at 7:00 pm, a growl is heard out of three gulps of the sculpture and then fire comes out of them.

Here you can see horses, donkeys, rams, ostriches, guinea fowls, peacocks, buffalo, camels, llamas, deer, yaks, raccoons, kangaroos, and other animals. The park has the largest playground in the Lipetsk region, a wooden Scythian fortress, two springs, huge wooden sculptures “Trojan horse” and “Bull”, an artificial lake, a riding school with hippotherapy classes, and a lot of art objects.

Tags:  Lipetsk oblast

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