Basic Social Science

Submission Date: 27 th May 2020

Module Title:Juvenile Delinquency

BSS-1101

Submitted To : Submitted By :

Name : Md. Mehedi Hassan Name : Fariha Farzana Eity

Shanto-Mariam University of Creative ID : 201011037
Technology Batch : 38
Semister:1st
Shanto-Mariam University of Creative
Technology

1.What Do we understand by Juvenile Delinquency ?

Juvenile is a child who is above ten but below twelve years of age from being prosecuted, provided
that he has not attained sufficient understanding of the nature and consequence of his act during the
commission of the crime.

And delinquency is from a legal perspective refers to any behaviour that violates the criminal law,
committed by a young person below the age of eighteen. Hence, a juvenile delinquent according to
the law refers to a young person who has committed a crimal offence and given a court order.
Offences or crimes committed by juveniles range from minor to major indexed crimes such as petty
theft, traffic violation, drug abuse and/or trafficking, robbery, and crimes that caused grievous hurt to
other persons.

2.Three Definations:-
(A) The legal definition has its own shortcomings.There are youngsters who ‘escape’ the law and/or
are merely given warnings despite the severity of their offence. Another problem arising from this
definition is that there are also youngsters who are caught committing petty offences being placed in
rehabilitation institutions with other delinquents who have committed major indexed crimes against
persons and/or properties.

(B) A sociological definition reflects the use of the term in various social institutions. One of these
social institutions is the school. Delinquency in schools includes both violation of the Penal Code
and also school norms. There is no mention of a minimum age of responsibility in determining
school delinquency. However, students in violation of the criminal law are handed over to the police.
A school pupil or student may be punished by the school authorities for misconducts such as truancy
(skipping school and/or classes), smoking, vandalism, fighting, extortion, and for even seemingly
minor misbehaviors such as improper attire or appearance, disrespect toward others and bringing
hand phone to school (Ministry of Education, 2007).

(C)The behavioral definition of school delinquency can also bring unexpected problems to the
healthy personality development of childs Although the school childs are not formally labeled as
juvenile delinquents by the school, they maybe put ‘on display’ during school assemblies before
being sent to the counseler. Also, children’s self esteem maybe hurt by just being called up to the
school principal for disciplinary problems such as “untidy appearance.”

3.Social Factors:-
Juvenile delinquency is driven by the negative consequences of social and economic development,in
particular economic crisis,political insability and the weakness of major institutions.Socio–economic
instability often linked to persistent unemployment and low incomes among the youth which can
ultimately increase the livelihood of their involvement in criminal activity

4.Environment Factors:- Environmental factors include peer and media influence. Negative
peer and media influences have also consistently been found to contribute to delinquency. Smoking,
gang fights, and truancy are usually committed in groups. Early exopsure to pornographic materials
such as books and videos were reported by adolescents involved in sexual delinquencies.
5.Preventive Measures of juvenile delinquency:-
Prevention of juvenile delinquency necessarily means early intervention. An early intervention can
help the children become healthy, happy and satisfied adolescents and adolescents into socially good
adults. This is how the society overall can be saved from many evils since juvenile crime results in
adult criminals and antisocial behavior. This need programs that provides guidelines to parents,
teachers and other community partners who are in close contact with the children. The approach
needed to solve the problem should be selected with caution; not every youth is same nor the crime
he/she has committed, for example, sometimes the intervention of juvenile justice system does more
harm than good.

Early intervention:- Early intervention programs help positive youth development for those teens
and kids who are at risk. There are various youth development models provided by the researchers
that can be used by the community workers, teachers or parents. A lot of efforts is put for the proper
application of these models. Various studies have been conducted to study the components in youth
development models that are responsible for the success or failure.

There are also various ways in which the juvenile courts, parents, teacher or other community
members can intervene in the life of a juvenile. The choice of each method depends on the type and
severity of the crime committed by the youth and then only the perfect phase of prevention measure
can be taken.