Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Juvenile Deliquency
Juvenile Deliquency
⮚ Is a person who has not reached adulthood or the age of majority (18 yrs old). From
this point, it can be assumed that the term covers a child, an adolescent, a
minor, a youth, or a youngster below 18 yrs old.
DELINQUENT PERSON
⮚ Is a person, of whatever age, whose attitude toward other individuals, toward the
community, toward lawful authority is such that it may lead him into breaking
the law.
⮚ One who repeatedly commits an act that is against the norms or mores
observed by the society.
⮚ Is a person, of whatever age, whose attitude toward other individuals, toward the
community, toward lawful authority is such that it may lead him into breaking
the law.
⮚ One who repeatedly commits an act that is against the norms or mores
observed by the society.
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY
⮚ An act committed by a minor that violates the penal code of the government with
authority over the place in which the act occurred;
⮚ The committing of those things considered crimes by the country.
⮚ Any act, behavior or conduct which might be brought to court and judged whether such is
a violation of a law;
STAGES OF DELINQUENCY
EMERGENCE
⮚ The child begins with petty larceny between and sometime during 12th year.
EXPLORATION
⮚ He or she then may move on to shoplifting and vandalism between ages 12 to 14.
EXPLOSION
CONFLAGRATION
CLASSIFICATION OF DELINQUENCY
Unsocialized Aggression
Socialized Delinquency
Over-inhibited
Authority-conflict Pathway
⮚ Begins at early age with stubborn behavior. This leads to defiance and then to
authority avoidance.
Covert Pathway
⮚ Begins with minor, underhanded behavior that leads to property damage. This
behavior eventually escalates ro more serious forms of criminality.
Overt Pathway
Socialized Delinquents
⮚ They become delinquents as a result of their social association with people from
whom they learned deviant values. They are more likely to become property
violators than violent offenders.
Neurotic Delinquents
Socialized Delinquents
⮚ They become delinquents as a result of their social association with people from
whom they learned deviant values. They are more likely to become property
violators than violent offenders.
Neurotic Delinquents
Sociopathic Delinquents
ENVIRONMENTAL DELINQUENTS
⮚ These delinquents are the chronic lawbreakers who make breaking of laws a habit
they cannot avoid or escape from.
Gang Delinquents
⮚ They generally commit the most serious infractions, most often sent to a correctional
institution, and most often continuous in a pattern of semi-professional criminal
behavior as adults.
Maladjusted Delinquents
⮚ The activity, stems from personality disturbance rather than gang activity or slum
residence. They have "weak ego," "the asocial," experienced early and severe
parental rejection.
Children as “Non-Human”
⮚ proximately two thousand years ago, Roman Law and Canon Law made distinction
between juveniles and adults based on the notion "age of responsibility."
⮚ The Talmud (body of Jewish civil and religious laws) specified condition under which
immaturity was to be considered in imposing punishment
⮚ In 5th century B.C., this law resulted in the "Twelve Tables which made it clear that
children were criminally responsible for violation of law and were to be dealt with by
the same criminal justice system as adults.
Through a series of court decisions, the concept of parens patriae (responsibility of the
courts and the state to act on behalf of the child and provide care and protection equivalent
to that of a parent) became broadened and the state became increasingly involved in
determining the fitness of families.
In 1818, New York Committee on Pauperism gave the term "juvenile delinquency," its first
public recognition by referring it as a major cause of pauperism.
Albert K. Cohen was the first man who attempted to find out the process of beginning of
the delinquent subculture.
DEMONOLOGICAL THEORY
⮚ This was developed during the middle ages. Hence, it is the oldest perspective or
theory. It was based on the belief of primitive people that every object and person is
guided by a spirit.
⮚ This theory promoted the notion that persons should not be held responsible for
their actions when they do evil things because their body is possessed by evil
spirits.
CLASSICAL THEORY
General Deterrence
⮚ Punishment of delinquents and criminal offenders will strike fear in the hearts of
other people, thus making them less likely to commit acts of delinquency or
crimes.
Specific Deterrence
⮚ Punishment will strike fear in the hearts of wrongdoers, thus making them less likely
to offend others again.
Incapacitation
⮚ The simplest form of jurisdiction; wrongdoers should be locked up in jail since while
they are imprisoned in an institution, they cannot commit offenses against other
people in the outside world.
Retribution
⮚ This theory was developed by Cesare Lombroso, Enrico Ferri and Raffaele Garofalo. ⮚
Positive theory promoted the idea of determinism as a way of explaining crime and
delinquency.
⮚ Determinism means that every act has a cause that is waiting to be discovered in the
natural word.
⮚ Positive theory blames delinquency on biological, psychological and sociological
factors.
Critical Theory
BIOLOGICAL THEORIES
Early biological theories claim that criminal behavior is a result of biological or genetic
defect in the individual.
Lombrosian Theory
*Lombrosian theory was flawed as it was based only on his findings from examining
criminals and he did not conduct studies on non-offenders’ character.
⮚ Crime is the result of the impact of environment upon low-grade organisms and that
criminals were originally inferior people.
⮚ Crimes exist because there are some inferior people who are responsible for them. ⮚
Men with mediocre builds are people who tend to break the law without preference
because crimes like physical make-up, are characterless.
⮚ Criminals should be permanently exiled to self-governing reservations, isolated from
the society, sterilized to prevent future offspring.
WILLIAM SHELDON'S THEORY
People are classified in three ways:
a. Endomorphs - people who tend to be fat round and soft, and to have short arms and legs.
b. Mesomorphs- people who have athletic and muscular physique; with active, assertive
and aggressive personality.
c. Ectomorphs- people who are basically skinny with lean and fragile bodies.
GENETIC THEORY
PSYCHOLOGICAL THEORY
PSYCHOGENE THEORIES
⮚ These are theories which blame delinquency on impulses that are rooted in the child
rather than in his environment.
⮚ Psychogenics believe that it is easier to change a person than it is to change an
environment.
Ego — this is the rational part of the personality; it grows from the ID. It represents problem
solving dimensions of personality.
Super ego — it grows out of ego. It represents the moral code, norms and values the
individual has acquired. Hence, it is responsible for feelings of guilt and shame.
⮚ People with low intelligence are easily led law-breaking activities by the wiles of
more clever people.
⮚ People with low intelligence are unable to realize that committing offenses in a
certain way often leads to getting caught and eventual punishment.
⮚ This theory wag recognized early in the twentieth century by sociologists Clifford
Shaw & Henry McKay.
⮚ According to this Theory, disorganized areas cannot exert control over acting-out
youth; these areas can be identified by their relatively high level of change, fear
instability, incivility, poverty and deterioration, these factors have direct influence
on the area" delinquency rate.
ANOMIE THEORY
STRAIN THEORY
⮚ Strain theory by Robert Merton contends that certain classes are denied legitimate
access to culturally determined goals and opportunities, and the resulting frustration
results in intimate activities or rejection of society's goal.
⮚ According to Richard Quinney and William Chambliss, conflict theory is based upon
the view that the fundamental causes of crime are the social and economic forces
operating within the society.
⮚ John D. Hewitt and Robert Regoli proposed that much serious juvenile delinquency is
a product of the oppression of children by adults, particularly within the context of
family. The maltreatment of children has been found to be highly correlated with both
serious and moderate delinquency as well as other problem behaviors.
INTERPERSONAL THEORIES
⮚ This theory asserts that criminal behavior is learned primarily within the
interpersonal groups and that youth will become delinquent if definitions they have
learned favorable to violating the exceed definitions favorable to obeying the law
within the group. This theory was introduced by Edwin Sutherland.
⮚ This theory views that behavior is modeled through observation, either directly
through intimate contact with others, or indirectly through media.
SITUATIONAL THEORIES
Drift Theory (Neutralization Theory)
⮚ Proposes that juveniles sense a moral obligation to be bound by the law. Such a bind
between a person and the law remains in place most of the time. When it is not in
place, delinquents will drift.
⮚ DRIFT is a process by which an individual moves from one behavioral extreme to
another, behaving sometimes in an unconventional manner and at other times with
constraint.
a. Denial of responsibility
b. Denial of injury
c. Denial of victim
d. Condemnation of the condemners
e. Appeal to higher loyalties
LABELING THEORY
⮚ Developed by Howard Becker, labeling theory views that youths may violate the law
for a variety of reasons including poor family relations, peer pressure, psychological
abnormality, and pro- delinquent learning experiences.
CONTROL THEORIES
⮚ This theory by Travis Hirschi states that members in society form bonds with other
members in society or institution in society such as parents, pro-social friends,
churches, schools, teachers, and sports team.
SELF-DEROGATION THEORY
SELF-CONTROL THEORY
⮚ argues that it is the absence of self-control rather than the presence of some forces
or factors such as poverty, anomie, opportunities for deviance, delinquent peers,
exposure to definitions favorable to deviance, etc. that leads to deviance.
SELF-CONTROL THEORY
⮚ argues that it is the absence of self-control rather than the presence of some forces
or factors such as poverty, anomie, opportunities for deviance, delinquent peers,
exposure to definitions favorable to deviance, etc. that leads to deviance.
OTHER THEORIES
⮚ This theory links delinquent acts to the formation of independent subcultures with a
unique set of values that clash with the main stream culture. It argues that children
learn deviant behavior socially through exposure to others and modeling of others'
action.
⮚ Advocates of this theory argue that in many cases, deviance is a result of high
calculation of risks and awards. Prospective deviants weigh their own chance of gain
against the risk of getting caught, and thereby decide a course of action.
⮚ The Routine Activities Theory was developed by Lawrence Cohen and Marcus
Felson. This theory claims that crime is a normal function of the routine activities of
modern living; offenses can be expected by capable guardians.
The routine activities approach gives equal weight to the role of both the victim and
the offender in the crime process
LEARNING THEORIES
⮚ This set of theories advances that delinquency is learned through close relationship
with others. It asserts that children are born "good" and learn to be 'bad" from
others.
Behavior of Juvenile Delinquents
Behavioral Disorders
a. jealousy reaction
b. temper tantrums
c. fear reaction
A. FAMILY
⮚ The family is the first and most important social unit to affect children; it is the first
social world the child encounters. Individuals learn the attitudes, behaviors and
social roles considered appropriate for them from already socialized individuals,
typically parents and other family members.
Family size
⮚ Parents of larger families tend to give less parental attention to their children.
Children of large families are having a greater chance to become delinquent, and
this is ä predictive factor. It was found that delinquency is associated with the
number of brothers in the family, but not with the number of sisters.
⮚ Birth order affects the delinquent behavior with delinquency more likely among
middle children than first or last children. The first child receives individual attention
and affection of parents, while the last child benefits from the parents’ experience
of raising children. In some cases, the delinquent child is the first or last child.
⮚ The strongest predictive factor for delinquency is having criminal parents. While a
very small part of this effect may be accounted for by genetic factors, most of it
must be related to the relationship of parents toward their children.
FAMILY REJECTION
1. Protest — cries and screams for mother, shows panic, clings when she visits, and howls
when she leaves.
2. Despair - after a few days, child becomes withdrawn, sucks thumb.
3. Detachment — loses interest in parents and is not concerned whether they are there or
not.
DISCIPLINE IN THE HOME
Inadequate supervision and discipline in the home have been commonly cited to explain
delinquent behavior. Where discipline is erratic or harsh, children tend to become
delinquent in adolescence. Such parents differ from normal parents in punishing harshly,
and in giving many commands. Certain children are difficult to discipline; shouting and
incessant commands are a parental reaction to the child’s constant misbehavior
FAMILY MODEL
1. THE CORPORATE MODEL The father is the chief executive officer. The mother is the
operating officer, and implements the father’s policy and manages the staff (children)
that in turn have privileges and responsibilities based on their seniority. The father
makes the most; he is the final word in the corporate family. Intimacy runs to the profit
motive.
2. THE TEAM MODEL — The father is the head; the mother is the chief of the training table
and cheerleader. The children, suffering frequent performance anxiety, play the rules
and stay in shape with conformity calisthenics. In the team family, competition is in the
name of the game; winning is everything.
3. THE MILITARY MODEL - The father is the genera. The mother is the guard duty with a
special assignment to the nurse corps when needed. The kids are the grunts. Unruly
children are sent to stockade, insubordinate wives risk discharge. Punishment is swift,
and sadism is called character building.
4. THE BOARDING SCHOOL MODEL - The father is the rector or head master, and is in
charge of training school minds and bodies. The mother is the dorm counselor who
oversees the realm emotion, illness, good works, and bedwetting. The children are
dutiful students.
QUALITY OF HOME
BROKEN HOME
⮚ This does not refer to the separation of parents leaving their children behind, but
includes the presence of parents who are irresponsible that children experience
constant quarrel in the home. Broken homes are associated with an increase risk in
deviant behavior.
⮚ Majority of single parent families are the products of divorce. Part of the effect is
simply that of the strained relationships between the parents prior to family
breakdown.
⮚ Single parents are much more likely to be living in poverty, or living in a high
delinquency area than are married persons.
⮚ Single-parents may find it more difficult to control their children during late
childhood and adolescence.
1. The Alarmist View — this is the belief that the family is a very serious condition; it is in
critical condition and is getting progressively worse. Alarmists believe in the myth of
declining family.
B. PEERS
⮚ For many juveniles the most important institution, the one they truly spend the
most time with and are closest to emotionally, is the family. But for many others, it
is their barkada or peer group. The peer group is a group of youths of similar age
levels and interest that often can empower young people in their sense of
worthwhile and important.
Does having antisocial peers cause delinquency, or are delinquents antisocial youths who
seek out like-minded companions because they can be useful in committing crimes? There
are actually five independent viewpoints this question.
⮚ Peer rejection may help increase and sustain antisocial behaviors because outcast kids
become suspicious of other people’s motives, see them as hostile, and become more
likely to respond in an antisocial manner. Because the most popular kids reject them,
these troubled youths have fewer positive social options and may be drawn to lower
status and deviant peer groups.
⮚ Hoping to belong and be accepted in at least one peer group, no matter its damaged
reputation, they feel compelled to engage in more antisocial activity in an effort to
gain standing and approval.
Gangs
⮚ Gangs are groups of youths who collectively engage in delinquent behaviors. Yet,
there is a distinction between group delinquency and gang delinquency. The former
consists of a short-lived alliance created to commit a particular crime or engage in a
random violent act. In contrast, gang delinquency involves long-lived, complex
institutions that have a distinct structure and organization, including identifiable
leadership, division of ‘labor (some members are fighters, others burglars, while
some are known as deal makers), rules, rituals, and possessions (such as
⮚ Gangs are groups of youths who collectively engage in delinquent behaviors. Yet,
there is a distinction between group delinquency and gang delinquency. The former
consists of a short-lived alliance created to commit a particular crime or engage in a
random violent act. In contrast, gang delinquency involves long-lived, complex
institutions that have a distinct structure and organization, including identifiable
leadership, division of ‘labor (some members are fighters, others burglars, while
some are known as deal makers), rules, rituals, and possessions (such as
headquarters and weapons).
⮚ Any congregation of youths who have joined together to engage in delinquent acts
⮚ A cohesive group that holds and defends territory or turfs
⮚ An interstitial group, a phrase coined by gang expert Frederick Thrasher. He used the
term to refer to the fact that gangs fill the “cracks” in the fabric of society. To be
considered a gang, a group must maintain standard group processes, such as
recruiting new members, setting goals (such as controlling the neighboring drug
trade), assigning roles (appointing Someone to negotiate with rivals), and developing
status (grooming young members for leadership roles).
GANG TYPES
1. Social Gang - involved in few delinquent activities and little drug use other than
alcohol and marijuana. Membership is more interested in the social aspects of group
behavior.
2. Party Gang — concentrates on drug use and sales, forgoing most delinquent
behavior, except vandalism. Drug sales are designed to finance members’ personal
drug use.
3. Serious Delinquent Gang - engages in serious delinquent behavior while eschewing
most drug muse. Drugs are used only on social occasions.
4. Organized Gang — heavily involved in criminality and drug Use and sales. Drug use
and sales reflect a systemic relationship with other criminal
Gang Location
Gang Formation
⮚ Gang formation involves a sense of territoriality. Most gang members live in close
proximity to one another, and their sense of belonging and loyalty extends only to
their small area of the city. At first, a gang may form when members of an ethnic
minority newly settled in the neighborhood join together for self-preservation. As
the group gains numerical domination over an area, it may view the neighborhood
as its territory or turf, which needs to be defended.
Gang leadership
⮚ Most experts describe gang leaders as cool characters who have earned their position
by demonstrating a variety of abilities — fighting Prowess, verbal quickness, athletic
distinction, and so on.
⮚ Gang leadership is held by one person and varies with particular activities, such as
fighting, sex, and negotiations.
Gang Communications
⮚ Gangs today seek recognition both from their rivals and the community as a whole.
Image and reputation depend on a gang’s ability to communicate to the rest of the
world. One major source of gang communication is graffiti or writing on walls.
⮚ For example, among Latino gangs, the term RIFA is used to assert POWER; “p/v” or
por vida means the gang wants to control the area “for life;” numeral 13 signifies
that the gang is loco or “wild.”
⮚ The youth service program in which traditional police personnel usually from the
youth Unit, given responsibility for gang control.
⮚ The gang detail, in which one or more police officers, usually from youth or detective
units, are assigned exclusively to gang-control work.
⮚ The gang unit, established solely to des] with gang problems, to which one or more
officers are assigned exclusively to gang-control work.
C. ENVIRONMENT
⮚ The outside environment where a youth resides is also influential. It is where the
child is exposed to after his first highly formative years. It may be a place where
crime is a day-to-day event or a haven where the existence of crime is an unusual
occurrence. For an environment to become a factor in delinquency problem,
children can be found in the Street roaming most of the time in the company of
adults whose words and behaviors are not fit to be heard and seen by a growing
child. The negative influence that can be exerted by a place to minors can be
adopted in so many ways as they grow up.
The following are the possible influences of the environment to the child:
D. SCHOOL
⮚ The school, unlike the family, is a public instrument for training young people. It is,
therefore, more directly accessible to change through the development resources
and policies. And since it is the principal instrument to the goals and values of our
society, It is imperative that it be provided with the resources to compete with
illegitimate attraction for young people’s allegiance.
⮚ Poor academic performance has been directly linked to delinquent behavior. There is
general consensus that students who are chronic underachievers in school are also
the most likely to be delinquent. In fact, researcher commonly find that school
failure is a stronger predictor of delinquency than such personal variables as
economic class membership or peer group relations.
⮚ One view on the relationship between social failure and delinquency is that school
experience is a direct cause of delinquent behavior. Children who fail at school soon
feel frustrated, angry and rejected. Believing they will never achieve success through
conventional means, they seek out like-minded companions and together engage in
antisocial behaviors. Educational failure, beginning early in the life course, evokes
negative responses from important people in the child’s life, including teachers,
parents, and perspective employers. These reactions help solidify feelings of social
inadequacy and, in some cases, lead the underachieving student into a pattern of
chronic delinquency.
⮚ A second view is that school failure leads to psychological and behavioral dysfunction
which is the actual cause of antisocial behavior. For example, academic failure helps
reduce self-esteem; studies using a variety of measures of academic competence
and self-esteem clearly demonstrate that good students have a better attitude about
themselves than do poor students Reduced self-esteem has also been found to
contribute to delinquent behavior.
⮚ The term “school climate” generally refers to a broad range of concepts that include
the culture of the school, how the school is structured and administered, its design
and its rule structure. Schools with a positive culture will maintain unwritten rules of
conduct that encourage communication between students and also with faculty and
administration The school’s norms should discourage negative actions such as
bullying and discrimination. Rules are fair and clearly written and disseminated to
students.
E. MASS MEDIA
⮚ Mass media embraces all kinds of communications where a child is exposed to. It
covers up everything that a child hears and sees that leaves behind in his or her
imagination. It could be anything a child saw on television, heard over the radio,
read from a book or magazine, or even saw in a movie house.
⮚ Television and movies have popularized the cult of heroes,’ which promotes justice
through the physical elimination of enemies. Many researchers have concluded that
young people who watch violence tend to behave more aggressively or violently,
particularly when provoked. This is mainly characteristic of 8 to 12-year-old boys,
who are more vulnerable to such influences.