Introduction to Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile Delinquency, the violation of laws or ordinances by a person who is legally classified as a juvenile, or youth, rather than an adult. In many parts of the world, including the United States, with which this article is mainly concerned, young lawbreakers are generally considered to be children in need of help, not criminals to be punished.
What Is Juvenile Delinquency?
Legal definitions of juvenile delinquency vary widely within the United States and elsewhere. In most jurisdictions, delinquent acts are defined as those that would be considered crimes if committed by an adult. Most states set no official minimum age limit in classifying juveniles, but it is customarily considered to be 7 years. The majority of states recognize 17 as the upper age limit; other states set the upper limit at 16 or 15 years.
Juveniles account for a disproportionate percentage of crime in the United States. Much of this crime is relatively minor, such as shoplifting or vandalism. However, car theft, drug offenses, assault, and murder are among the serious crimes commonly committed by delinquents. The problem of juvenile crime is made worse by the existence of youth gangs, which are often well-organized criminal enterprises involved in such activities as extortion, drug-dealing, and theft. Gangs may pressure young people to join, and inter-gang rivalry often leads to violence.
Status offenses are crimes that apply only to young people with the status of minors. These offenses include truancy, running away from home, and refusing to obey parents. The reason given for designating such acts as delinquent is to protect young people from their own immature judgement. Some people believe, however, that including status offenses under delinquency is often detrimental to child welfare, as such offenses might be better handled by parents or welfare agencies than by legal action.
Causes of Juvenile Delinquency
Researchers have demonstrated that many factors, both personal and social, interact to produce delinquent behavior in the young. Many juvenile offenders come from impoverished families, or from homes without strong parental guidance or positive role models. Racial discrimination, failure in school, and lack of employment opportunities also play a role in causing delinquent behavior. Membership in a gang or participation in criminal activity may provide a young person with a sense of purpose and status that is lacking at home or at school. Access to drugs and weapons contributes to violence. Some authorities believe that the widespread portrayal of violence—described by rock lyrics, seen on television and in films, and forming an intregal part of certain video games—is a factor in causing delinquency.
Research has failed to show a direct connection between delinquency ajid such inherited factors as intelligence, body type, and race. However, physical, mental, and emotional illnesses and disturbances appear to have direct bearing on certain kinds of delinquent behavior.
Control of Delinquency
Many cases of juvenile delinquency are handled unofficially by the police or by social welfare agencies. Juvenile delinquents who have committed serious offenses are brought into juvenile court, which follows civil rather than criminal procedure.
Youth organizations, recreational and educational programs, and vocational training can help prevent delinquency by directing young people's energies into socially constructive activity. Many people believe that a juvenile justice system that deals promptly and sternly with offenders will also help to deter young people from criminal activities.
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, created in 1974, is a federal agency that conducts research, evaluates programs, and serves as a clearinghouse for information on the prevention, treatment, and control of juvenile delinquency.
Involvement of minors in such adult crimes as murder and armed robbery has emerged as a problem since the early 1970's. From the deteriorating inner cities have come many youthful offenders who by the age of 13 or 14 are already habitual and hardened criminals.
For many years the courts were, in many states, required under the law to give short sentences, some as short as six months, to persons under the age of 16 on the theory that most juveniles were capable of rehabilitation. As increasing numbers of juveniles were convicted for murder, armed robbery, and other violent offenses, it became apparent that this system was seriously flawed and most states passed laws to provide longer sentences for juveniles involved in such crimes.
These new laws have made it possible for authorities to try particularly violent juveniles in the adult justice system, where harsher penalties can be imposed; and some allow the juvenile courts to impose harsher sentences than previously.
For nonviolent offenses, such as burglary and illegal drug possession as well as such status offenses as running away and truancy, the trend has been away from incarceration in reform schools and other prison-like institutions; these institutions, it is generally recognized, are more likely to lead juveniles to a life of crime than to reform them. Some states have closed many of their reform schools; juvenile offenders are sent to smaller facilities called “group homes,” which provide more individual attention and closer supervision than do reform schools.
Because the juvenile courts recognize that delinquency is often the result of an abusive home life, they have begun concentrating on changing the home environment of juveniles as a part of rehabilitation efforts. This is done by placing the offenders in foster homes or by allowing the offenders to stay in their own homes, but under close supervision by the state.