Juvenile Delinquency

Project
Submitted to
Department of sociology

Mithelesh DK
Srinivas AC

Declaration

I do hereby declare that the project entitled Juvenile

Delinquency submitted to Tamilnadu National law
school in partial fulfilment of requirement of award of
degree in undergraduate in law is a record of original
work done by me under the supervision and guidance of
Mrs.Kalpana (mentor) Department of Sociology of
Tamilnadu national law school and has not formed basis
for award of any degree or diploma or fellowship or any
other title to any candidate of any university.

Place: Trichy
Date:
MitheleshDk
Srinivas AC

Certificate

This is to certify that the project entitled

Functions and Procedures of Indian Parliament
submitted to Tamilnadu National law school in partial
fulfilment of requirement of award of degree of under
graduate in Law done by MitheleshDk, Srinivas AC
under the supervision and guidance of Mrs.Kalpana
(mentor) Department of Sociology of Tamilnadu National
Law School.

Place: Trichy
Date:

Mrs.Kalpana

Acknowledgement

This project is impossible without the help, guidance, and support

of few people who stood by my side from the very beginning of this
project.
Im very glad and grateful to Prof.Mrs.Kalpana who was the initiative
and inspired me to take up this project. His contribution to this project is
an inevitable one.
Im also grateful to my parents and friends who all stood as a pillar of
support for me during this entire research work. Their contribution to
this project is indispensable one.

Contents:
1 Types

1.1 Sex differences

1.2 Racial differences
2 Risk factors
2.1 Individual risk factors
2.2 Family environment and peer influence
3 Crime Theories Applicable to Juvenile Delinquency
3.1 Rational choice
3.2 Social disorganization
3.3 Strain
3.4 Differential association
3.5 Labeling
3.6 Social control
4 Juvenile delinquents diagnosed with mental/conduct disorders
5 Prevention
6 Critique of risk factor research
7 Juvenile sex crimes
7.1 Prevalence data
7.2 Official record data
7.3 Males who commit sexual crimes
8 Conclusion
9 Bibliography

Introduction

Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, or youth crime, is

participation in illegal behavior by minors (juveniles) (individuals younger
than the statutory age of majority).[1] Most legal systems prescribe specific
procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers, and
courts. A juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18
and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if
they were an adult. Depending on the type and severity of the offense
committed, it is possible for persons under 18 to be charged and tried as
adults.

In recent years in the US the average age for first arrest has dropped
significantly, and younger boys and girls are committing crimes. Between
6080% percent of adolescents, and pre-adolescents engage in some form of
juvenile offense. These can range from status offenses (such as underage
smoking), to property crimes and violent crimes. The percent of teens who
offend is so high that it would seem to be a cause for worry. However,
juvenile offending can be considered normative adolescent behavior. This is
because most teens tend to offend by committing non-violent crimes, only
once or a few times, and only during adolescence. It is when adolescents
offend repeatedly or violently that their offending is likely to continue beyond
adolescence, and become increasingly violent. It is also likely that if this is
the case, they began offending and displaying antisocial behavior even
before reaching adolescence.

Types
Juvenile delinquency, or offending, can be separated into three categories:

Delinquency, crimes committed by minors which are dealt with by the

juvenile courts and justice system;
Criminal behavior, crimes dealt with by the criminal justice system;
Status offenses, offenses which are only classified as such because one
is a minor, such as truancy, also dealt with by the juvenile courts.

According to the developmental research of Moffitt (2006), there are two

different types of offenders that emerge in adolescence. One is the repeat
offender, referred to as the life-course-persistent offender, who begins
offending or showing antisocial/aggressive behavior in adolescence (or even
childhood) and continues into adulthood; and the age specific offender,
referred to as the adolescence-limited offender, for whom juvenile offending

or delinquency begins and ends during their period of adolescence. Because

most teenagers tend to show some form of antisocial, aggressive or
delinquent behavior during adolescence, it is important to account for these
behaviors in childhood in order to determine whether they will be life-coursepersistent offenders or adolescence-limited offenders. Although adolescencelimited offenders tend to drop all criminal activity once they enter adulthood
and show less pathology than life-course-persistent offenders, they still show
more mental health, substance abuse, and finance problems, both in
adolescence and adulthood, than those who were never delinquent.

Sex differences
Juvenile offending is disproportionately committed by young men. Feminist
theorists and others have examined why this is the case. One suggestion is
that ideas of masculinity may make young men more likely to offend. Being
tough, powerful, aggressive, daring and competitive becomes a way for
young men to assert and express their masculinity. Acting out these ideals
may make young men more likely to engage in antisocial and criminal
behavior. Also, the way young men are treated by others, because of their
masculinity, may reinforce aggressive traits and behaviors, and make them
more susceptible to offending.

Alternatively, young men may actually be naturally more aggressive, daring

and prone to risk-taking. According to a study led by Florida State University
criminologist Kevin M. Beaver, adolescent males who possess a certain type
of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to delinquent peers.
The study, which appears in the September 2008 issue of the Journal of
Genetic Psychology, is the first to establish a statistically significant
association between an affinity for antisocial peer groups and a particular
variation (called the 10-repeat allele) of the dopamine transporter gene
(DAT1).

In recent years however, there has also been a bridging of the gap between
sex differences concerning juvenile delinquency. While it is still more
common for males to offend than females, the ratio of arrests by sex is one
third of what it was 20 years ago (at 2.5 to 1 today). This is most likely due to
the combined effects of more females being arrested (for offenses which did
not get them arrested before), and a drop in male offenses.

Racial differences
This article reads like an editorial or opinion piece. Please help improve this
article by rewriting it in an encyclopedic style to make it neutral in tone. See
WP:No original research and WP:NOTOPINION for further details. (March
2014)
There is also a significant skew in the racial statistics for juvenile offenders.
When considering these statistics, which state that Black and Latino teens
are more likely to commit juvenile offenses it is important to keep the
following in mind: poverty, or low socio-economic status are large predictors
of low parental monitoring, harsh parenting, and association with deviant
peer groups, all of which are in turn associated with juvenile offending. The
majority of adolescents who live in poverty are racial minorities. Also,
minorities who offend, even as adolescents, are more likely to be arrested
and punished more harshly by the law if caught. Particularly concerning a
non-violent crime and when compared to white adolescents. While poor
minorities are more likely to commit violent crimes, one third of affluent
teens report committing violent crimes.

Ethnic minority status has been included as a risk factor of psychosocial

maladaptation in several studies (e.g., Gutman et al. 2003; Sameroff et al.
1993; Dallaire et al. 2008), and represents a relative social disadvantage
placed on these individuals. Though the relation between delinquency and
race is complex and may be explained by other contextual risk variables
(see, for example, Holmes et al. 2009), the total arrest rate for black
juveniles aged 1017 is more than twice that as of white juveniles (National
Center for Juvenile Justice 2008)(p. 1474).[15] This does not seem to be the
case for the minority group of East Asian background.[citation needed]

Risk factors
The two largest predictors of juvenile delinquency are

Parenting style, with the two styles most likely to predict delinquency
being

"Permissive" parenting, characterized by a lack of consequence-based

discipline and encompassing two subtypes known as

"Neglectful" parenting, characterized by a lack of monitoring and thus

of knowledge of the child's activities, and
"Indulgent" parenting, characterized by affirmative enablement of
misbehavior
"Authoritarian" parenting, characterized by harsh discipline and refusal
to justify discipline on any basis other than "because I said so";
Peer group association, particularly with antisocial peer groups, as is
more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised.

Other factors that may lead a teenager into juvenile delinquency include
poor or low socioeconomic status, poor school readiness/performance and/or
failure, peer rejection, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
There may also be biological factors, such as high levels of serotonin, giving
them a difficult temper and poor self-regulation, and a lower resting heart
rate, which may lead to fearlessness. Most of these tend to be influenced by
a mix of both genetic and environmental factors.

Individual risk factors

Individual psychological or behavioral risk factors that may make offending
more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the inability to delay
gratification, aggression, lack of empathy, and restlessness. Other risk
factors which may be evident during childhood and adolescence include,
aggressive or troublesome behavior, language delays or impairments, lack of
emotional control (learning to control one's anger), and cruelty to animals.

Children with low intelligence are more likely to do badly in school. This may
increase the chances of offending because low educational attainment, a low
attachment to school, and low educational aspirations are all risk factors for
offending in themselves. Children who perform poorly at school are also
more likely to be truant, and the status offense of truancy is linked to further
offending. Impulsiveness is seen by some as the key aspect of a child's
personality that predicts offending. However, it is not clear whether these
aspects of personality are a result of deficits in the executive functions of

the brain or a result of parental influences or other social factors. In any

event, studies of adolescent development show that teenagers are more
prone to risk-taking, which may explain the high disproportionate rate of
offending among adolescents.

Family environment and peer influence

Family factors which may have an influence on offending include: the level of
parental supervision, the way parents discipline a child, particularly harsh
punishment, parental conflict or separation, criminal parents or siblings,
parental abuse or neglect, and the quality of the parent-child relationship.
Some have suggested that having a lifelong partner leads to less offending.
[citation needed]
Juvenile Delinquency, which basically is the rebellious or unlawful activities
by kids in their teens or pre-teens, is caused by four main risk factors. These
are; personality, background, state of mind and drugs. These factors may
lead to the child have a low IQ and may increase the rate of illiteracy.
Children brought up by lone parents are more likely to start offending than
those who live with two natural parents. It is also more likely that children of
single parents may live in poverty, which is strongly associated with juvenile
delinquency. However once the attachment a child feels towards their
parent(s) and the level of parental supervision are taken into account,
children in single parent families are no more likely to offend than others.
Conflict between a child's parents is also much more closely linked to
offending than being raised by a lone parent.

If a child has low parental supervision they are much more likely to offend.
Many studies have found a strong correlation between a lack of supervision
and offending, and it appears to be the most important family influence on
offending. When parents commonly do not know where their children are,
what their activities are, or who their friends are, children are more likely to
truant from school and have delinquent friends, each of which are linked to
offending. A lack of supervision is also connected to poor relationships
between children and parents. Children who are often in conflict with their
parents may be less willing to discuss their activities with them.

Adolescents with criminal siblings are only more likely to be influenced by

their siblings, and also become delinquent, if the sibling is older, of the same
sex/gender, and warm. Cases where a younger criminal sibling influences an
older one are rare. An aggressive, non-loving/warm sibling is less likely to
influence a younger sibling in the direction of delinquency, if anything, the
more strained the relationship between the siblings, the less they will want
to be like, and/or influence each other.
Peer rejection in childhood is also a large predictor of juvenile delinquency.
Although children are rejected by peers for many reasons, it is often the case
that they are rejected due to violent or aggressive behavior. This rejections
affects the child's ability to be socialized properly, which can reduce their
aggressive tendencies, and often leads them to gravitate towards anti-social
peer groups. This association often leads to the promotion of violent,
aggressive and deviant behavior. "The impact of deviant peer group
influences on the crystallization of an antisocial developmental trajectory has
been solidly documented. Aggressive adolescents who have been rejected
by peers are also more likely to have a "hostile attribution bias" which leads
people to interpret the actions of others (whether they be hostile or not) as
purposefully hostile and aggressive towards them. This often leads to an
impulsive and aggressive reaction. Hostile attribution bias however, can
appear at any age during development and often lasts throughout a persons
life.

Children resulting from unintended pregnancies are more likely to exhibit

delinquent behavior. They also have lower mother-child relationship quality.

Crime Theories Applicable to Juvenile Delinquency:

There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not
all of are applicable to the causes of juvenile delinquency.

Rational choice
Classical criminology stresses that causes of crime lie within the individual
offender, rather than in their external environment. For classicists, offenders
are motivated by rational self-interest, and the importance of free will and
personal responsibility is emphasized. Rational choice theory is the clearest
example of this idea. Delinquency is one of the major factors motivated by
rational choice.

Social disorganization
Current positivist approaches generally focus on the culture. A type of
criminological theory attributing variation in crime and delinquency over
time and among territories to the absence or breakdown of communal
institutions (e.g. family, school, church and social groups.) and communal
relationships that traditionally encouraged cooperative relationships among
people.

Strain
Strain theory is associated mainly with the work of Robert Merton. He felt
that there are institutionalized paths to success in society. Strain theory
holds that crime is caused by the difficulty those in poverty have in achieving
socially valued goals by legitimate means. As those with, for instance, poor
educational attainment have difficulty achieving wealth and status by
securing well paid employment, they are more likely to use criminal means
to obtain these goals. Merton's suggests five adaptations to this dilemma:

Innovation: individuals who accept socially approved goals, but not

necessarily the socially approved means.
Retreatism: those who reject socially approved goals and the means for
acquiring them.
Ritualism: those who buy into a system of socially approved means, but lose
sight of the goals. Merton believed that drug users are in this category.
Conformity: those who conform to the system's means and goals.
Rebellion: people who negate socially approved goals and means by creating
a new system of acceptable goals and means.
A difficulty with strain theory is that it does not explore why children of lowincome families would have poor educational attainment in the first place.
More importantly is the fact that much youth crime does not have an
economic motivation. Strain theory fails to explain violent crime, the type of
youth crime which causes most anxiety to the public.

Differential association

The theory of Differential association also deals with young people in a group
context, and looks at how peer pressure and the existence of gangs could
lead them into crime. It suggests young people are motivated to commit
crimes by delinquent peers, and learn criminal skills from them. The
diminished influence of peers after men marry has also been cited as a factor
in desisting from offending. There is strong evidence that young people with
criminal friends are more likely to commit crimes themselves. However it
may be the case that offenders prefer to associate with one another, rather
than delinquent peers causing someone to start offending. Furthermore there
is the question of how the delinquent peer group became delinquent initially.

Labeling
Labeling theory is a concept within Criminology that aims to explain deviant
behavior from the social context rather than looking at the individual
themselves. It is part of Interactionism criminology that states that once
young people have been labeled as criminal they are more likely to offend.
The idea is that once labelled as deviant a young person may accept that
role, and be more likely to associate with others who have been similarly
labelled. Labelling theorists say that male children from poor families are
more likely to be labelled deviant, and that this may partially explain why
there are more working class young male offenders.

Social control
Social control theory proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and
social learning builds self-control and can reduce the inclination to indulge in
behavior recognized as antisocial. The four types of control can help prevent
juvenile delinquency are:

Direct: by which punishment is threatened or applied for wrongful behavior,

and compliance is rewarded by parents, family, and authority figures.
Internal: by which a youth refrains from delinquency through the conscience
or superego. Indirect: by identification with those who influence behavior,
say because his or her delinquent act might cause pain and disappointment
to parents and others with whom he or she has close relationships. Control
through needs satisfaction, i.e. if all an individual's needs are met, there is
no point in criminal activity.

Juvenile delinquents diagnosed with mental/conduct disorders

Juvenile delinquents are often diagnosed different disorders. Around six to
sixteen percent of male teens and two to nine percent of female teens have
a conduct disorder. These can vary from oppositional-defiant disorder, which
is not necessarily aggressive, to antisocial personality disorder, often
diagnosed among psychopaths. A conduct disorder can develop during
childhood and then manifest itself during adolescence.

Juvenile delinquents who have recurring encounters with the criminal justice
system, or in other words those who are life-course-persistent offenders, are
sometimes diagnosed with conduct disorders because they show a
continuous disregard for their own and others safety and/or property. Once
the juvenile continues to exhibit the same behavioral patterns and turns
eighteen he is then at risk of being diagnosed with antisocial personality
disorder and much more prone to become a serious criminal offender. One of
the main components used in diagnosing an adult with antisocial personality
disorder consists of presenting documented history of conduct disorder
before the age of 15. These two personality disorders are analogous in their
erratic and aggressive behavior. This is why habitual juvenile offenders
diagnosed with conduct disorder are likely to exhibit signs of antisocial
personality disorder early in life and then as they mature. Sometimes these
juveniles reach maturation and they develop into career criminals, or lifecourse-persistent offenders. "Career criminals begin committing antisocial
behavior before entering grade school and are versatile in that they engage
in an array of destructive behaviors, offend at exceedingly high rates, and
are less likely to quit committing crime as they age."

Quantitative research was completed on 9,945 juvenile male offenders

between the ages of 10 and 18 in the 1970s. [Where?] The longitudinal birth
cohort was used to examine a trend among a small percentage of career
criminals who accounted for the largest percentage of crime activity. The
trend exhibited a new phenomenon amongst habitual offenders. The
phenomenon indicated that only 6% of the youth qualified under their
definition of a habitual offender (known today as life-course persistent
offenders, or career criminals) and yet were responsible for 52% of the
delinquency within the entire study. The same 6% of chronic offenders
accounted for 71% of the murders and 69% of the aggravated assaults.[28]
This phenomenon was later researched among an adult population in 1977
and resulted in similar findings. S.A. Mednick did a birth cohort of 30,000
males and found that 1% of the males were responsible for more than half of

the criminal activity. The habitual crime behavior found amongst juveniles is
similar to that of adults. As stated before most life-course persistent
offenders begin exhibiting antisocial, violent, and/or delinquent behavior,
prior to adolescence. Therefore, while there is a high rate of juvenile
delinquency, it is the small percentage of life-course persistent, career
criminals that are responsible for most of the violent crimes.

Prevention
Delinquency prevention is the broad term for all efforts aimed at preventing
youth from becoming involved in criminal, or other antisocial, activity.

Because the development of delinquency in youth is influenced by numerous

factors, prevention efforts need to be comprehensive in scope. Prevention
services may include activities such as substance abuse education and
treatment, family counseling, youth mentoring, parenting education,
educational support, and youth sheltering. Increasing availability and use of
family planning services, including education and contraceptives helps to
reduce unintended pregnancy and unwanted births, which are risk factors for
delinquency.

It has been noted that often interventions may leave at-risk children worse
off than if there had never been an intervention. This is due primarily to the
fact that placing large groups of at risk children together only propagates
delinquent or violent behavior. "Bad" teens get together to talk about the
"bad" things they've done, and it is received by their peers in a positive
reinforcing light, promoting the behavior among them. As mentioned before,
peer groups, particularly an association with antisocial peer groups, is one of
the biggest predictors of delinquency, and of life-course-persistent
delinquency. The most efficient interventions are those that not only
separate at-risk teens from anti-social peers, and place them instead with
pro-social ones, but also simultaneously improve their home environment by
training parents with appropriate parenting styles, parenting style being the
other large predictor of juvenile delinquency.

Critique of risk factor research

Two UK academics, Stephen Case and Kevin Haines, among others, criticized
risk factor research in their academic papers and a comprehensive polemic
text, Understanding Youth Offending: Risk Factor Research, Policy and
Practice.

The robustness and validity of much risk factor research is criticized for:

Reductionism - e.g. over-simplifying complex experiences and

circumstances by converting them to simple quantities, relying on a
psychosocial focus whilst neglecting potential socio-structural and
political influences;

Determinism - e.g. characterizing young people as passive victims of

risk experiences with no ability to construct, negotiate or resist risk;

-Imputation - e.g. assuming that risk factors and definitions of

offending are homogenous across countries and cultures, assuming
that statistical correlations between risk factors and offending actually
represent causal relationships, assuming that risk factors apply to
individuals 3on the basis of aggregated date.

Juvenile sex crimes

The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with USA and do
not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article
and discuss the issue on the talk page. (July 2010)
Juveniles who commit sexual crimes refer to individuals adjudicated in a
criminal court for a sexual crime. Sex crimes are defined as sexually abusive
behavior committed by a person under the age of 18 that is perpetrated
against the victims will, without consent, and in an aggressive, exploitative,
manipulative, or threatening manner. It is important to utilize appropriate
terminology for juvenile sex offenders. Harsh and inappropriate expressions
include terms such as pedophile, child molester, predator, perpetrator, and
mini-perp These terms have often been associated with this group,
regardless of the youths age, diagnosis, cognitive abilities, or developmental
stage. Using appropriate expressions can facilitate a more accurate depiction
of juvenile sex offenders and may decrease the subsequent aversive
psychological effects from using such labels. In the Arab Gulf states [sic],
homosexual acts are classified as an offense, and constitute one of the
primary crimes for which juvenile males are charged.

Prevalence data
Examining prevalence data and the characteristics of juvenile sex offenders
is a fundamental component to obtain a precise understanding of this
heterogeneous group. With mandatory reporting laws in place, it became a
necessity for providers to report any incidents of disclosed sexual abuse.
Longo and Prescott indicate that juveniles commit approximately 30-60% of
all child sexual abuse. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime
Reports indicate that in 2008 youth under the age of 18 accounted for 16.7%
of forcible rapes and 20.61% of other sexual offenses. Center for Sex
Offender Management indicates that approximately one-fifth of all rapes and
one-half of all sexual child molestation can be accounted for by juveniles.

Official record data

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention indicates that 15%
of juvenile arrests occurred for rape in 2006, and 12% were clearance
(resolved by an arrest). The total number of juvenile arrests in 2006 for
forcible rape was 3,610 with 2% being female and 36% being under the age
of 15 years old.This trend has declined throughout the years with forcible
rape from 19972006 being 30% and from 2005-2006 being 10%. The
OJJDP reports that the juvenile arrest rate for forcible rape increased from the
early 1980s through the 1990s and at that time it fell again. All types of
crime rates fell in the 1990s. [Citation needed] The OJJDP also reported that
the total number of juvenile arrests in 2006 for sex offenses (other than
forcible rape) was 15,900 with 10% being female and 47% being under the
age of 15. There was again a decrease with the trend throughout the years
with sex offenses from 19972006 being 16% and from 2005-2006 being
9%.

Males who commit sexual crimes

Barbaree and Marshall indicate that juvenile males contribute to the majority
of sex crimes, with 24% of adolescent males having reported committing

sexually assaultive behavior, and 20% of all rapes and 3050% of all child
molestation are perpetrated by adolescent males. It is clear that males are
over-represented in this population. This is consistent with Ryan and Lanes
research indicating that males account for 91-93% of the reported juvenile
sex offenses. Righthand and Welch reported that females account for an
estimated 211% of incidents of sexual offending. In addition, it reported by
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that in the juvenile
arrests during 2006, African American male youth were disproportionately
arrested (34%) for forcible rape.

Conclusion

The development of a sound public policy regarding all aspects of

delinquency prevention and control needs both planning and
evaluation by rigorous research methods. This requires
coordination between government agencies (like social welfare
department), educational institutions, police, judiciary, social workers, and
voluntary organizations.

Bibliography

www.wikipedia.org
www.britanica.in/articlesonjuveniledeliquents
www.thehindu/coverstoryonirbhayacase.in
www.indianexpress/coverstoryonjuveniles.in
www.preservearticles.in
Referred article on Sakthi Mills Case
Referred article on Umamaheshwari Case