Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR
The first time L.J. was sent to the juvenile detention center outside of Philadelphia, he’d been caught hanging out with friends in an abandoned building. After that, he went in and out of custody for minor offenses throughout his teenage years. Detention was a challenging place to grow up……..Continue reading…..
Source: NPR
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Currently, there is not an agency whose jurisdiction is tracking worldwide juvenile delinquency, but UNICEF estimates that over one million children are in some detention globally. Many countries do not keep records of the amount of delinquent or detained juveniles, but of the ones that do, the United States has the highest number of juvenile delinquency cases.
In the United States, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention compiles data concerning trends in juvenile delinquency. According to their most recent publication, 7 in 1,000 juveniles in the U.S. committed a serious crime in 2016. The U.S. Department of Justice defines a serious crime as one of the following eight offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape (legacy & revised), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny theft, and arson.
According to research compiled by James Howell in 2009, the juvenile arrest rate has been dropping consistently since its peak in 1994. Of the cases for juvenile delinquency that make it through the court system, probation is the most common consequence, and males account for over 70% of the caseloads. According to developmental research by Moffitt (2006), two types of offenders emerge in adolescence. The first is an age-specific offender, referred to as the adolescence-limited offender, for whom juvenile offending or delinquency begins and ends during their period of adolescence.
Moffitt argues that most teenagers tend to show some form of antisocial or delinquent behavior during adolescence; it is therefore essential to account for these behaviors in childhood to determine whether they will be adolescence-limited offenders or something more long-term. The other type of offender is the repeat offender, referred to as the life-course-persistent offender, who begins offending or showing antisocial/aggressive behavior in adolescence (or even in childhood) and continues into adulthood.
Most of the influencing factors for juvenile delinquency tend to be caused by a mix of both genetic and environmental factors. According to Laurence Steinberg’s book Adolescence, the two most significant predictors of juvenile delinquency are parenting style and peer group association. Additional factors that may lead a teenager into juvenile delinquency include poor or low socioeconomic status, poor school readiness/performance, and/or failure and peer rejection.
Delinquent activity, especially the involvement in youth gangs, may also be caused by a desire for protection against violence or financial hardship. Juvenile offenders can view delinquent activity as a means of gaining access to resources to protect against such threats. Research by Carrie Dabb indicates that even changes in the weather can increase the likelihood of children exhibiting deviant behavior.
Family factors that may have an influence on offending include: the level of parental supervision, the way parents discipline a child, parental conflict or separation, criminal activity by parents or siblings, parental abuse or neglect, and the quality of the parent-child relationship. As mentioned above, parenting style is not of the largest predictors of juvenile delinquency. There are 4 categories of parenting styles which describe the attitudes and behaviors that parents express while raising their children.
- Authoritative parenting is characterized by warmth and support in addition to discipline.
- Indulgent parenting is characterized by warmth and regard towards their children but lack structure and discipline.
- Authoritarian parenting is characterized by high discipline without the warmth thus leading to often hostile demeanor and harsh correction
- Neglectful parenting is both non responsive and non demanding. The child is not engaged either affectionately or disciplinary by the parent.
According to research done by Laura E. Berk, the style of parenting that would be most beneficial for a child, based on studies conducted by Diana Baumrind(1971) is the authoritative child-rearing style because it combines acceptance with discipline to render healthy development for the child. As concluded in Steinberg’s Adolescence, children brought up by single parents are more likely to live in poverty and engage in delinquent behavior than those who live with both parents.
However, according to research done by Graham and Bowling, 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. It was seen that when a child has low parental supervision they are much more likely to offend. Negative peer group association is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised.
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. Conflict between a child’s parents is also much more closely linked to offending than being raised by a lone parent. Adolescents with siblings who have committed crimes are more likely to be influenced by their siblings and become delinquent if the sibling is older, of the same sex/gender, and maintains a good relationship with the child.
Cases where a younger criminal sibling influences an older one are rare. An aggressive more hostile 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 influence each other. Children resulting from unintended pregnancies are more likely to exhibit delinquent behavior. They also have lower mother-child relationship quality.
A common contributor to juvenile delinquency rates is a phenomenon referred to as the school to prison pipeline. In recent years, school disciplinary measures have become increasingly policed. According to one study, 67% of high school students attend schools with police officers. This rise in police presence is often attributed to the implementation of zero tolerance policies. Based on the “broken windows” theory of criminology and the Gun-Free Schools Act, zero tolerance policies stress the use of specific, consistent, and harsh punishment to deal with in school infractions.
Often measures such as suspension or expulsion are assigned to students who deviant regardless of the reason or past disciplinary history. This use of punishment often has been linked with increasing high school drop out rates and future arrests. It was found in a 2018 study that students who received a suspension were less likely to graduate and more likely to be arrested or on probation. As stated in research by Matthew Theriot, the increased police presence in school and use of tougher punishment methods leads student actions to be criminalized and in turn referred to juvenile justice systems.
The Center on Youth Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice found that “for similar students attending similar schools, a single suspension or expulsion doubles the risk that a student will repeat a grade. Being retained a grade, especially while in middle or high school, is one of the strongest predictors of dropping out.In a national longitudinal study, it was reported that youth with a prior suspension were 68% more likely to dropout of school.
The school to prison pipeline disproportionately affects minority students. According to data compiled by the United States Government Accountability Office, 39% of students who received a suspension in the 2013–14 school year were Black, even though Black students accounted for only about 15% of public school students. This over-representation applied to both boys and girls of African descent. Compared to White students, Black students were expelled or suspended 3 times as frequently.
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