Juvenile Delinquency Week 1
Juvenile delinquency refers to the youth participation in criminal activities. Young people get drawn into doing unlawful things due to various reasons like peer pressure and poverty. Several criminologists suggest that criminal activities by youth are dependent on race, gender, and background or social class. There is some credibility to these claims if the relationship of each factor to youth crimes is analyzed.
Gender affects juvenile crimes in that, in most cases, the female youth are less likely to be involved in crime than male ones. A very small percentage of girls get involved in serious crimes. On the contrary, male youths are prone to be drawn into crime. Statistics show that over 70% of the juvenile crime cases involve male children. There is a correlation between gender and juvenile delinquency because male youth usually relate with many people. During these encounters with different kinds of people, most of them their peers, they might be convinced into crime. Female youth are not so much affected because, in society, the culture tends to lean towards proper upbringing of female children.
Social class is another major determinant of juvenile delinquency. Children from the well off, high social class, are brought up to be disciplined children, honest and trust worthy. They grow up in rich families where they are provided for all their needs. This makes them less prone to getting involved in crime than poor low class children. However, for the children who come from the low and poor class, they face hard living conditions as they grow. Most of them cannot afford good clothing and food. They are likely to be involved in crime because they will try to use unlawful means to get what they do not have.
Race could be a determinant in juvenile crime too. This is because, in the United States, the status quo is in a way that the whites are economically better off than Blacks. Usually, one reason why people get involved in crime is poverty. The whites have access to most of their needs so will less likely be involved in crime. The Blacks who live in poor conditions will be more likely victims of involvement in juvenile crime than those who live in well off families. However, this is not the case always because there are Black Americans who are well off, also whites who get involved in crime whether rich or poor. This is just a link between race and juvenile crime which is explained on the basis of economic capability.
Reference
Bartollars, & Miller. (2011). Juvenile Justice in America (6th Edition ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.
