Everyone is acquainted to the notion of a teenager. In the American culture, there is the concept of a teenager, which determines the socio-demographic group of people aging from 13 to 20 years. This period of life is quite difficult for the teenagers as they are tempted by the desire to commit forbidden things and even break the law. The reasons for this may be numerous as the social group of teenagers is a complicated notion that demands special attention both from the parents and the state government. Every year juvenile delinquency increases largely and there should be observed the reasons, justice system and some policies necessary to solve this global problem in order to save the society from the developing criminality.
Criminologists and sociologists state that the first feature of juvenile delinquency is the group nature of the crime. Anti-social type of a criminal teenage group is characterized by poor moral norms, values and attitudes. In such associations may be punks, hippies, metal workers, drug addicts and others. Although, a child in the family gets the necessary social protection and emotional attachment, but by growing up, this child tends to break the borders and rules, get freedom of action, and try, at the same time, to maintain a sense of security. Another feature of juvenile crime is its close relation to the adult criminal world. The third characteristic of juvenile crime is its aggressiveness, which is unmotivated in most cases. Aggression is a destructive behavior of an individual that struggles with the accepted rules and norms of the society and causes moral, physical, financial and psychological harm to others. The fourth characteristic feature of juvenile crime is related to the high dynamism. Today every tenth crime is committed by a teenager or young person. The fifth feature is the high level of the offense latency. It means that the crime is committed, but the law authorities are not aware of this. The sixth feature is characterized by uneven dynamics of different time indicators. Very often crimes are committed in free time. It should be noted that the most common time for criminal offenses is accounted for 9 p.m. Almost 7% of crimes are committed during the school classes when teenagers should be at school. Around 18-20% of committed crimes account for weekends and holidays (Saminsky, 2010).
Strekinaru states that the formation of the teenagers’ illegal behavior is primarily affected by: social factors. Family plays an important role in primary socialization. As a social institution whose main function is reproduction and upbringing of the new generation, the family creates an individual situation of interpersonal relations. The psychological climate in the family determines the development of a child. One of the powerful factors that destroy the family balance is related to the alcoholism. The material security always affects the family as limited material possibilities of the family do not allow them to fully satisfy their essential needs. Incomplete family often deprives a child of love, care and proper moral upbringing. Many adopted children commit crimes because of lack of family care. Quite often they move from family to family, change schools because of living place change and this is the reason for delinquency (The National Academies Press, 2001).
Nowadays teenagers possess a characteristic feature of poor intellectual activity. Technological progress aims at making their life easier, but at the same time, they develop a negative quality of laziness. Juveniles tend to constantly receive information in an easy way, and this process, unfortunately, requires no critical intellectual activity. Teenagers spend a great deal of time on empty talks in the socials, surfing for hours the Internet, capture popular music that leads to the society degradation. As a result, boring life makes teenagers to look for bright moments and sharp impressions, and this often causes them to commit crimes (The National Academies Press, 2001).
Another important point deserving attention is racial and ethnical discrimination of young people in the society they live that influences badly the teenagers who sharply react on disrespectful attitude towards them. Many criminologists believe that race is the main determining factor in the criminal justice data (Walker, 2012, p. 13).
It is important to notice that there exists a separate juvenile justice system with special treatment of juveniles. The proceedings in juvenile crimes are carried out by specialized courts of different modifications. Proceedings in juvenile courts are characterized by lower level of formality. The range of penalties for juveniles is narrower than that one in the criminal courts for adults. These facts are presupposed by the official justice documents. Still, practical data proves that juveniles face cruelty, especially in jails. This approach has its own supporters who argue that as long as the offenders are in jail, they are not dangerous to society. According to this the level of juvenile delinquency must decrease, but in fact, it does not (Champion, 2013, p. 20).
The prevention of juvenile delinquency belongs to a great degree to procedural court activities engaged in proceedings criminal matters. Effective legal measures that the courts use may actually contribute to the prevention of committing new crimes and correction of juvenile behavior. The courts must ensure the protection of the constitutional rights and freedoms of the country as a juvenile defendant. Juvenile justice should be a part of the national development of each country. Therefore, the courts should take into account the requirements of international regulations, including those relating to the administration of justice for juveniles (, 2013, p. 25).
Quite often teenagers happen to be imprisoned in the jails for adult criminals. There they often become victims of sexual abuse committed by adult prisoners and not only by them. Young offenders in adult prisons do not have access to education. Besides, they are treated like adults. At the same time, they know absolutely nothing about their rights. Recent research proves that very often teenagers are imprisoned in adult jails not because of the severity of the crime that, in fact, could consist in minor theft, public disorder or drug crime. The judges' decisions can be influenced by different prejudices, including racism. For example, in Chicago only one teenager 257 juveniles subjected to adult penalties was white (Champion, 2013, p. 27).
The danger for the society consists in the fact that neither before the release from a prison, nor after it the teens are deprived of passing any rehabilitation programs in order to help them reintegrate into the society. One should bear in mind that juvenile psychic is very weak and has the unique ability to be deformed under various circumstances both positive and negative ones. Due to the underdevelopment of consciousness teenagers are more likely to commit rash acts leading to problems with law, but because of the flexibility they have a better chance to overcome these errors and rehabilitate.
In order to stabilize juvenile psychic, the government should work out certain policies that can help teenage offenders to rehabilitate and function as a part of the society. It is necessary to increase control over the activity of the police officers because the police inspectors are fully responsible for the state of public order including the level of crime.
It should be noted that the implementation of measures that prevent juvenile delinquency is related a great deal to the efficiency of the activities of social organizations. They are created on the basis of administrative principle, namely on the background of social or educational institutions that have an opportunity to take care of the juvenile criminals (The National Academies Press, 2001).
The level of juvenile crime is positively influenced by the implementation of daily patrolling of the police officers together with the members of social communities for the purpose of communicating with the public and identifying those who commit or are likely to commit crimes, explaining to the public the legal consequences of the criminal actions and prevent the society from such phenomenon. The aim of these measures is to attract public cooperation with the police regardless of age and ability, professional, religious, racial, property and social status, their involvement in active opposition to anti-social manifestations and establish contacts with the police for their immediate response to information about crimes (The National Academies Press, 2001).
Practical results are provided by such a form of interaction with the public as "hotlines" that strengthens ties between the police and the. Thanks to the "hot lines" citizens are able at any time, even anonymously, to report about the facts of illegal behavior of their neighbors, family members or other citizens.
Collaboration with educational institutions is of great importance and shall be expressed in the form of lectures, discussions aiming at clarifying legislation on juvenile crimes, raising legal awareness of students, training them in order to respect the human rights and freedom, forming ideas about their role in the society fighting against crime and other illegal and antisocial phenomena.
Teenage delinquency is a tragic phenomenon for the nowadays world. Juvenile offenders receive their punishment in courts and jails, but the worse punishment consists in prevent the causes and consequences of their deviant behavior. The cause of juvenile crime often concerns inadequate care of parents or its absolute absence. The overall decline in quality of life, distress of families who lose income, the loss of moral values, lack of normal living conditions lead to the fact that children, trying to live like everyone else, desire to achieve this through thefts and other crimes. One important method of preventing juvenile crime consists in individual work with parents and children. Correct social, jurisdictional and psychological activity will give positive results in reducing the number of juvenile delinquency cases. In practice, there are many cases when teenage offenders have organized their life, eventually having created a family. Although this process of preventing juvenile crime is not easy, it is worth implementing all possible programs in order to save society.
References
Champion, D. J., Merlo, A. V.. Benekos, P, J. (2013). The Juvenile Justice System - Delinquency, Processing, and the Law. NJ: Pearson, Upper Saddle River. Print.
Saminsky, A. (2010). Preventing Juvenile Delinquency: Early Intervention and Comprehensiveness as Critical Factors. Web. 28 Mar. 2016. Retrieved from:
http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/165/preventing-juvenile-delinquency-early-intervention-and-comprehensiveness-as-critical-factors
The National Academies Press, (2001). The Juvenile Justice System. Web. 11 Jan. 2016. Retrieved from:
http://www.nap.edu/read/9747/chapter/7
Walker, S., Spohn, C. and Delone, M. (2012). The Color of Justice: Race, Ethnicity, and Crime in
America. CA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Print.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/08/18/politics/women-graduate-army-ranger-course/
