Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior younger than the statutory age of majority. These acts would be considered crimes if the individuals committing them were older. The term delinquent usually refers to juvenile delinquency, and is also generalised to refer to a young person who behaves an unacceptable way.Some scholars have found an increase in youth arrests and have concluded that this may reflect more aggressive criminal justice and zero-tolerance policies rather than changes in youth behavior. Youth violence rates in the United States have dropped to approximately 12% of peak rates in 1993, according to official U.S. government statistics, suggesting that most juvenile offending is non-violent. Many delinquent acts can be attributed to the environmental factors such as family behavior or peer influence. One contributing factor that has gained attention in recent years is the school-to-prison pipeline. According to Diverse Education, nearly 75% of states have built more jails and prisons than colleges. CNN also provides a diagram that shows that the cost per inmate is significantly higher in most states than the cost per student. This shows that taxpayers' dollars are going toward providing for prisoners rather than providing for the educational system and promoting the advancement of education. For every school built, the focus on punitive punishment has correlated with juvenile delinquency rates. Some have suggested shifting from zero-tolerance policies to restorative justice approaches. Juvenile detention centers, juvenile courts, and electronic monitoring are common structures of the juvenile legal system. Juvenile courts are in place to address offenses as civil rather than criminal cases in most instances. The frequency of use and structure of these courts in the United States varies by state. Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, individuals under 18 may be charged and treated as adults.
Overview Juvenile delinquency, or offending, is often separated into three categories:
delinquency, crimes committed by minors younger than the statutory age of majority, which are dealt with by the juvenile courts and justice system; criminal behavior, crimes dealt with by the criminal justice system; status offenses, offenses that are only classified as such because only a minor can commit them. One example of this is possession of alcohol by a minor. These offenses are also dealt with by the juvenile courts. 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.
Situational factors 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 environment 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.
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