Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and Risk Factors
Juvenile delinquency is a reasonably common problem in today’s society. There are many factors, including socio-economic ones, that have a negative impact on criminal tendencies among teenagers. However, any crime has its patterns of existence, internally contradictory, associated with other social phenomena, which they often determine. The main problem with juvenile delinquency is that it is essential to understand why young people commit crimes to prevent it. Thus, establishing the causes and risk factors that lead to juvenile delinquency is a critical step toward reducing the number of crimes committed by adolescents.
Most often, among the main reasons for adolescents’ participation in criminal activities is the lack of proper education or problems in the relationship between parents and children. Mwangangi (2019) notes that the primary role of parents is to create a safe environment for the child, help them develop social skills, and build a system of life values. Accordingly, if parents do not play a proper part in shaping the child’s personality, the child will have patterns of behavior and responses to emerging situations that will seem acceptable to him by adolescence.
Moreover, most often it is the parents who shape the child’s belonging to a certain community. Living in a certain community also significantly affects the development of a child and the formation of his social capital. The formation of social capital in childhood “indirectly affects youth social adjustment” (Hoffmann & Dufur, 2018, p. 1540), and parents should take into account possible negative effects on the child and try to limit them. This is essential in disadvantaged areas where juvenile delinquency rates are high.
On the other hand, the parent’s excessive involvement in the child’s growing up can also have negative consequences. Authoritarian parents are also a risk factor that provokes a teenager’s participation in illegal activities. According to Baglivio et al. (2020) and Simmons et al. (2018), adolescents who were abused in childhood are more likely to be involved in illegal activities, due to the development of psychological characteristics, as a result of the trauma experienced. To the factors influencing crime, Baglivio et al. (2020) list “callousness/recalcitrant, detachment, and uncaring/unconscientiousness features” (p. 351). Thus, when analyzing the problems of juvenile delinquency, the psychological aspect is also of great importance.
It is essential to understand the influence of not only the psychological aspect but the whole personality of a teenager on the commission of a crime. Bobbio et al. (2020) identify a separate group of “individual risk factors” (p. 4), which include the psychological state of the adolescent, his level of self-control, as well as drug and alcohol use. The main problem with the adolescent psyche is that it is not mature yet; therefore, adolescents are “easily influenced by bad culture, driven by curiosity, tendency, and imitation” (Song et al., 2022, p. 9). In addition, most adolescents are rebellious, which also often becomes the cause of aggression and delinquency.
Moreover, problems with parenting or lack of proper parental attention are also at the level of children’s self-control. As Rufiatun (2021) argues, a child’s lack of or weak self-control can cause “weak self-defense of the child against negative environmental influences” (p. 198). As a result, the child is exposed to environmental risks, begins to abuse drugs and alcohol, and is more likely to commit an offense. It is crucial to consider this factor for adolescents living in criminal areas since they are more susceptible to negative influence.
Another important social factor is the relationship of a teenager with peers. According to Yao (2021), it is essential for a teenager to feel that they belong to a particular social group. Moreover, good peer relationships significantly influence the child’s future social interaction. However, it is essential to understand all possible interactions between peers. In the optimal case, established social networks among adolescents will contribute to developing their social skills. The lack of proper interaction with peers often leads to the appearance of psychological trauma and, as a result, the manifestation of aggression and the commission of crimes. However, there are also options in which the child, who gets into the society of peers with criminal experience, is influenced by them and participates in the commission of crimes.
Not the most minor causes of juvenile delinquency are socio-economic circumstances, including poor economic conditions in the family or lack of proper education. Rufiatun (2021) notes that “material disabilities and social inequalities will greatly affect children” (p. 200). The family’s low income and, as a result, the financial inability of parents to provide the child with the necessary things, in many cases, is a catalyst for juvenile delinquency. Furthermore, according to Gaerhart and Tucker (2021), racial discrimination also impacts juvenile delinquency. Families of racial or ethnic minorities often have low incomes and are forced to live in deprived areas. The forced formation of a criminal and potentially dangerous community around the child significantly affects its socialization and values formation.
Finally, many researchers speak of the lack of proper education as one of the common factors affecting juvenile delinquency. It is not only about school education but also, in many cases, the need for additional classes to develop the child’s social skills. While Van Der Stouwe et al. (2021), in the course of the analysis, found that social skills training practices have little or no effect in preventing recidivism or correcting behavior in the subjects. That is, using the education system to prevent crime among adolescents is a relatively ineffective method. However, it can still be a preventative tool for teenagers exposed to risk factors who have not yet committed crimes.
Thus, juvenile delinquency has many problems that must be addressed to prevent juvenile delinquency. One of the main problems is the difficulty in determining the causes and motives that push adolescents to illegal actions. All of the above reasons should be considered complex since it is often the influence of several factors at once that becomes a catalyst for juvenile delinquency. Moreover, identifying the causes of this phenomenon also helped to identify some omissions, particularly in the educational system, and outline vectors for solving the problem in the future.
References
Baglivio, M. T., Wolff, K. T., DeLisi, M., & Jackowski, K. (2020). The role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and psychopathic features on juvenile offending criminal careers to age 18. Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, 18(4), 337-364. Web.
Bobbio, A., Arbach, K., & Illescas, S. R. (2020). Juvenile delinquency risk factors: Individual, social, opportunity or all of these together? International journal of law, crime and justice, 62, 100388. Web.
Gaerhart M. C., & Tucker R. (2020). Criminogenic Risk, Criminogenic Need, Collective Efficacy, and Juvenile Delinquency. Criminal justice and behavior, 47(9), 1116-1135. Web.
Hoffmann, J. P., & Dufur, M. J. (2018). Family social capital, family social bonds, and juvenile delinquency. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(11), 1525-1544. Web.
Mwangangi, R. K. (2019). The role of family in dealing with juvenile delinquency. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7(3), 52-63. Web.
Rufiatun, I. (2021). Juvenile Delinquency Criminogenic Factor. IJCLS (Indonesian Journal of Criminal Law Studies), 6(2), 191-208. Web.
Simmons, C., Steinberg, L., Frick, P. J., & Cauffman, E. (2018). The differential influence of absent and harsh fathers on juvenile delinquency. Journal of adolescence, 62, 9-17. Web.
Song, F., Li, R., Wang, W., & Zhang, S. (2022). Psychological characteristics and health behavior for juvenile delinquency groups. Occupational therapy international, 2022. Web.
Van Der Stouwe, T., Gubbels, J., Castenmiller, Y. L., Van Der Zouwen, M., Asscher, J. J., Hoeve, M.,… & Stams, G. J. J. (2021). The effectiveness of social skills training (SST) for juvenile delinquents: a meta-analytical review. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 17(3), 369-396. Web.
Yao, F. (2021). Analysis on psychological and social causes of juvenile delinquency – A study based on grounded theory. The International Journal of Electrical Engineering & Education, 1-15. Web.