Articles Analysis Essay on Child Abuse and Juvenile Delinquency

Introduction

Child abuse has been and is still a topic of concern to the American society. It is because of the net outcomes where the child abuses are seen to lead to juvenile crimes as well as adulthood domestic violence. Thus, various researches have been conducted determine the level of relationship between the abuse of children and their involvement in crime at a later stage of their lives. There are diverse types of juvenile delinquency. In the paper, there are the article reviews of two articles with the conducted researches on the connection between juvenile delinquency and the domestic violence they receive and practice at later stages of their lives. The research studies in the two articles will focus on the sex, racial, age, and income to try and develop an understanding between these variables as well as their effects on juvenile crimes who tend to receive and experience domestic violence. From the two articles, indicated is that patterns of violence are formed in the children who have experienced child abuse when they are at a younger age.

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Further expounded in the articles are the effects of the abuse of children as well as its relationship to the perpetrators of domestic violence alongside bullying, which constitutes the patterns of violence from childhood to adulthood. The behaviors of children who have experienced domestic violence are influenced by their attitudes which have been wholly inclining towards violence. Furthermore, the research outcomes from the two articles indicate the exposure of children towards domestic violence is a great contributor towards their participation in the juvenile crimes as well as violence patterns which characterizes their domestic violence behaviors later in life. The articles also bring out a measure to combat the lives of crime in children through such steps as the formulation and implementation of programs which will prevent and treat the children who have suffered from mistreatment.

Child Maltreatment, Problem Behaviors, and Neighborhood Attainment. American Journal of Community Psychology

The article by (Chauhan, P., Schuck, A. M., & Widom, C. S. 2017) expounds on the research which was conducted to determine the relationship between the historical abuses of children and their tendencies later in life to live in risky neighborhoods. The study was conducted on a group of children who had experienced child abuses and neglect at their tender age. The number of the population of children studied was 908. They were ingeniously selected from diverse backgrounds and they composed of both the native Americans and the black Americans. The studied population also had variations in so far as age, gender, family income levels, and geographical distribution is concerned to raise the extent of validity and credibility of the research outcomes. The findings were thus empirical. The matched control population of children numbering to 667 was used against the ones whose behaviors had been impacted by the child abuses. Examined in the article is whether the problem behaviors such as the school problems, the prostitution activities, the homelessness tendencies, and the juvenile crimes such as alcoholic submergence, forced theft, bullying, neglect of responsibilities, and disrespectful trends in the young adulthood can be able to explain the link between the maltreatments received during childhood and the subsequent living in the high risk neighborhoods during the middle adulthood ages.

The problem behaviors for the research population at hand were assessed at a mean age of 29 years while the neighborhood characteristics of living in risky areas were assessed at a mean age of 40 years. The outcomes of the study showed that the maltreatment of children was linked to the living of such children in the less desirable and risky neighborhoods during the middle adulthood ages. The problem behaviors in the young adulthood had a direct relationship with the incidences of being maltreated during their childhood ages. It also dictated the events of living in the less desirable and risky neighborhoods during the middle adulthood ages. Moreover, there was the establishment of the relationship between the maltreatment of children and their tendencies to take part in the juvenile offenses. The maltreated children have high tendencies of getting to take part in crimes than those who have not been abused. It can thus be observed that maltreatment of children goes a long way in mainly impacting their behavioral characteristics till later in adulthood stages of life. They will be more likely to take part in criminal activities and even live in risky neighborhoods, as is evident from the research findings in the article.

Further, it came out that the maltreatment practices such as neglect and physical abuses are much more predictive than the maltreatment in the forms of emotional and sexual abuses. Also, the young children who have been maltreated beyond the adolescent stages have higher tendencies to take part in juvenile delinquency than those whose maltreatment do not extend beyond childhood. Lastly, the maltreatment of the children in the out of home placements are more severe hence they have higher likelihoods of taking part in juvenile crimes than those who are not maltreated away from home.

Gendered Pathways From Child Abuse to the Adult Crime Through Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors in Childhood and Adolescence

Exhausted in the article (Jung, H., Herrenkohl, T. I., Lee, J. O., et al.2017) are the differences in gender concerning the internalizing and externalizing pathways from the child abuse to the crime in adulthood were examined four categories of the extended study which was longitudinal. The research study was non-empirical. For the research population, the number of males was 186 while there were 170 females in the study. The modeling type used in the study was the multiple - group structural equation one. From the study, the results showed that the abuse of children was directly linked to the externalizing and internalizing behaviors during the elementary school years for both the female and male children. However, there were gender differences found in some aspects of the study. It came out that the internalizing behaviors were more likely to raise the adult crime rates for the females about their male counterparts. On the other hand, the externalizing behaviors were capable of increasing the risks of crime in adulthood for the males about their female counterparts.

Moreover, the internalizing behaviors among the male population tended to lessen their criminal risks during adulthood stages, while the externalizing behaviors were not related illegal activities of the females during the adulthood stages. The internalizing behaviors include the fearfulness, withdrawal and somatic symptoms while externalizing behaviors constitute the rules infringement, bullying, and vandalism. The findings thus showed the distinct pathways from the abuse of children up to the crimes of the males and females during their adulthood ages. They are therefore crucial for the formulation of the intervention and prevention strategies aimed at eradicating adulthood crimes.

References

Chauhan, P., Schuck, A. M., & Widom, C. S. (2017). Child maltreatment, problem behaviors, and neighborhood attainment. American journal of community psychology, 60(3-4), 555-567.

Jung, H., Herrenkohl, T. I., Lee, J. O., Hemphill, S. A., Heerde, J. A., & Skinner, M. L. (2017). Gendered pathways from child abuse to the adult crime through internalizing and externalizing behaviors in childhood and adolescence. Journal of interpersonal violence, 32(18), 2724-2750.