Paper Example on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency

Introduction

Social problems are defined as social issues which have been perceived negatively by the society as they prevent the community from attaining optimal performance. The social problem begins as a claim with the society making efforts to correct a condition that the group or part of the group judges and perceives undesirable and offensive. After forming the complaint, the grievances of the claim are pressed continuously, and the claim gains more extensive attention and support. Modern industrialization and urbanization have led to one of the most severe concerns in our societies today. Juvenile delinquency has been attracted a massive amount of attention because of its numerous causes and impacts. Juvenile delinquency can get caused by domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, economic instability, parenting malnutrition, broken homes or any other family influences. Other influences could be social influences like the neighborhood, peer pressure, and influences at school.

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Claim and Claims-makers

Juvenile crime is currently one of the most vital concerns in the states. The federal and local governments have been paying lots of attention lately into the matter, and it has been noticed by the public as well. Juvenile violence, which can be dated to have begun at around the 1980s and reached the peak in the 1990's, has drastically been increasing in the recent years thus the alarm. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) in the Department of Justice of the United States recorded 1906600 arrests involving juveniles at the age of 10 to 18 years. The numbers are more shocking when compared to the total population of teens around that age in the country which is 32655677 adolescents. This data is according to the data provided in the year 2009. The high number of arrest due to crimes committed by adolescents increases the concern on the juvenile delinquency as a social problem. The community is therefore tasked with the role of providing adequate programs to prevent and rehabilitate the youths and the delinquents. However, it is a concern whether these corrections by the adults are helping in improving the situation caused by juvenile offenders. The question remains, do this correction and rehabilitation reduce the level of crime?

In recent years, a more significant number of teens, 20 years and younger, have been arrested than in the past. Studies and claims made by different scholarly claims-makers have shown different perspectives from this observation. Some have claimed that the increase is as a result of more aggressive criminal justice department and policies aiming at zero-tolerance of illegal activities. On the other hand, the changing behavior of youths has been attributed to the increasing number of juvenile arrests. These crimes are spread all over across the board from status offenses to violent crimes and property crimes. However, statistics have shown that most of the juvenile offenses observed are not violent. Therefore this offensive character can be classified as the typical change of behavior of the adolescents as they advance in age from teenagehood to adulthood. In classification, there are several forms of adolescent offenders. According to research by Moffitt and Terrie (2006), some teens do acts of vandalism or criminalist acts repeatedly and are known as the life-course-persistent offender (Moffitt & Terrie). Their behavior is portrayed to be antisocial and sometimes aggressive. This is majorly observed in their adolescent stages and for some, even in childhood. These characters are most likely to turn into adult criminals when they grow up. The other group of adolescents is the adolescence-limited offender (Moffitt & Terrie). These characters are observed to have age limits in acts of juvenile delinquency. These acts are mostly seen during the adolescent stages. Studies have shown that people are more active and curious during their teenage steps than any other stage in life. Most of the crimes committed as seen before are status offenses like underage smoking or drinking, abuse of drugs and substance and any other offense that does not involve criminal acts or property damage but can still be deemed delinquent. As a result, it creates concern in the view of the public when studies make such claims raisin a fears to observe, identify and prevent these traits spilling over into the adult lives of the children (Cicourel) However in as much as adolescent-limited offenders tend to set aside their criminal activities once they become adults and still show less pathology when compared to the life-course-persistent, they still manifest more substance abuse, mental health, and financial problems than the non-delinquent ones.

Therefore, to handle this matter to the utmost best, it is required that more concern is put on the factors that affect the emergence and development of the offending character and behaviors among the adolescents. These factors ranger from the individual elements to the social factors which of course involves the influence they get from their families. A look into these influences will create an objective view on how to tackle juvenile crimes with the juvenile justice systems already in place.

Media and Public Reaction to Claim

A study was conducted in Barbados, Dominica, and St. Lucia by United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), sought to determine several public perceptions regarding juvenile justice and delinquency. They wanted to determine the nature and level of the offenses, the causes, proposed management programs, their efficacy, their awareness and the role played by the social institutions in reducing the level of juvenile criminals. The responses received indicated a prevalence of minor offenses in all the three countries. Barbados recorded a 44% of juvenile crimes, 53% in Dominica and 54% in St. Lucia. The incidents, when analyzed by gender, male adolescents were seen to have a large number than females. In Barbados, there was a 40% involvement of males, and 19% of the women, in Dominica, there were 53% males and 18% of females and in St. Lucia there was 50% males and 18% of women. This is an indicator already that the male adolescents are more endangered by criminal activities than the female adolescents. These numbers observed in the three nations are only a reflection of whatever is happening everywhere around the world.

The effect of delinquency does not affect the individuals only but also impacts the families and the neighborhoods. The individual teenager or young adult loses their freedom through probations and incarcerations placed upon them. The first effect is observed in their loss of ground in academics since a majority of them are still under primary education level. Therefore, since their education is at risk of stopping at this stage, they lose their opportunity of getting a higher education. This situation gets worse when they get paced in detention centers. The juvenile becomes acquainted with fellow offenders and is usually at risk of being influenced to get into cases recidivism in the future (Moore, Sara & Anne). Families, on the other hand, get disrupted due to the trauma of having their family members involved in such criminal activities. The family is left to deal with ethical issues whereas the parents are gone with more responsibilities and get faced with an extra liability thus increasing their level of economic hardships. The neighborhoods are left unsafe since all these offensive activities are carried out in the streets of the residential areas. Use of drugs and substance, involvement in gang activities, vandalism and any other activity that correlates with acts of delinquency, they all pose a threat to the security and the wellbeing of the peace and coexistence of the neighborhood.

In the research carried out by UNICEF in Barbados, Dominica, and St. Lucia the respondents gave a variety of social ills that have contributed towards the prevalence of the juvenile crimes and offenses. The research involved 500 respondents in each country which were either interviewed in a face to face session or provided with questionnaires to fill. The responses brought to light some social ills. First and foremost was drug abuse; the participants in all these nations indicated drug and substance abuse to be one of the most vital factors. When the teens are left alone, they get influenced by drugs as a means of gaining status and attention among their peers as well earn some money. Another factor is family troubles; children expect to achieve useful and positive examples from the morals taught to them at home by their parents. With broken fam...