Shaw in the first chapter of his “The Jack-Roller” has mentioned all the cases related to juvenile delinquency and has tried to emphasize the notion that our sociological customs are mainly responsible for thrusting our youth into delinquent behavior. The onus lies on the shoulders of our society, particularly parents, to analyze any hyperactivity or the antisocial tendency of conduct disorder among children. Delinquency is dependent upon the extent to which the fairness of an institution is judged and the inequalities it allows in society. The first criterion that evaluates such behavior among children questions us whether rights are equally distributed in the society and if distributed whether it is rational for the least-advantaged representative individuals of practice to accept its inequalities. If the situation that escorts children to adopt such behavior is improved while keeping in view the inequalities, then the practice may be considered fair, otherwise, it is only destroying our youth sociology.
Criminal behavior within children is identifiable in context with communities with high rates that tend to have social and economic characteristics that differentiate them from communities with low rates. Delinquency among boys is more common than girls and constitutes prevalence overall officially recorded offenses having its roots in the dynamic life of the community. Although the meaning of being delinquent leads us to think in diversified ways, the high degree of consistency in the association between delinquency and other characteristics of our society not only sustains the conclusion that delinquent behavior is related directly to the community but also raises the concern to establish that all social organizations of our society do not take measures to alleviate the ground root of juvenile delinquency.
Problem of Delinquency
Shaw has introduced the Juvenile problem effectively but has only emphasized one dimension of the root cause of the problem, the most significant aspect responsible for juvenile behavior among adults is not discussed, which is the role of parents in shaping their children’s personalities. Multitudes of parents are confronted by their child’s stealing, early sexual behavior, serious substance use, or prolonged depressed moods but the amazing thing is that parents never bother to analyze the main reasons behind such misconduct. At home, parents may see endless quarrels in which children and their siblings may become participants as well as victims resulting in the fear of parents that their child will not outgrow serious problem behavior and might become chronically delinquent, addicted to alcohol or drugs, or mentally unstable. On the other hand, the role of schools and institutions is also vital because, at school, children who are treated unfairly are the victims of ridicule, thwarted by students who disrupt academic courses and are themselves bully fellow students who simply do not hesitate to bring weapons into the school, or simply become chronically truant. Children rely heavily upon the supportive figures available to them during the after-school hours and at other times of the day. Because after-school arrangements often challenge and even stress children, particularly those that have left their homes it becomes essential to understand the supportive relationships that help them cope with their after-school situations. As in Case No. 1 we can see that stressful life experiences of a fourteen-year-old can lead to physical, emotional, and social problems for children, yet many children encountering even multiple and severe stresses escape disability.
The impact of delinquency is not limited to the family and school, instead, the impact of juveniles’ problem behavior is on the society as colossal where huge numbers of delinquent youth are incarcerated in detention centers and large numbers of youth with substance use and mental health problems are brought to detoxification centers and assessed and treated by mental health professionals. The dilemma is that we create juvenile delinquents under the shelter of injustice and misunderstanding, for which many youths damage their health by the consumption of harmful substances suffer from serious anxiety, depression, withdrawal, and commit suicide.
Another illuminating autobiography of delinquent kids suggests that situations are created around them so as to make them hyper and aggressive, as we see in case no. 1, that adolescents’ increasing demands for independence in these areas may clash with the interests of and protection offered by parents. Often parents and their children under such pressures disagree about the timing of children’s independence from their parents; to some extent, conflict around this theme can be considered normal. However, a minority of youth presses to become more independent at an earlier age which is considered to be a premature age, because of their life situations which they confront all alone.
Delinquent’s problem behaviors should not be seen as inevitable, as is evident from historic variations in the level of juvenile problem behavior that we feel necessary to document the extent of problem behaviors in current generations of youth, but take for granted the factors responsible for creating our children into delinquents. What we never consider as portrayed by Shaw is the accomplishment of studying developmental sequences of problems, thereby establishing continuity among behaviors over different periods of children’s lives. As a result, we are unable to identify the real causes and improvements which take place by identifying critical precursors that explain why some youth and not others engage in serious delinquency, substance use, or early sexual behavior or suffer from mental health problems. We remain unaware of what is going on around us so we lack all the knowledge and the extent of these problems that emerge due to the behavior changes of our youth which is significant to study for several reasons.
Delinquent’s own story is analyzed by Shaw in context with three significant features, first, delinquent’s personal opinion about his/her situation, second the social and cultural patterns that links with delinquent and third, the contribution of past experiences in making a child delinquent (Shaw, 1930, p. 3). We can also say that it is difficult to make interventions when we know that the extent of the problems and their course over time is unclear along with the possible threats and protective factors that apply to problem behaviors, and whether particular risk and protective factors can best explain some but not other problem behaviors, is essential for the formulation of theories that form the basis of interventions. A critical issue that raises the question in Case No. 1 of the study of child’s behavior is that was it the lack of knowledge of the mother that escorted the child to adopt misconduct and if so, why the social scenario never bothered and considered those factors that irritated the boy? In this case, it was the responsibility of the juvenile officer to investigate and classify the boy by discriminating him from other delinquents to be impaired in functioning because of his problem behavior and those who will not.
Case No. 2 reveals the issue of parental unawareness and reports multiple regression analyses to examine which explanatory variables best explain delinquency while controlling for other variables. Such co-relational analysis considers all variables as having potentially simultaneous effects, irrespective of whether they might directly or indirectly affect child behavior. Child behavior under such diverse variables as parenting practices, child characteristics, and neighborhood factors is influenced to possess an equal chance of being entered in the equation irrespective of whether they directly affect child behavior or mostly operate indirectly through other factors such as childrearing, which in turn might affect child behavior more directly. The awareness of the particular nature of childhood requires parents to observe their children closely because once children emerged from infancy and physical dependency, adults quickly integrate them into an intergenerational peer group of work, recreation, and communality.
Case No. 3 is the result of parental clashes, which have destroyed a child’s personality. The oppression of children is a normal mode of socialization and is related to both traditional and postmodern elements in a family organization. The family in this era is both the product of and foundation of industrial society and has demonstrated half industrial and half feudal social forms. The feudal component stressed family morality, hierarchical authority, division of labor by gender, strong sexual taboos regarding marriage and adult relations to children, and intergenerational deep connections. On the other hand industrial society triumphs, however, it promotes the dissolution of family morality; realigns the gender order; shakes off taboos relative to marriage, parenthood and sexuality; throws into disarray the maintenance of domesticity by women; and evacuates traditional roles that bind the generations. These combined structural elements act to undermine family authority, exacerbate intergenerational feuding, and throw children into limbo regarding interaction codes and conduct where violence and acting out are normal responses as a result.
Another aspect of the problem of delinquency addressed by Shaw is the lack of analysis of the social and cultural world in which the delinquent lives (Shaw, 1930, p. 7). He considers that no child is born with delinquent behavior, whatever he reacts to and presents himself is the face of the society, therefore no child can be understood apart from the cultural and social context in which he survives. It is the duty of the juvenile court to assess the personal documents of the delinquent to analyze better his traditions, customs, and moral standards of neighborhoods and institutions in which he lives because there is also a contribution of cultural factors to incorporate into the changing trends of the child.
Parental Oppression
Victimization of children shows parents as chief culprits in negligence and willful harm but this only presents the tip of the iceberg. Whereas birth families have a high likelihood of victimizing their own children, it is, perhaps, the failure of the various new forms of the nuclear family as indicated in case no. 1 (step-father or, blended families, high-turnover partnered families) and caregivers as well as various predatory others who can do serious harm to children that is the mark of our epoch. Oppressive practices are made possible because of cultural dependence on the nuclear family, where new forms of relations like stepmother or father reside in an isolated and fragmented structure in postmodern life, and also because of the lack of legal rights for children or youth. Besides family matters, other factors include mandatory school attendance, lack of job opportunities, and virtually total economic dependence, as well as the entire series of arbitrary and class or race-biased law enforcement practices all, constitute the modern child as a part victim and part survivor. We might also consider the modern child as a part hero in his or her capacity for learning how to negotiate the often convoluted and incomprehensible adult culture where Shaw lacks in-depth analysis of visualizing that oppression is neither uniform nor static, instead, it is a continuum that shifts over the different stages of development from infancy to preschooler to school-aged child, adolescent, and young adult.
Usually, it is seen that parental surrogating responds negatively to inherent characteristics of the child that involves biological deficiencies, disabilities, appearance, or temperament. Or, what law agencies claim is that parents may simply be overwhelmed with their own stories and miseries to provide the help needed at any particular developmental stage. Parental conflicts along with the environmental factors within the neighborhood, playgroup, and family also may expose the child to dangers that are out of parents’ control. Social inequality and discrimination are considered as the social factors behind delinquency that originate from the culture and larger society produce varying degrees of stress for children, especially those located at more-vulnerable points in the social structure.
Shaw has though to some extent highlighted the causal variables that produce crime and delinquency in a social environment but has not emphasized positive criminology that when combines with the progressive movement for children, produces a rehabilitative ideal that then notes changes in the behavior of children. Shaw has only discussed the negative aspect of the juvenile court’s proceedings because the cases illustrate that programs must be designed to identify the underlying causes of youthful misbehavior and provide the treatment necessary to prevent serious criminal behavior from happening in the future.
Children are the true reflection of a society and a society is a representation of children’s future. Our organizations must actively conduct social investments in young people’s human capital to constitute the long-term national infrastructure. Social responses with parental involvement and interest will create a promising future for all young people because it is the foremost responsibility of the parents to reduce their children’s mental and physical frustration by seeking help from other social organizations. Creating a promising future requires us to value and to desire for other people’s children the same opportunities and successes that we wish for our own.
References
Shaw R. Clifford, (1930) The Jack-Roller: A Delinquent Boy’s Own Story: The University of Chicago Press: Chicago.