Juvenile delinquency refers to the indulgence of criminal activity at a young age (below 18 years in the United States). Since minors are not as mature as adults, they are prone to make mistakes, commit crimes and engage in impulsive risky activities. Studies have shown various reasons for juvenile delinquency including psychological issues, coming from a broken family, social training, and being victims of violence. The reasons for teenagers to engage in criminal behavior ranges from upbringing (nurture) to biological factors (nature) (World Youth Report, 2013). This argumentative essay posits that adolescents commit crimes because of environmental factors and not because their biology predisposes them to be criminals.
Charles Beccaria in his1977 book “On Crimes and Punishment” stipulates that there are three reasons people become criminals. The first category of criminals becomes criminals because of environmental factors (nurture and upbringing). These criminals have been exposed to unfavorable conditions in their lives such as violence and poverty and turn to criminal behavior as a coping mechanism. The second category of criminals turns to a life of crime because they were predestined to become criminals. In this category, the criminals were biologically predisposed to become criminals. They may have a physical or mental condition such as psychopathy or schizophrenia that makes their actions out of their control. The final approach to criminality shows that some people become delinquents because of rational choice. In this approach, people deliberately choose to commit a crime. The criminal weighs the pros and cons of committing a crime and acts logically without the involvement of nature or nurture. From Beccaria’s perspective, both nature and nurture can sway a youth to turn delinquent.
Ivlita Gogua, 2020, provides five causes of juvenile delinquency including family issues, violence, imitation, homelessness, and psychological issues. In family issues, she explains that children who grow up without a supportive family (indifferent parents) or in stable households have a high tendency of becoming delinquents. Under violence, she elaborates that often, juvenile delinquents are victims of violence. They may experience violence in school, in the family, or from friends and peers. They develop sociological issues, deter their communication skills, and become bullies to cope.
Gogua explains that some juveniles become criminals because someone they look up to is a criminal (imitation). During childhood, motives, values, and patterns of behavior are formed. In adolescence, they use what they learned during childhood to define their identity and to establish themselves in society. Therefore, if they grew up around crime (from family members or in their peers), they may decide to imitate it. Moreover, psychological factors such as depression, excessive aggression, complexes, and fears can push an adolescent into a life of crime. Finally, Gogua discusses homelessness as a contributing factor for delinquency. Children living in the street due to poor social or economic conditions may turn to hooliganism. Even though she points to psychological factors as causes of juvenile delinquency, most of the reasons in her study revolve around environmental factors.
Various methods have been recommended in criminology in the prevention of juvenile delinquency. Most scholars and law enforcers point to early intervention to assist children and their families before they turn delinquent. In the national database, various juvenile delinquency prevention components have been provided including model programs to educate parents on how to raise mentally, physically, and psychologically fit children, provision of after school recreational activities to keep children busy and reduce chances of criminal behavior, encouraging community involvement among teenagers such as joining church youth groups, boy scouts and volunteer work (www.youth.gov, 2021).
Additional strategies to reduce juvenile delinquency include increasing prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation to provide support to mothers in low-income families, provision of training programs for parent-child interaction, enforcement of prevention programs for bullying, implementation of juvenile delinquency prevention programs in the justice system to provide intervention assistance to youth who enter the system, and opening of the juvenile correctional facility that endeavor to restore and rehabilitate delinquent adolescents, using functional family therapy to avert repeat offenses.
Scare tactics that have been used for decades to scare the delinquents away from criminal behavior have been proven inefficient. Tactics such as “Scared Straight” and “Juvenile Boot Camp” as well as slogans such as “get tough on crime” show a violent solution to a violent victim. As explained earlier, often, juvenile delinquents are victims of violence, and therefore, using scare tactics is making them a victim again. As a result, better strategies were identified to support delinquents and rehabilitate them back into society as functional and law-abiding adults (Impact Law, 2021).
All the prevention tactics developed by the national agencies point to correcting the environment the teenagers are growing in and not altering their biology. The causes of juvenile delinquency to the prevention tactics prove that juvenile delinquency is a product of a broken society. Violence begets violence and love begets love. If children grow up in a society filled with care, are non-violent, and appreciative of everyone regardless of their differences, then they are more likely to be better functioning members of the society. Furthermore, children who grow up in households where they are showered with love, and appropriate parental guidance on what is wrong and right, will imitate these behaviors well into their adulthood. In conclusion, as much as in some cases biology can be a factor in juvenile delinquency, it is the environmental factors that determine how productive a person grows up to be in society.
Works Cited:
Beccaria, C. On Crimes and Punishment, 6th Ed. (1977). Trans. Henry Paolucci. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill.
Gogua, Ivlita. Juvenile Delinquency: Causes, Prevention and The Ways Of Rehabilitation. Penal Reform (2020). Web.
Juvenile delinquency. World Youth Report (2013). Web.
Juvenile delinquency prevention. Impact law: criminal law. (2021). Web.
Juvenile justice prevention and early detection. Youth topics. (2021). Web.