Saint Joseph College

CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND JUVENILE
JUSTICE SYSTEM

CHAPTER 1.
Juvenile Delinquency Overview

LESSON 1. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Lesson Outcomes:
1. Determine what Juvenile Delinquency is.
2. Determine factors promoting juvenile delinquency.

“The State recognizes the vital role of the youth in nation building and shall
promote and protect their physical, moral, spiritual, intellectual and social well-being. It
shall inculcate in the youth patriotism and nationalism, and encourage their involvement
in public and civic affairs. (Article II, Section 13, Phil. Constitution)”.

The context of the fundamental law has clearly stated the indispensable role of
the youth towards a healthier development of the country. The 1897 Constitutional
commission however put an intense care and value to the hopes of our fatherland
commanding the state to shield the interest of young men and not to consent them in
becoming a menace of the society.

What is Juvenile Delinquency?

Juvenile delinquency refers to the criminal acts performed by juveniles. Most
legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile
detention centers. Youth crime is an aspect of crime which receives great attention form
news media and politicians.

Who is a Delinquent?
A juvenile delinquent is one who repeatedly commits crime; however these
juveniles could most have mental disorders/behavioral issues such as schizophrenia,
post-traumatic stress disorder or bipolar disorder.

What is Deviant Behavior?

 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
Deviant behavior refers to a behavior that does not conform to norms. These are
behaviors that in some ways do not meet with the expectations of a group or of a
society as a whole. Although this may sound to be simple description of what deviant
behavior is, understanding what could constitute specific types of deviant behavior
faces many problems and ambiguities. It is therefore important to consider which are
complex and may be complicated to understand. The following may help us understand
our consideration of what deviant behavior is:

1. In terms of Time
The meaning of deviance changes through the years. For example, it as socially
unacceptable to see girls drinking beer or teenagers and women smoking, all these are
not heavily considered as deviant behaviors.

2. Terms of Place or Geography

Being deviant varies according to geographic area. Open prostitution as an
example is deviant in the Philippines but not in some countries. Some countries have
open “red light districts” where customers can have their choices.

Juvenile Delinquency as Male Phenomenon

Youth crime is disproportionately committed by young men. Feminist therorist
and others have examined why this is the case. One suggestion is the ideas of
masculinity make young men more likely to offend. Being tough, powerful, aggressive,
daring and competitive may be a way of young men expressing their masculinity. Acting
out these ideals may make young men more likely to engage in antisocial behavior.
As well as biological or psychological factors, the way young men are treated by
their parents may make them more susceptible to offending. Adolescent males who
possess a certain type of variation in a specific gene are more likely to flock to
delinquent peers.

Risk Factors
1. Individual Risk Factors
Individual psychological or behavioral risk factors that may make offending more
likely include intelligence, impulsiveness or the inability to delay gratification, aggression
, empathy and restlessness. Children with low intelligence are likely to do worse in
school. This may increase the chances of offending because low educational
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
attainment, a low attachment to school, and low educational aspirations are all risk
factors for offending in themselves. Children who perform poorly at school are also likely
to taunt, which is also linked to offending.
Impulsiveness is seen by some as the key aspect of child’s personality that
predicts offending. However, it is not velar whether these aspects of personality are a
result of deficits in the executive functions of the brain or a result of parental influences
or other social factors.
2. Family Environment
“One reason there are so many juvenile delinquents today is that their parents
didn’t burn their britches behind them.”

Children brought up by lone parents are more likely to start offending than those
who live with two natural parents. Conflict between a child’s parents is also much more
closely linked to offending than being raised by a lone parent. If a child has low parental
supervision they are much likely to offend.

Family factor; its influence in offending child includes the following:

a. the level of parental supervision
b. parental conflict or separation
c. parental abuse or neglect
d. the way parents discipline a child
e. criminal parents or siblings
f. the quality of relationship
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 1. ACTIVITY NO.1

Give an actual scenario/example instances related to the following concepts.

1. Deviant behavior in terms of time.

2. Deviant behavior in terms of place of geography.
3. Individual risk factors amounting to juvenile delinquency.
4. Family environment factors amounting to juvenile delinquency.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 1. ACTIVITY NO.2

Draw your own concept of Juvenile Delinquency and factors promoting Juvenile
Delinquency.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 2. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY AND
JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM

Lesson Outcomes:
At the end of this lesson, you should able to understand the history of Juvenile
Delinquency and Juvenile Justice System

Code of Hammurabi

The first comprehensive description of a system used by the society to regulate

to regulate behavior and at the same time punish those who disobeyed the rules. The
main principle of this Code was that: “the strong shall not injure the weak”. It established
a social order based on individual rights. It is the origin of the legal principle of lex
talionis, that is, an eye for an eye. In 1641 the general court of Massachusetts passed
the. Stubborn Child Law, which stated that children who disobeyed their parents could
be put to death. Stubborn child law was based on the Puritans belief that
unacknowledged social evils would bring wrath of God down upon the entire colony.
The Puritans believed that they had no choice but to respond to juvenile misbehavior in
a strict and calculated way, on the other hand, puritans believed children were born
sinful and should submit to adult authority and hard labor. In 1646 the Virginia General
Assembly passed a law to prevent “Sloth and Idleness”.

American Postcolonial Patterns of Delinquency

Once children had become special, new “Children Only” laws were passed.
There was an increasing demand on the state to take responsibility for improving the
lives of children and eventually new regulations such as child labor laws were enacted.

In 1916, US Congress passed the Keating-Owen Act, the first piece of child
labor in America. Though it was overturned after 2 years through the case if Hammer V.
Dagenhart, it did law the ground work for the passage in 1938 of the Fair labor
Standards Act. Moreover today every state has established its own child labor laws.

The middle in the 19th century also included child-saving movement. Concerned
citizens eventually formed a social activists group called Child Savers, who believed
that “children were born good and became bad”. Juvenile children were blamed on
bad environments. The best way to save children was to get them out of bad homes
and placed in good ones.

It was in the political climate that the doctrine Parens Patriae was created and it
became s significant influence on the development of juvenile justice which came from
the Feudal Period of England. Parens Patriae is the right and responsibility of the
government to take care of minors and others who cannot legally take care of
themselves.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte

In 1818 a committee reports listed “juvenile delinquency” as a major cause of

pauperism, the first public recognition of the term juvenile delinquency. In 1899 the
Illinois legislature passed a law establishing a juvenile court that became the
cornerstone for juvenile justice throughout the US. The first juvenile courts functioned as
administrative agencies of the circuit or district courts and were mandated as such by
legislative action. The vision of the child savers and the founders of the juvenile court
was to rehabilitative ideal of reforming children instead of punishing them. Probation,
according to the 1899 Illinois Juvenile Court Act was to have both an investigative and a
rehabilitative function.

In the first quarter of the 2oth century, the Progressives further developed the
medical model established by the Illinois Court Act, viewing crime as a disease that
could be treated and cured by social intervention.

The Historical and Philosophical Roots of the Juvenile Delinquency System are:
1. stressing the social contact
2. the prevention of crimes
3. the need to make any punishment fit the crime committed.

Four Ds of juvenile justice during the last half of the 20 th century are:
1. deinstitutionalization
2. diversion
3. due process
4. decriminalization

Although diversion was heralded by many, it also had some negative aspects.
Many youngsters who earlier would have been simply released were instead being
referred to the new system of diversionary programs that has sprung up. This process is
referred to as net of widening. Many of the diversionary programs is referred to as net
widening. Many of the diversionary programs dis achieve success.

Three factors that have been traced earlier as youth services programs are:
1. the police based nature of the program
2. the use of counseling in a law enforcement setting
3. the skills approach and treatment

House of Correction for Juvenile Delinquent

1. Bridewells – it was the first house of corrections in England. They confined both
children and adults considered to be idle and disorderly. As time progressed, conditions
in the Bridewells and other places of confinement became so deplorable that several
individuals demanded reform.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
2. Hospice of San Michele (Saint Michael) - this was established in 1704. John
Howard a reformer brought to England from Rome a model of the first institution for
treating juvenile offenders. He was often thought of as the father of prison reform.

3. House of Refuge – situated in New York in 1825. It was opened to house juvenile
delinquents who were defined in its charter as “youths convicted of criminal offenses or
found in vagrancy”. By the middle of the 19 th century many stated either built reform
schools emphasized formal schooling, but they also retained large workshops and
continued the contract system of labor.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 2. ACTIVITY NO.1

Why do you think we need to know the historical background of Juvenile

Delinquency and Juvenile Justice System? What is its relevance in the crime
prevention?
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 2. ACTIVITY NO. 2.

I. Identify the important features if the following:

1. Code of Hammurabi
2. American Postcolonial Patterns of Delinquency

II. Draw or Print out an example of the following:

1. Bridewells
2. Hospice of San Michele
3. House of Refuge
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 3. THEORIES OF CRIME AND DELINQUENCY

I. Supranational, Classical and Neoclassical Theories

1. Supranational Theory
Supranational theories blame delinquency on demonic possession. People
believed criminals were possessed by the evil.

2. Classical Theory
Classical School criminologist believed that people are rational, intelligent beings
who exercise free will or the ability to make choices. People calculate the costs and
benefit of their behavior before they act. In the same way, children who skip school first
determine the likelihood of getting caught against the potential fun they have. Similarly
juveniles who rape weigh the pleasure they imagine they will have against being
arrested, prosecuted, convicted and sent to prison. Because behavior is a conscious
decision people make, they must be held accountable for their actions and their
consequences.

3. Neoclassical School Theory

Strongly argued the rigidity if classical theory. It did not take into account why
people commit crime. Instead all people were held equally responsible for their
behavior. Those who commit similar crimes received identical punishment.

The classical school focused on the criminal act and not the actor. But in reality
people are not the same. Children, insane and the incompetent are not as responsible
for their behavior as adults, the same and the competent. The idea that there are real
differences among people led to the development of Neoclassical School.

Neoclassical reformers agreed to the concept of classical leaders that people

were rational, intelligent beings who exercise free will. But they also thought some
crimes were caused by the factors beyond offender’s control.

4. Modern Classical School Theory

4.1. Rational Choice Theory

It claimed that delinquents are rational people who make calculated choices
regarding what they are going to do before they act. Offenders collect, process and
evaluate information about the crime and make the decision whether to commit it after
they have weighed the cost and benefits in doing so. Crime in other words is a well
thought out decision. Offenders decide where to commit it, who or what to target and
how to execute it.

4.2 Routine Activity Theory

 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
It is focused on the crime target or anything an offender wants to take control of,
whether it is a house to break into or a bottle of beer to shoplift. Before crime will occur
however three elements must come together:
1. motivated offenders
2. suitable targets
3. an absence of people to deter the would be offender.

II. Biological and Psychological Theories

1. Scientific Study of Crime (Positive School of Criminology)

Believed that crime was caused by factors that are in place before the crime
occurs. It is presumed that the behavior was determined by something and it was their
job to discover what it was. Free will had nothing to do with the people did.

2. Biological Theory
These theories locate causes of crime inside the person. One early explanation
examined the role of physical appearance.

3. Psychoanalytic Theory
Can be traced through Sigmund Freud who believed that personality consists of
3 parts; the id, ego and superego.

4. Behavioral Theory and Delinquency

B.F. Skinner is the most widely acclaimed behaviorist who believed that
environment shapes behavior. Shiner thought children learn which aspects of their
environment are pleasing and which one are painful. Their behavior is the result of the
consequences it produces. His research with pigeons demonstrated that organisms act
on their environment to elicit where subjects do something and connect what they do to
the response they receive. Children will repeat rewarded behavior and abort punished
behavior.

Albert Bandura expanded on Skinner’s ideas and developed the theory of

aggression where he said children learn by modelling and imitating others. Delinquent
behavior us learned direct, face to face interaction or by observing others.

III. Cultural Deviance, Strain and Social Control Theories

1. Cultural Deviance Theory

Children do not really commit deviant acts. Their behavior may be considered
deviant by larger society but it is compatible with the behavior in their neighborhood. In
this view what society calls delinquency is actually conformity to norms frowned upon by
“outsiders” but not “insiders”.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
2. Strain Theories
Assumes that children are basically good. Only under pressure (strain) do theu
deviate. Pressure for deviance comes from their having internalized society goals such
as being successful and wanting to achieve them. But many cannot become successful
by conforming to society’s rules out of desperation m they turn to crime.

3. Social Control Theories

Assumes that children are amoral. Without controls on their behavior they are
inclined to break the law. Delinquency is thus expected behavior. What needs to be
explained is why most children obey society’s rules most of the time.

IV. Labeling and Conflict Theory

1. Labeling Theory
Believes that human nature in malleable and that personality and behavior are
products of social interaction. Labeling theorists therefore emphasized the power of
social response, especially in the form of social control to produce delinquent behavior.
Their concern is that publicly or officially labeling someone as a delinquent can result in
the person becoming the very thing he is described as being.

2. Conflict Theory
Conflict within society as normal and rejects the idea that society is organized
around a consensus of values and norms. Conflict theorists believe that in its normal
state, society is held together by force , coercion and intimidation. The values and
norms of different groups are often the basis of conflicting interest held by groups that
have obtained sufficient power or influence to determine legislation. Conflict theory of
Karl MARX mode suggests that capitalism is the essential root of crime and that
repressive efforts by ruling class to control the rules class produce delinquency.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 3. ACTIVITY NO. 1

How does the previous theories of juvenile delinquency affect the administration
of juveniles today?
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 3. ACTIVITY NO.2

Identify the similarities and differences of all the theories affecting juvenile
delinquency.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 4. FEMALE DELINQUENCY THEORIES

1. Biological and Psychological Theories

Early emphasis on biological and psychological causes of behavior, the female
law violators were seen as uniquely different from male criminals.

1.1 Lombroso and Ferrero’s Atavistic Girl

According to them women are naturally more childlike, less intelligent, lacking in
person, more maternal, and weak-characteristic that make them less inclined to commit
crimes. Women’s criminality is a product of their biology, but this biology also keeps
most women for crime. They also believed that most female delinquents were only
“occasional criminals” as were most male delinquents.

1.2 Freud’s “Inferior Girl”

Female delinquency arising primarily out of the anatomical inferiority of women
and their inability to deal adequately with Electra complex, which emerges during
Oedipal stage of development (between age 3 and 6). Freud believed that when girls
realize they have no penis they sense that they are being punished because boys have
something important they have been denied. Consequently they develop penis envy,
which result in an inferiority complex.

1.3. Thomas’s “Unadjusted Girl”

Males and females are biologically different. Although both males and females
are motivated by natural biological instincts leading to wish fulfillment how they
approach the fulfillment if whishes differs. Thomas identified four distinct categories of
wishes;

a. The desire for new experience

b. The desire for security
c. The desire for response
d. The desire for recognition.

Thomas believed that women by nature have stronger desires for response and
love than men and that they are capable of more varied types of love as demonstrated
by maternal love, a characteristic atypical of males. This intense need to give and
receive love often leads girls into delinquency, especially sexual delinquency as they
use sex as means to fulfill their wishes. However, Thomas did not believe that girls were
inherently delinquent. Rather their behaviors are the result of choices circumscribed by
social rules and moral codes designed to guide people’s actions as they attempt to fulfill
their wishes.

1.4 Pollak’s “Deceitful Girl”

 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
Women are actually as criminal as men but their criminality is hidden or
“masked”. The masking of their crimes and delinquencies is a result of natural
psychological differences in the sexes as well as the tendency of males to overlook or
excuse offenses by women.

He believed that the psychological nature of women makes them more deceitful
than men. With less physical strength than men, women must resort to indirect or
deceitful means to carry out crimes or vent their aggression; women also are more likely
to be instigators and men perpetrators of crime.

2. Marxist- Feminist Theories

Combines the notions of patriarchal male dominance in the home and
interpersonal relationships with male control of the means of production. Societies
characterized by patriarchal capitalism, male owners or managers of capital control
workers and men control women. Thus under the patriarchal capitalism, women
experience double marginality; women are subordinate to both capitalists and men.
Messerschmitt suggest that girls are less likely to be involved in serious delinquencies
for 3 reasons:

a. most crimes are masculine in nature; physical strength , aggressiveness and external
proofs of achievement are facet of male personality.
b. because women are subordinate and less powerful they have fewer opportunities to
engage in serious crimes
c. males control even illegitimate opportunities and females relegated to subordinate
roles even in criminal activities.

Power Control Theory by John Hagan and his associates argues that girls
engage in less delinquency because their behavior is more closely monitored and
controlled by parents in patriarchal families.

3. Differential Oppression Theory

Provides framework for understanding why girls become delinquent as well as
why they are less inclined to delinquency than males. DOT argues that adults oppress
children as they attempt to impose and maintain that adults oppress children as they
attempt to impose and maintain adult and consequently experience a sense of
powerlessness and ,marginality through oppressive mans. Generally the more
oppressed the child is, the more likely she or he will become delinquent.

Girls in patriarchal societies however are doubly oppresses; they are oppressed
as children and as females.
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 4. ACTIVITY NO. 1

Site other instances or reasons why females commit crimes.

 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte
LESSON 4. ACTIVITY NO 2.

Of all the Female Delinquency Theory, in your own point of view which one
mostly influences juvenile delinquency? Why?
 Saint Joseph College
CRIMINOLOGY DEPARTMENT
Maasin City, Southern Leyte

“All your dreams will come true if you have the courage to pursue them.”
- Cloie Anne C. Sulla, RC

Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice System

(S.Y. 2021)