Causative Factors Of

Juvenile Delinquency
Presented by:
Rukmani Khadka
B523
• There are various factors and causes which contribute in juvenile
delinquency.
• Officers of the juvenile courts, child welfare association, educational bodies
and mental hygiene clinic have been instrumental in bringing a vast amount
of data concerning juvenile delinquency, from which certain reasons can be
drawn.
• The factors which go to make up these difficult situations, together with the
mental and physical conditions which influence an individual’s capacity to
adjust, constitute the causes of juvenile delinquency.
• Each juvenile offense is the outcome of a complexity of causes, some of whose
origins date back years before the committal of the offense and others whose
origins are more obviously and immediately connected with the act of delinquency.
• It has been shown that a different set of causes is involved in each individual case.
• The factors which operate to turn a children’s behavior in one direction rather than
another may be very unknown which are beyond the detection of expert
sociologists, psychologists and others.
• It is therefore impossible therefore to state the group of causes which will invariably
result in particular offence.
• The causes of juvenile delinquency is divided into two broad
categories:
1. Individual factors
2. Situational/Environmental factors
 Individual Factors
• A large number of individual factors and characteristics has been associated with the
development of juvenile delinquency.
• These individual factor include age, gender, complications during pregnancy and
delivery, impulsiveness and others.
• Some factors operate before birth (prenatal) or close to, during, and shortly after birth
(perinatal); some can be identified in early childhood; and other factors may not be
evident until late childhood or during adolescence.
•  To fully appreciate the development of these individual characteristics and their
relations to delinquency, one needs to study the development of the individual in
interaction with the environment.
 Sethna has described various personal causes of crime and he regarded such personal
causes to be the reason of juvenile delinquency which are as followings:
 Physical conditions and ailments like: ear troubles, physical irritations, headaches, speech
defects, excess of physical strength and other physical ailments and under nourishment.
 Mental conditions and ailments include mental weakness, mental aberrations( epileptic
mentality, hysteria), psychoses(paranoia, paresis), stubbornness of an extreme type
hypersensitiveness.
 Fear
 Emotional disturbance in childhood
 Pathological causes like: kleptomania, pyromania.
 Situational Factors
• Multiple situational factors are the potent cause of juvenile delinquency in
the modern society.
• Situational factors on delinquent behaviors of the juveniles usually reveals
that not only the factors of inheritance, but also the environmental field
forces comprising the individual’s cultural as well as intra-family
interactions to which he has been exposed in the early years of his life
contribute heavily to the determination of later delinquent behavior.
• Some of the situational factors are:
 Family
• Family is the basic socialization for the children which can make or break
the personality of the children.
• The environment of family react upon the child's mind and body altering his
mental and physical condition which in their turn determine his behavior.
• It can make or break the personality of the children.
• Broken families, single parent families, separated families, criminal
parents, lack of trust and confidence among the parents and others
can be the potent cause behind juvenile delinquency.
• Such mentioned factors contribute to develop the deviant child behavior and some of them
may assist to cause delinquency.
• In combination with the influence of the school, the community, and the economic and the
social structure, it contributes greatly to the milieu in which each child is socialized and
prepared for adult life.
• Richard E. Hardy and John G. Cull have identified three general types of families which
create some relation to delinquent behavior by juvenile family members:
1. Those with a disrupted family structure,
2. Those in which have experienced parental rejection, and
3. Those characterized by a lack of consistent and adequate discipline.
Some of the major factors of delinquency under family are:
• Parent’s discipline
• Parents’ affection
• Substitute parents
• Father’s work habits
• Economic condition of family
• Broken homes
• Domestic violence
• Affection of siblings
• Household duties
 Peer Group Influence
• It plays a significant role to shape the personality of juvenile and may lead towards them
either positive or negative way.
• When friends commit crime, juveniles often learn to do it and they cannot understand the
consequences of the crime.
• Juvenile can show delinquent behavior when they feel that they are deprived from similar
resources as their friends are not.
• The delinquent groups can counterbalance or compensate for imperfections of family and
school
• A number of studies have shown that juvenile gang members consider their group is a
family.
• For adolescents constantly facing violence, belonging to a gang
can provide protection within the neighborhood.
• World Youth Report, 2003 has provide example of one juvenile from
the Russian Federation who said,” I become involved in a gang
when I was in the eighth form[about 13 years old], but I joined it
only when I was in the tenth [at 15 years of age]. I had a girl friend
and I feared for her, and the gang was able to provide for her
safety.”
 Friendship
• Friends typically have mutual regard for one another, exhibit give-and-take in
their behaviors, and benefit in comparable ways from their social interaction.
• The formation, nature and effects of friendship all change as children
develop.
• Despite these changes, having friends is important to children’s overall
development, and friendship has an impact on children’s social, emotional,
and cognitive growth.
• A wrong friend circle may lead a juvenile to delinquency.
 School Environment
• School environment is one of the crucial forces of juvenile delinquency which exerts an
influence over the child.
• The school cannot solve the or prevent the role of delinquency but its role should always
be considered crucial in a well planned community program.
• The school is usually the first institution entrusted with the care of child away from the
protective cloak of his family.
• Since the school act as a socializing agency a child gets to learn and excel various
matter which creates a deep impact on their respective life.
• The child is expected to achieve success in life by society and family but neither school
nor family defines for them what success in their particular case, what they has to do to
achieve it and how their education will help toward that end.
• Vandalism, violent behavior, drug use as well as the financial difficulties, absenteeism
and dropout problem have increased in school as the delinquent behavior of children.
• Thus, school must be good one that should create favorable condition to students
otherwise student would deviate to delinquency.
• Both the community and the school should realize that, ideally, specialized
professional personnel are needed to reinforce the and augment the assistance a
teacher can give to a pupil.
• The timely and skillful use of auxiliary services by school can help a child from
becoming failure.
The major factors in school environment are :
• Inadequate school building and equipment
• Inadequate facilities for recreation
• Poor attendance laws and lax enforcement
• Unsatisfactory teacher
• Bad schools companions and codes of moral.
• Wrong grading
 Movies and Mass Media
• Movies and mass media are considered as the integral part of the society that also
influence the life of the children.
• Media bring an individual to violence in three ways.
• Firstly, movies that demonstrate violent acts excite spectators, and the aggressive
energy can be then transferred to everyday life, pushing an individual to engage in
harmful activity.
• Secondly, television can portray ordinary daily violence committed by parents or
peers, as a result children are continually exposed to the use of violence in different
situations and the number of violent acts on television appears to be increasing.
• Third, violence depicted in the media is unreal and has a
surrealistic quality; wound bleed less, and the real pain and agony
resulting from violent actions are very rarely shown, so the
consequence of violent behavior seem negligible.
• Thus, movie and mass media causes a shift in the system of
human values and indirectly leads children to view violence as a
desirable and even courageous way of reestablishing justice.
 Poverty
• The various observations indicate that most of the youth are in crime because of
poverty, which drove them into criminal acts for survival.
• For instance, some boys had run from home because they lacked basic needs and
latter they can be involved in crimes such as stealing goods, pickpocketing for their
survival.
• A research report shows that more than 10 million American under 18 who reside in
household classified as low income, and another 3 million from families supported by
aid to depend children payments.
• Adolescents from these backgrounds become part of cycle of low income or
unemployment.
• The poverty is self perpetuating documented fact, and criminal and delinquent
activity may be an accepted part of the total picture for deprived children.
• The President’s Commission on Law enforcement and the Administration
of Justice (USA) recognized the role of poverty in delinquency production
more prevalent youths of lowest socio-economic levels.
• Socialist school of law believes that the capitalistic society is itself a
criminogenic society where unequal and unjust distribution of goods and
services can cause crime and delinquency.
 Drug
• Patricia G. Erickson have stated that drugs lead the youth to crime
and delinquency.
• Reports shows many youths claimed to have committed criminal
activities under the influence of drugs.
• Any psychotropic substance causes mental and physical imbalance
that may cause delinquency.
 Dropout
• The term “dropout” has been used to describe a person who has abandoned the
course of study or who has rejected a conventional society to pursue an alternative
lifestyle.
• The lower class child is subjected to many frustrating experiences at school which
not only contribute to their failure in school, but also leads to the development of
self image failure in life.
• The drops out of school is not likely to get much help in finding employment or in
obtaining training for an occupational career but in exception some others accept
employment commensurate with their abilities and advance to skilled-labor jobs
after a few years.
• In terms of class background, there are two identifiable types of school dropout:
the lower class dropout and middle class dropout.
• The middle class dropout appears to be a person of better than average
intelligence who has probably finished high school and poses fair knowledge and
have anarchistic and political views.
• In most of cases middle class dropout has dropped out voluntarily and their
relationship with their families is characterized as ambivalence.
• The lower class dropout in most of the cases dropped involuntarily and is not
committed to work which cause them to frequently participate in delinquent acts.
 Urbanization
• Geographical analysis suggests that countries with more urbanized
populations have higher registered crime rates than rural lifestyle and
communities.
• Rural groupings rely mainly on family and community control as a means of
dealing with antisocial behavior and exhibit lower crime rates whereas
urbanized societies tend to resort to formal legal and judicial measures, an
impersonal approach that appears to be linked to higher crime rates.
• The response to the same offence may vary widely from one country to
another due to cultural and institutional differences.
• The industrial development and economic growth has resulted into
urbanization which in turn has given rise to new problem such as
housing, overcrowding, lack of parental control and family
disintegration.
• The high cost living in urban area lead both parents to take outdoor
jobs which result to negligence in care and control of children.
• This situation may lead the children toward delinquent behavior.
 Economic and Social Factors
• Juvenile delinquency is driven by the negative consequences of
social and economic development, in particular economic crises,
political instability, weakening of major institutions including the
state, systems of public and others.
• Socio-economic instability is often linked to persistent
unemployment and low incomes among the young, which can
increase the likelihood of their involvement in criminal activity.
 Neighborhood
• There is a widespread view that a good and healthy society should
not have any delinquency but as long as parents are unstable and
the young as experimental, this concept is still remains
questionable.
• The major perception is that neighborhood causes juvenile
delinquency if neighborhood is not good.
Besides these, some other factors which causes juvenile delinquency are:
• Cyber system and networking
• Exclusion
• Work environment
• Religion
• Migration
• Illiteracy.
Thank You….