TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... 2
LITERATURE REVIEW .............................................................................................................. 3
Family Factors ............................................................................................................................ 3
Parenting .................................................................................................................................. 3
Financial Status......................................................................................................................... 3
Homelessness............................................................................................................................ 4
Abuse of Juveniles ................................................................................................................... 5
Incarceration ............................................................................................................................ 5
Personal Development Factors.................................................................................................... 6
Education ................................................................................................................................ 6
Victimization ........................................................................................................................... 6
Literature Review: Poverty and Juvenile Delinquency
Family Factors
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...sidents' ability to intervene in neighborhood problems. Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare, 37(2), 161-181.
Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Popkin, S. J., Leventhal, T., & Weismann, G. (2010). Girls in the 'hood: How safety affects the life chances of low-income girls. Urban Affairs Review, 45(6), 715-
744. doi:10.1177/10780874103 61572
Reynolds, A. J., Temple, J. A., & Suh-Ruu, O. (2003). School-based early
intervention and child well-being in the Chicago longitudinal study. Child Welfare, 82(5), 633-656. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Wildeman, C., & Western, B. (2010). Incarceration in fragile families. Future of Children, 20(2), 157-177. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
U.S. Government Printing Office (U.S. GPO). (2005). Gang deterrence and community protection act of 2005. Retrieved from http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-
109hr1279eh/pdf/BILLS-109hr1279eh.pdf
Kaplan , L. & Girard, J. (1994). Strengthening high risk families. New York: Lexington Books.
...Reducing the social exclusion of girls. New York: The Population Council. [Online] [Accessed on 10th December 2013] Available from: http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/TABriefs/PGY_Brief27_SocialExclusion.pdf
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2014 African Americans held the highest poverty rate of 26%, with Hispanics holding the second highest rate at 24% (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). When comparing this to the poverty rates of Whites at 10% and Asians at 12% in 2014, we see that in America, racial and ethnic minorities are more vulnerable to experiencing poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In addition, discrimination is seen between genders among those living in poverty. Family households of a single adult are more likely to be headed by women and are also at a greater risk for poverty (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). In 2014, 30.6% of households headed by a single woman were living below the poverty line compared to 15.7% for households headed by a single male (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor, 2015). Many factors such as poor wages for women, pregnancy associations, and the increase of single-woman parented families have impacted the increase of women in poverty. Children are most harshly affected by poverty because for them the risks are compounded, as they lack the defenses and supports needed to combat the toxicity surrounding them. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 21% of all U.S. children (73.6 million children) under 18 years old lived in poverty in 2014 (DeNavas-Walt & Proctor,
Initially, taking a course on juvenile delinquents did not interest me. But during these ten or eleven weeks of school, I have became to fulfill a better understanding as to why these type of kids choose to do some of the things they do. Our textbook, Juvenile Delinquency, by Robert Agnew and Timothy Brezina, focuses solely on what causes and controls juveniles to act out and commit these crimes. When reading this textbook, I became aware that most of the crimes such as burglary, theft, larceny, rape, gang violence, property damage, and etc. were mainly committed by male juveniles. And although this textbook doesn’t state it directly, I feel like most of the information obtained was based on male juveniles. In one of the earlier chapters, I remember reading something about how female juveniles are more closely supervised than males, and that although the rate for female juveniles is increasing, it still isn’t as high as the rate of male juvenile delinquents. So I proposed this research question: Why are females more closely supervised than males if there is a higher rate for crime with male juvenile delinquents?
The Criminal Law state at the age of 7, any young child that are engaged in a criminal behavior can be prosecuted in the Family Court of Law. Additionally, juveniles can also be arrested for curfews violations, refusal to obey parents, running away, skipping school, and underage alcohol consumption. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reports that roughly half of all youth arrested are charged with theft, simple assaults, drug abuse, disorderly conduct, and curfew violations. OJJDP statistics confirms that theft is the greatest cause of youth arrests. (Martin, 2011) When they are prosecute and after the judge made there verdict, they become Juvenile Delinquent. A Juvenile Delinquent is a youth between the age of 7 and 18 who commits the act of a crime. The law also follows a specific term placement, which is:
Over the past half century, violence in the United States has increased dramatically. Children who were raised in a tough, low-income neighborhood often fail to escape exposure to violence. They may witness homicides, assaults, and some may even have had a friend who had been killed. According to recent research, these children have higher violence rates than those kids who grew up in a non-violent neighborhood.
When the City of Atlanta is mentioned, individuals automatically associate the city with its positive attributes, such as, the beautiful lights, family activities and tourist attractions. The crime that occurs often goes unmentioned; however it is increasingly becoming an issue. Forbes ranked Atlanta as the sixth dangerous city in the US with a violent crime rate of 1,433 per 100,000 residents. The city’s crime rate correlates with its poverty levels and low education rates along with Beccaria’s ideas of punishment being swift, severe and certain.
Domestic violence is becoming more and more of a reality in today’s world; 57,000 people have been killed in domestic violence situations in the last 25 years (Fantuzzo and Fusco, “Children’s Direct Exposure to Types of Domestic Violence Crime: A Population-based Investigation”). This alarming statistic has prompted the increase of women’s shelters, usually known as “safe houses,” across the nation. Since safe houses are usually non-profit organizations dependent on donations, critics wonder if these shelters’ benefits outweigh the high cost it takes to keep them running. Are women’s shelters actually effective? Based on statistical evidence, the beneficial resources that safe houses provide, and multiple survivors’ stories, it can be proven that women’s shelters are indeed effective and very necessary.
In earlier years young children were tried for crimes the same way an adult would be, juvenile delinquency wasn’t a thing. For example in the 1700’s girls as young at thirteen were burned at stake for their crimes same as adults. Now a day children under the age of 18 who commit a crime are not tried the same as a person over 18, this is called juvenile delinquency. There are some crimes that only juveniles can commit such as underage drinking, running away from home, or violating curfew. These are not the crimes that bother people about juveniles, the most common crime committed by juveniles is theft, then drugs, and after that is disorderly conduct. Most juveniles commit a crime are not repeat offenders. Some juvenile’s come from a community where committing crimes is the norm. Juveniles that graduated high school are less likely to commit crimes than those who don’t.
Families serve as one of the strongest socializing forces in a person's life. They help teach children to control unacceptable behavior, to delay gratification, and to respect the rights of others. Conversely, families can also teach children aggressive, antisocial, and violent behavior. In adults' lives, family responsibilities may provide an important stabilizing force. Given these possibilities, family life may directly contribute to the development of delinquent and criminal tendencies. Parental conflict and child abuse correlate with delinquency. Though not all children who grow up in conflictive or violent homes become delinquent, however, being exposed to conflict and violence appears to increase the risk of delinquency. At this point, researchers have not pin pointed what factors exactly push some at-risk youth into delinquency. A child with criminal parents faces a greater likelihood of becoming a delinquent than children with law-abiding parents. However, the influence appears not to be directly related to criminality but possibly to poor supervision.
Juvenile delinquency is committing criminal acts or offenses by a young person, generally involving people under the age of eighteen. That is what this research proposal is about. For my research proposal my research question is what can cause or deter juvenile delinquency in first time offenders? I feel that this is an important question to be asking, because in our society there is too much juvenile delinquency and if we can use this research to figure out what can cause and deter this phenomenon then we could sincerely help a lot of adolescents.
intervention. Families in Society. Vol. 88, pg. 42. Proquest Direct database. Retrieved February 25, 2015.
A juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18 and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if they were an adult. Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, it is possible for persons under 18 to be charged and tried as adults (Wikipedia, 2014). There are various theories to explain juvenile delinquency. They all fall under three main categories: biological, psychological, and sociological.
Routine activities are the things that someone does each day, who they do things it with, when they do it, and the locations that they choose to do these things. In the case of juveniles it might be going to school, spending time with their friends at a mall after school, or even just driving around town. Kids who spend a majority of their free time with people their age, especially if these people are delinquents, are more likely to be presented with a situation of crime. The routine activities, mixed with the people they do these activities with; can lead juveniles to delinquency, especially when there is a great lack of supervision.
Juvenile delinquency is one of the major social issues in the United States today. Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is when “a violation of the law committed by a juvenile and not punishable by death or life imprisonment” (Merriam-webster.com). Although we have one justice system in America, the juvenile system differs from the adult juvenile system. Most juvenile delinquents range from as low as the age of seven to the age of seventeen. Once the delinquent or anyone turns the age of eighteen, they are considered an adult. Therefore, they are tried as an adult, in the justice system. There are many different reasons why a child would commit crime, such as mental and physical factors, home conditions, neighborhood environment and school conditions. In addition, there are a variety of effects that juvenile justice systems can either bad effects or good effects. Finally there are many different solutions that can reduce juvenile delinquency. As a result, juvenile delinquency is a major issue and the likeliness of it can be reduced. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency there has to be an understanding of the causes and the effects.