Delinquency Among Juveniles

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The Pensilvania Juvenile Court Act defines delinquent child as being a minor child, ten years or older, who has has been found to have violated the penal code, and who is in need of treatment, supervision, or rehabilitation (The Juvenile Act, 2013, p.5). Delinquency includes different types of crimes committed by juveniles, and are generally fall under the juvenile court into three categories: delinquency, status offenses, and children in need of supervision. Delinquency, as stated before, is a violation of criminal law that considered to be a crime when it is committed by and adult. These type of crimes include burglary, drug possession, property damages. to property. Juveniles who fall into this category are either placed on probation …show more content…

This concern is shared by federal, state, local government government officials, and the public. According to Siegel and Welsh (2011), an estimated 1.7 million youths, under 18 years of age, are arrested each year for committing crimes that rage from loitering to murder, and this number is expected to rise (p. 10). Additionally, more than 250,000 juveniles are arrested each year for committing a status offenses, and roughly 160,000 of these offenses are petitioned to the juvenile court (Siegel & Welsh, 2011, p. 22). A more resent statistic shows that each year, approximately 240,000 status offenses are handled by juvenile courts (Neubauer & Fradella, 2014. 475). In addition, according to Ortega-Campos, García-García, Gil-Finoy, and Saldívar-Basurto (2013) a study of sanctionable antisocial behavior (S-ASB) showed that 25-9% of S-ASBs court cases were misdemeanors, 59.8% were non-violent cases, and 9% had precautionary measures (p. 7). An astonishing number of youth in the United States, amounting to more than 2 million, experience homelessness each year (Ferguson, Bender, Thompson, and Xie, 2012, p. 2). This amount includes youth who have left home for one or more nights without informing their parents or guardians, youth who have been told by their parents to leave, or youth who do not have a

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