Juvenile Delinquents Research Paper

According to The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), teenagers are more likely to commit crimes compared to adults. Numbers of crimes were being recorded by the OJJDP that are typically committed by teenagers and in the year 2000, statistics show that 2,369,4000 juvenile

Adolescents cannot control their impulses resulting in juveniles acting out in verbal and physical violence. “Adolescent depression can also create anger and hostility, which “increases the likelihood that [depressed youth] with provoke angry responses from other youth (and adults)” and “increase[s] the risk of altercations with other youth (Tandy, 2012).” Expressing their violent behavior outward often leads to lengthening their stay in solitary resulting in perceptual disturbances. According to Shalev (2008), isolation can affect hypersensitivity to noise and smells and cause hallucinations. Juveniles have reported seeing people appear in their cells as well as, hearing voices in their head (when no one is speaking). Juveniles whom experience disrupted thinking experience a mild case of psychosis.

Two major themes of family dynamics and childhood victimization are a constant thread found in juvenile delinquency research and literature. Specific family structures contribute to the likelihood of delinquency more than others. Nuclear, blended, parental cohabitation, single parent, and incarcerated parent family structures affect the incidences of juvenile delinquency to varying degrees. Adding one variable on top of others compounds the stressors that increase the probability of juvenile delinquency. Each style of the family unit has traits that alter the risk of delinquency.

Unlike adults who can easily remember their youth and youth-related, it is very difficult for juveniles to communicate with adults. Therefore, juvenile offenders punished, punished, or otherwise dealt with in court for a crime should be required to take part in a new mentoring program for partners with similar criminal tendencies or other anthropological equation. A program like this would most likely show a tremendous achievement in the prevention of juvenile

Some days crime rates are up and then the next they are down, what we do know is that America is becoming safer. In 2005, 11,346 persons were killed by firearm violence 477,040 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm, (National Institute of Justice). Surprisingly, a lot of gun violence in America is related to self defense. Between 1987 and 1990 it was found that guns were used in defense during a crime incident 64,615 times annually. This equates to two times out of 1,000 incidents (0.2%) that occurred in this time frame.

Youth Violence Prevention in America Many people believe that there’s only one type of violence, adult violence. But what many people don’t know is that youth violence is the second leading cause of death for young people between the ages fifteen to twenty-four, behind only accidents such as car crashes, unintentional injuries. Many causes of youth violence are bullying, fighting, weapon use, electronic aggression and gang violence. People at risk of youth violence are people with prior history to drugs, alcohol, tobacco use, delinquent peers, poor grades, and poverty in their community. Youth violence is young people hurting other peers who are unrelated to them or who they may or may not know well.

While this may be true many other people might say that guns increase crime instead of decrease crime as it states, in the website called “Think Process” it states, “In 2014, there were 6,165 gun murders where the type of gun used to commit the crime is known”. While this may be true According to CNS news.com it states, “The gun homicide rate had fallen by nearly 50 percent to only 3.6 homicides per 100,000 population.” This text means that many gun homicides have increasingly fallen down and there is less than five percent of homicides per 100,000 of a population. This is another reason why you should own a

In the article, “Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing Parents. Is That Enough?” Scott Anderson exemplifies that juveniles may be living in a toxic home environment, which leads to potential murder. In “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentence,” Garinger speaks about juveniles that are mistreated and were subject to life without parole sentences. Lastly, the article that also justifies that juvenile justice is solidified would be, “Report: Juvenile justice system schools “do more harm than good,” Frey argues that the juvenile system may be harmful, in that some juveniles suffer from disabilities and behavioral issues. Based on strong textual evidence and corresponding research it is clear that mandatory life sentence for juveniles who commit murder is unfair because juveniles are immature, cannot remove themselves from a toxic home environment, and is

When these kids fall into a life of crime and violence they know the risk and the punishments. The states and psychiatrist want to be able to rehabilitate these kids. “Sadly, many states have ignored the crisis and dysfunction that creates child delinquency and instead have subjected kids to further victimization and abuse in the adult criminal justice system.” This is what the court system wants and this is what I agree

These juvenile offenders are treated like adults because they made adult decisions when instead they should be given attention and support to turn them into better people. A public defender says in a short documentary that, “We are seeing far too many young offenders entering the adult system who should be dealt with in the juvenile system”, and that a way some juvenile offenders are treated far worse than they deserve. Just because juveniles made bad decisions in their youth does not mean that they should be given a life sentence or put on death row, because they were just children who made some terrible mistakes. The people that think juveniles deserve the worst punishment they can get are probably don't understand that juveniles don’t really know what they are doing and it most likely isn’t always their own

While examining the rates of the victims two interesting factors stood out, the age of the victim and the relationship to the offender. Age groups of the victims were broken down like this, children in middle childhood ranged between the ages of 6 – 11, teenagers ranged between 12 – 17, leaving young children to be 5 or younger (Filkelhor & Ormrod, 2001). The teenage offender has the higher rate of victimization following a pattern much like adult victims, with homicides mostly involving male victims and male offenders. Compared to the other two age categories teenagers had the highest percent of not knowing the offender at nine percent, children under the age of 12 were at 3 percent (Filkelhor & Ormrod, 2001). Children that fall in the middle

This new law caused an increase from an estimated 300,000 to 2 million prison inmates over the course of the last two decades. (Michelle Alexander, 2010) According to Rebecca C. Hatey and Jennifer L. Eberhdt of Stanford University, California holds only 7% of African American population but 45% of California’s prison inmates are African American under the three strikes law. (Racial Disparities in Incarceration Increase Acceptance of Punitive Policies 2014) Michelle Alexander writes that the mass incarceration of the 1990’s created a new “racial caste system” and extreme funding for the criminal system. (Michelle Alexander, 2010:58) The three strikes law targeted the communities affluent with minority groups. At the turn of the 21st century the majority that entered the prison system were African Americans and Latinos.

Although prior problems may also affect the reasons for suicidal ideations of adolescents, it is suspected that factors such as social workers workload, the crowding of the foster homes and the surroundings of the foster homes could possibly play a role in adolescents not receiving the proper help that they need. For instanced, it is noted that the recommended number of cases of social worker should have is seventeen, however in some states social workers could have twice or even three times more cases than the recommended seventeen. Also, 80-90% of foster care cases can be linked back to substance abuse. By knowing this information America, there should be new improvements with the way that substance abuse is treated. If repremations were made pertaining to substance abuse, and the treatment of social workers, the amount of adolescents in foster care would decrease, and the foster care system would in fact better itself due to new strict regulations on how many cases a social worker can handle at a time.