Juvenile delinquency is has now become one of the common social issues that every nation is trying to bring under control. Researchers state that if the children are not well nurtured they become young offenders when they grow up and they graduate to become chronical criminals. There is need for prevention of juvenile offenders by first looking at the main causes before dealing with the offenders. The community should also play the role of seeking strategies which can help in the intervention of preventing this behavior among the children and adolescents. This implies that there is a stage of their life that causes the beginning of criminal life which later results in young offenders that graduates to real criminals when they grow up. This research proposes the ideas based on some research which have already been discussed but will give more refined area in the study. The aim is to investigate the contributing factors of delinquency in the adolescents.
Background information
According to the United Nations International Children’s Funds report (UNICEF) juvenile crime and delinquency has become a serious problem in the whole world (Schepers, 2017). Their intensity depends on the social, economic and cultural factors in every nation. The worldwide juvenile criminality is accelerated by the economic recession especially in the marginal urban areas. Most of the time the youth offenders are street children because they have been exposed to violence in their earlier life and their social environment. they may have gone through poor basic education and bad primary socialization from the family members (Doerner, 2017).
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Their social environment is shaped by poverty and destitute. Instead of just depending on the criminal justice systems, there should be other strategies of dealing with violence and crime, the government should support equality as well as justice to reduce poverty and hopelessness among (Alleyne & Wood, 2010). Most students who drop out of school are from broken families therefore there is little parental guidance and control. There should be specific social programs which can help to build the self-esteem as well as confidence in the adolescents. Poor living conditions, malnutrition, unemployment, lack of leisure time, malnutrition, inadequate education and destitute are some of the causing factors of increased juvenile crimes and delinquency (Cho, 2015).
According to statistics, young people lead in the criminal activities. Young people who go through difficult situations are likely to be delinquent (Cho, 2015). The risk factor of the youths becoming delinquent such as poverty, substance abuse, death of a close family member, family dysfunction and poverty (Schepers, 2017). In addition, social insecurity increases chances of vulnerability and the adolescents have developed social skills hence they do not know how to protect themselves against negative activities influenced by their peers. The nations that suffer from economic crisis witness a dramatic increase in delinquency rates (Back & Lee, 2015).
Alcohol and drug abuse also play a role in increasing chances of juvenile delinquency. In most developing nations most, cases of delinquency are enhanced by hunger, malnutrition, unemployment and poverty (Back & Lee, 2015). The effective preventive measures should focus on the family issues and deal with youth’s behavioral issues. Discipline directly related to family issues which later leads to delinquency. Inadequate supervision of the parent or guardian is likely to make the child be indiscipline and they advance to become real criminals (Doerner, 2017).
Statement problem
Juvenile delinquency has become one of the alarming topics of interest among the researchers. The study indicates that increased poor marriages, lack of control from parents and increased gangs in the neighborhood have caused increased cases of juvenile delinquency. A family plays an essential role in the life of child development and behavior. Alleyne & Wood, (2010) asserts that criminal systems have not gone into deep causes of delinquency behavior. The family unit structure and parental upbringing are some of the significant causes of delinquency among adolescents. There are many broken marriages nowadays which lead to single parenthood. The study shows that children raised by single parent care likely to be involved in the child delinquency because of lack of full parental control. In addition, increased maltreatment from the parents, step-parents, and the siblings has increased the delinquency among the adolescents (Back, 2015).
Significance
The significance of the study is to make people aware and understand the causes of deliquescence among the adolescence and learn the preventive measures. The research will be relevant to the public, monitoring programs as well as to the justice studies to improve on the policies which give the community services for family and youth involvements before and after offences (Cho, 2015). The researcher believes the findings from this study would reach the target party to implement community awareness and formulate rules that will help the family members as well as youths and adolescents to mentor young people. The government will also work with the community to prevent juvenile offenders and provide programs to minimize it for good.
The purpose of the study
The study aims to identify the effects of maltreatment, lack of parent control, and bad neighborhood and child delinquency. The parenting control will be based on the family structure such as single parent, biological parents, step parent among others. Research shows that, there are different causing factors of juvenile delinquency such as maltreatment, influence from the neighborhood, and lack of parental monitoring. Previous studies have demonstrated that to prevent juvenile delinquency, various policies are provided for the members of the community, family as well as youths. Even though the criminal justice systems give reformation for the young offenders, the way they do it is very unpleasant. Therefore, the information that will be obtained from this study will help the relevant member to assist the youths from being involved in the crimes that would lead them to the criminal justice systems.
Objectives of the study
To determine the effects of child, maltreat towards behavior in the later years
To identify how family structure and parenting control affects the behavior of the adolescent
To investigate the effects of a violent and disadvantaged neighborhood influences behavior
Literature Review
The study shows that child maltreatment has a significant relationship to the development of delinquency among adolescents. According to research by Cho (2015), which was investigating the relationship between abuse and delinquency. The children who had gone through maltreatment were assessed using questionnaires as well as additional question were asked using face to face interviews were conducted to the children who were involved frequently in domestic violence (Schepers, 2017). The results indicated that most children who had gone through maltreatment and experienced domestic violence were likely to be engaged in the delinquency behavior. In the same study, the researchers investigated other topics such as the role of community and the school and how it interpreted the violent activities which the students presented in school (Alleyne & Wood, 2010).
In addition, the parenting members were also assessed among the participants who were involved in violent actions and bad behavior. The researchers used both qualitative and quantitative interview methods as well as administering questionnaires with semi-structured questions. the results indicated that most male participants had gone through maltreatment and most of them were prone to delinquency. However, parental involvement also played a significant role in shaping the character (Cho, 2015).
In another study, Doerner (2017), investigated how different forms of maltreatment and parenting related to the delinquency later in the life of the child. The aim was to assess how abused children developed psychological issues which led to the onset of delinquencies. The researchers used interviews to collect primary data of the child and the mother in different sessions. Their findings revealed that children who went through any form of abuse developed an emotional guilt character which later evolved into a depression that resorted to delinquency. The researcher concluded that emotions are not directly related to misconduct but they lead to depression which subsequently leads to delinquency behavior in the adolescent (Doerner, 2017).
In another study, the researchers investigated how the disadvantaged neighborhood influences the character of the child. The community with many gangsters affects the behavior of the young child as he learns and gets the opportunity to be a gang. This study was carried among the young Canadian groups (Schepers, 2017). The aim of the study was to investigate if there was a likelihood of the of the youths joining the groups because of various reasons. The survey method was involved in collecting data among young children between 14-15 years. The results from this study indicated that those children who grow in the neighborhood which was full of gangs and criminals led to their tendency of delinquency behavior when they become adolescents. In the same study the findings indicated the children from single-parenthood were likely to be easily influenced by the lousy neighborhood due to lack of enough control over their children. Psychologists state that those youths who have been raised by a single parent are more prone to join gangs than those who are raised by two parents (Schepers, 2017).
The above research review contributes to the formulation of one of my research hypotheses, which states that neighborhood disadvantages lead to juvenile delinquency while community involvement strategy discourages the gangs to reduce juvenile delinquency
Research questions
The current study will be on the casing factors of the onset of delinquency in adolescents such as child maltreatment, lack of parental monitoring and a disadvantaged neighborhood. This topic consists of many factors which may have led to the onset of delinquency among the youths. I had to narrow down my research to a specific point. this will be done using three hypothesis
Hypothesis
Hypothesis 1 . Child maltreatment leads to violent delinquency among the youths. The abusive background of the child leads to criminal behavior in the later age. The research of this hypothesis will give the questions which are relevant to the history and relationship of the family members, and instances of child abuse, social class among others.
Hypothesis 2: the neighborhood disadvantage causes the beginning of delinquency behavior among the adolescents.
Hypothesis 3: lack of good parenting and monitoring of the adolescents leads to the beginning of the juvenile delinquency among the adolescents. This part of the study will divide the participants according to their age ranging between childhood to adolescents. The researcher will look for the primary caregivers to group their primary influencers based on the teachers, siblings, extended family, maids, and parents. It will involve the control group of children based on the race, age, gender and the social class of the family.
Research Methodology
Quantitative research design
The study will employ quantitative research to collect data on the juvenile detainees and the adolescent students in various secondary schools in Australia. The quantitative research is relevant in this study since it will give precise data and make sure that specific details are met. Various details like gender, age, and place of birth are used as different variables.
Sampling method and population
Sampling method will be taken from the two main focus group. The stratified way is a prime strategy for the questionnaires, surveys, observations, and interviews. The sampled group will consist of the employees in the school, family members, students, and the community. They will include educators, youths, public members, adolescents, and youths. The unit of measure will be based on the way the abusive background will present itself in different stages and age. The population will be sampled from the school and juvenile capital of the United States. The sites of research will be chosen not because of the effects of getting a single or multiple representatives or unbiased sample but it will be based on the diversity of the participants from different backgrounds. The high school students will also be selected to get the focus group.
The participants will be administered with questionnaires which will be completed during break time. Those who will be willing to participate will be rewarded with some goodies to encourage them to participate wholeheartedly. However, the students might decide to attend just because of peer pressure instead of volunteering. This will be discouraged so that those who will voluntarily be willing to participate will be chosen so that they unwilling or pressurized group does not give inaccurate data. in addition, the youths, parents, workers, and teachers will also be used as one of the focus groups.
Data collection methods
When carrying out educational research, frequently used methods are interviews. Most researchers use interviews because they are regarded to be the most convenient and powerful ways to understand the individual’s view about a given topic. The researcher gets to be involved with the respondent and they also provide more in-depth information about the research questions. Moreover, during the interviews, the interviewee can give his or opinions, knowledge as well as an understanding of the topic
The meeting will be conducted face to face unless if the participants will prefer filling the questionnaires. There will be semi-structured questions in the interview and surveys which will be done to allow consistency of data. The discussions are significant as they allow the researchers to be closer and personal to the interviewee. This also helps to make the filling of questionnaires to be very dull.
The questionnaires will be given to the participants for self-administering to save on time. in addition, it will help the participants to complete it at their convenient time. However, there is a limitation in the use of questioners whereby they might give non-relevant participants and that might affect the quality and reliability of data. To avoid this, the questionnaires will be given to specific people and group who are targeted
Instruments
The audio records and notes were used to capture relevant information from the participants. fortunately, all the respondents were comfortable with this instrument of data collection. Therefore, the recordings could be reviewed by the researcher to make sure all the relevant information was recorded. This also helped to enhance the reliability of the data. Although the video records are not allowed to be used for female participants therefore the researcher did not use video recording.
Procedure
The researcher will follow the required process where he or she will seek permission from the relevant authorities. The consent forms will be given to the participants to read and sign to show their willingness to participate.
Data analysis
The quantitative data analysis will be done using the statistical package software called SPSS. The package will be handy for cleaning and transformation of data that would allow to more straightforward data interpretation.
Ethical consideration
Ethical consideration is key to every research because there are some implications from the results that might affect the interests of the respondents or the other people. Ethics is the application of moral principles that prevents wronging others. They should promote good, peace and respect and they should be Permission will be sort from relevant administrators and individuals. The participants will be informed the reasons and relevance of the study to the youths and parents on how to prevent the onset of delinquency. Those who will be willing to participate will be given consent forms which will be completed. Moreover, the researcher will reassure the participants that writing of the name of the participant and nothing will be shared to the third party. They will be informed that will only be used for the intended purpose of research. The participants had to sign the consent forms before the interviews began as expected by the ethics committee
Conclusion
This paper seeks to understand the factors that contribute to the delinquency in the youths and adolescents. Its aim is to explore criminal justice system to help in intervention of the young offenders before they proceed to the criminal justice courts (Schepers, 2017). The research will focus on three primary causes which include maltreatment, lack of parental guidance, and neighborhood influence. The prevention of the young offenders in adolescents should start by understanding the root cause. Through the current research, we will understand the causes of juvenile delinquency. This information will help reduce juvenile offenders through community education and awareness. The current study will use quantitative study method to identify the causes of juvenile delinquency. Data collection will involve questionnaires and interview questions. the results will be analyzed using SPSS. The results from this study will help add knowledge to the field of research and make the society aware and prevent the factors that lead to delinquency in adolescents
References
Doerner, W. G. (2017). Child maltreatment seriousness and juvenile delinquency. Youth and Society, 192, 197-224.
Kelly, S. (2010). The Psychological Consequences to Adolescents of Exposure to Gang Violence in the Community: An Integrated Review of the Literature. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, 23, 2, 61-73.
Alleyne, E., & Wood, J. L. (2010). Gang involvement: psychological and behavioral characteristics of gang members, peripheral youth, and nongang Youth. Aggressive Behavior, 36, 6, 423-436.
Back, J., & Lee, Y. (2015). The Role of Student-Teacher Relationship on Effects of Maltreatment on Juvenile Delinquency. Gstf Journal of Psychology (jpsych), 2, 1, 1-5.
Cho, S. (2015). Grounded theory approach on the cause of the juvenile delinquency during the leisure activity of the youth. Forum for Youth Culture, 44, 97.
Schepers, D. (2017). Causes of the causes of juvenile delinquency: Social disadvantages in the context of situational action theory. European Journal of Criminology, 14, 2, 143-159.
