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Juvenile delinquency

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   See also: Wikibooks:Social Deviance

   Juvenile delinquency refers to criminal acts performed by juveniles. It
   is an important social issue because juveniles are capable of
   committing serious crimes, but most legal systems prescribe specific
   procedures for dealing with juveniles.

Nature and causes

   Juvenile delinquency may refer to either violent or non-violent crime
   committed by persons who are (usually) under the age of eighteen. There
   is much debate about whether or not such a child should be held
   criminally responsible for his or her actions. There are many different
   inside influences that are believed to affect the way a child acts both
   negatively and positively, some of which are as follows:
     * Abandonment
     * Social institutions
     * Peer pressure

Definition and specifications

   In the United States, a juvenile delinquent is a person who has not yet
   reached the age of majority, and whose behaviour has been labeled
   delinquent by a court. The specific requirements vary from state to
   state. In the United States, the federal government enacted legislation
   to unify the handling of juvenile deliquents, the Juvenile Justice and
   Delinquency Act of 1974. America has more than 1 million people in
   prison..

   The act created the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
   Prevention (OJJDP) within the Justice Department to administer grants
   for juvenile crime-combatting programs (currently about only 900,00
   dollars a year), gather national statistics on juvenile crime, fund
   research on youth crime and administer four anticonfinement mandates
   regarding juvenile custody. Specifically, the act orders:
     * Deinstitutionalization: Youths charged with "status" offenses that
       would not be crimes if committed by adults, such as truancy,
       running away and being caught with alcohol or tobacco, must be
       "deinstitutionalized," which in this case really means that, with
       certain exceptions (e.g., minor in possession of a handgun), status
       offenders may not be detained by police or confined. Alleged
       problems with this mandate are that it overrides state and local
       law, limits the discretion of law enforcement officers and prevents
       the authorities' ability to reunify an offender with his family.

     * Segregation: Arrested youths must be strictly segregated from
       adults in custody. Under this "out of sight and sound" mandate,
       juveniles cannot be served food by anyone who serves jailed adults
       nor can a juvenile walk down a corridor past a room where an adult
       is being interrogated. This requirement forces local authorities to
       either free juveniles or maintain expensive duplicate facilities
       and personnel. Small cities, towns and rural areas are especially
       hard hit, drastically raising those taxpayers' criminal justice
       costs.

     * Jail and Lockup Removal: As a general rule, youths subject to the
       original jurisdiction of juvenile courts cannot be held in jails
       and lockups in which adults may be detained. The act provides for a
       six-hour exception for identification, processing, interrogation
       and transfer to juvenile facilities, court or detention pending
       release to parents. The act also provides an exception of 24 hours
       for rural areas only.

     * Overrepresentation of minority youths: States must systematically
       try to reduce confinement of minority youths to the proportion of
       those groups in the population.

Theoretical Perspectives on Juvenile Delinquency and Crime

Robert Merton

   Merton believes that there is a serious relationship between poverty
   and crime. He feels that there are institutionalized paths to happiness
   in our society. He believes in a society of equilibrium where goals =
   means. A society of disequilibrium would be adaptation. Merton's Strain
   Theory suggests five attributes.
    1. Innovation: individuals who accept socially approved goals, but not
       necessarily the socially approved means.
    2. Retreatism: those who reject socially approved goals and the means
       for acquiring them.
    3. Ritualism: those who buy into a system of socially approved means,
       but lose sight of the goals. Merton believed that drug users are in
       this category.
    4. Conformity: those who conform to the system's means and goals.
    5. Rebellion: people who negate socially approved goals and means by
       creating a new system of acceptable goals and means.

Ongoing debate

   One of the most notable causes of juvenile delinquency is fiat, i.e.
   the declaration that a juvenile is delinquent by the juvenile court
   system without any trial, and upon finding only probable cause. Many
   states have laws that presuppose the less harsh treatment of juvenile
   delinquents than adult counterparts’ treatment. In return, the juvenile
   surrenders certain constitutional rights, such as a right to trial by
   jury, the right to cross-examine, and even the right to a speedy trial.
   Notable writings by reformers such as Jerome G. Miller show that very
   few juvenile delinquents actually broke any law. Most were simply
   rounded up by the police after some event that possibly involved
   criminal action. They were brought before juvenile court judges who
   made findings of delinquency, simply because the police action
   established probable cause. h

Delinquency Prevention

   Delinquency Prevention is the broad term for all efforts aimed at
   preventing youth from becoming involved in criminal, or other
   antisocial, activity. Increasingly, local, state, and federal
   governments are recognizing the importance of allocating resources for
   the prevention of delinquency. Websites such as the
   'DelinquencyPrevention.Org' are working toward unifying delinquency
   prevention efforts. Because it is often difficult for states to provide
   the fiscal resources necessary for good prevention, organizations,
   communities, and governments are working more in collaboration with
   each other to prevent juvenile delinquency.

   Because the development of delinquent behaviour in youth is influenced
   by numerous factors, so should prevention efforts be comprehensive in
   scope. Prevention services include activities such as substance abuse
   education and treatment; family counseling; youth mentoring; parenting
   education; educational support; and youth sheltering. Organizations
   such as the Prevent Delinquency Project concentrate their efforts on
   teaching parents the importance of parental supervision and guidance,
   and assist them in learning to identify the various threats that exist
   to children. Armed with this knowledge, parents are in a better
   position to intervene at the earliest signs of trouble, before their
   children wind up in the juvenile justice system. Although those who
   provide prevention services are often well educated, well trained, and
   dedicated, they are frequently underpaid, and under recognized for
   their work. Agencies that provide prevention services typically run on
   "shoe string budgets" and appreciate any financial help they can get
   from individuals, social organizations, and governments.
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juvenile_delinquency"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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