Juvenile Delinquency
The link between abusive or neglectful behavior perpetrated on a child, and that child's delinquent or troubled behavior later in life, is justifiably of great concern to society. This paper references the literature on this topic and offers suggested interventions for the delinquent adolescent that was abused as a very young person.
"Neglect should be defined as an interaction between aversive parental behaviors and developmental stage…neglect can also be defined as an omission, which is either 'harmful to the child' or 'improper,' or can refer to the commission of behavior…" (Maughan, et al., 2010).
In the Journal of Research on Adolescence the authors review the history of society's awareness of child abuse, as a way of establishing the need for understanding the effects of childhood maltreatment. Albeit society has been aware of child neglect since the early 1900s, it wasn't until 1974 that federal legislation (Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act) was enacted to "…assure the development by the states of programs and services for abused children and their families" (Trickett, et al., 2011, p. 3). Along with the 1974 legislation, the federal government established the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN) within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The authors put forward the statutes that states used to provide definitions of abuse, including: a) physical abuse (hitting, kicking, burning a child by a parent or caregiver); b) sexual abuse (forcibly engaging a child in sexual activity "…to provide sexual gratification or financial benefit to the perpetrator) that includes statutory rape, molestation, prostitution, incest, pornography and "other exploitative activities"); c) psychological or emotional maltreatment (including verbal abuse, making "excessive demands" on the child, telling the child he is "no good"); and d) neglect (failing to provide for a child's financial needs, food needs, clothing and medical care neglect as well) (Trickett, 4).
In the study that Trickett and colleagues present, they discovered that in a sample of 303 "ethnically diverse" young people ages 9 through 12 years of age -- who had been maltreated as young children -- some 54%...
In half of the group of 303 individuals they had been neglected and physically abused as well. And in 61% of that sample the children had been neglected, emotionally abused and physically abused. Hence the point of the article is that most adolescents that get into trouble have had more than one kind of abuse perpetrated upon them; moreover, the authors' research shows that the average number of reports to child welfare agencies was 5 (while in some cases there were as many as 17 reports for one abused child) (Trickett, 5).
When a child is maltreated, Trickett continues on page 11, that mistreatment often leads to "poor peer relationships"; and the trend continues into poor romantic relationships later in the teens. When a child is sexually abused, that often leads to "risky sexual activity and maladaptive attitudes about sex" (Trickett, 11). What are the remedies that the authors suggest? Because maltreatment during childhood leads to poor relationships with peers -- and given that peer relationships for adolescents are very important in their social maturation -- the authors suggest "…early interventions targeting the improvement of such peer relationships…may be especially beneficial" (Trickett, 15).
Meanwhile, an article in the peer-reviewed Journal of Child and Family Studies sets the stage for its research by stating that there is the possibility that childhood factors can "…predict the age of the first arrest in adolescent girls," girls that were placed in juvenile justice facilities due to "serious delinquency problems" (Leve, et al., 2004, p. 439). The article states that there is a "…strong predictive utility of & #8230;biological parent criminality" when the justice system is forced to incarcerate a juvenile-aged female. The piece reflects the fact that females under the age of 18 "…comprise one of the fastest growing segments of the juvenile-justice population" (Leve, 439). The article notes that 27% of the total arrests of juveniles in 1999 were females; moreover, cases that law enforcement officers dealt with that involved females "…increased by 83%" between the years 1988 and 1997.
The outcomes for girls that are demonstrating severe antisocial behaviors --…
