Juvenile delinquency: causes, prevention, and intervention

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% had experienced "at least two types of maltreatment" (5). 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 -- behaviors that are believed to be the result of being abused in some serious way during childhood -- include: a) various "health and mental health risks"; b) participation in risky sexual activities; c) psychiatric illness; d) substance "dependence"; e) dropping out from school; f) death; and g) "continued criminal behavior" (Leve, 440).

Research that Leve and colleague present shows that "early-onset girls" (those females that begin showing antisocial behaviors at a relatively early age) tend to have had "high-risk backgrounds" that were very similar to boys who show early signs of trouble and delinquency (Leve, 441). The bottom line for this research article is presented on page 449; when the biological parents of the female are shown to have been engaged in criminal behavior, that fact increases the odds "…of an early arrest by 15 to 283 times" (Leve, 449).

Why is it important for social scientists, counselors, law enforcement professionals and others in schools and in the community to know that a girl's parents (at least one parent) had been convicted of a crime? For one important reason, the families of these girls "…could be taught behavioral management strategies" that include effective and consistent discipline, "positive support, and effective mentoring. And the theory is that given this chance for intervention with the family, the troubled girl in question could be guided through some tough years and become a law-abiding citizen.

A longitudinal study is sometimes the best evidence to offer validity for a theory, and in the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal (Chen, 2011, p. 273) the authors offer a study that was conducted over a 17-year period. This study involved 251 children that had been neglected, and the results "confirmed that neglected children were at a greater risk to be arrested for later juvenile drug and alcohol offenses than non-neglected children" (Chen, 273). Zeroing in on the ethnicity of the neglected child, the authors found that being male, and Caucasian, and being in the presence of "domestic violence" -- but not necessarily being harmed physically -- "significantly contributed to elevated risks of being arrested" for drug and alcohol violations during adolescence (Chen, 273).

The facts very clearly indicate that the U.S. has a serious problem due to the neglect of children in this society. Indeed, the authors assert that 64% of all child maltreatment victims were neglected; and the math shows that 7.4 of every 1,000 children in the general population were neglected to one degree or another (Chen, 274). Being neglected during a person's childhood tends to lead not only to poor performance in school, but also neglect has been found to lead to "neurobiological deficits," which include the impairment of executive functions "…as well as elevation of the stress hormone cortisol" (Chen, 274).