Truancy Is The First Step To The Juvenile Criminal Justice System Term Paper

Truancy is the first and most reliable indicator of future delinquent behavior. Youth missing school regularly are at a great risk of getting involved in drugs, alcohol and crimes. The rising instances of truancy in schools around the country indicate that it has become a major problem and a huge concern since most of these kids are likely to test positive for drug and alcohol use or end up in jail for violence. A deputy assistant attorney in California who deals with truancy cases maintains that all gang members that he has seen have been truants first (1). There are many studies that clearly indicate a correlation between truancy and juvenile delinquency. A study conducted by University of Maryland found that 51% of female juvenile arrestees who were caught when they were skipping school were found using drugs (2). Similarly a report by the U.S. Department of Justice's Drug Use Forecasting (DUF) program indicated the same problem for male juvenile detainees where 53% tested positive for drug use (3). Drug use was thus more common among those who skipped school compared to those who did not. The fact that truancy is good indicator of criminal behavior in future was also suggested by various reports by police departments. In California, police started a program of arresting truants and found that this led to a sudden 60% decrease in shop-lifting cases. Other crimes, mostly minor ones, like purse snatching were also closely connected with truancy. Police in St. Paul, Minnesota noticed a 50% drop in cases of purse snatching when it started detaining truants.

References

1. J. Kass, Curfew Mulled as Way to Stem Truancy, Crime, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 1996, sec. B, p. 1.

2. E.D. Wish, T.A. Gray, and E.B. Levine (1996), Recent Drug Use in Female Juvenile Detainees: Estimates from Interviews, Urinalysis, and Hair Analysis (College Park, MD: Center for Substance Abuse Research, University of Maryland), p. 4.

3. Drug Use Among San Diego Arrestees, SANDAG Info, Special Issue 1996 (San Diego, CA: San Diego Association of Governments).

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