Juvenile Delinquency Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Juvenile Delinquency - Article Example Identifying kids at risk of becoming delinquents must be done in the earliest years of a child’s life because the earlier a child starts to commit crimes, the subsequent crimes are more likely to be violent ones. The authors separated their study into two parts. They differentiated their findings based on sex. They found that in the course of their study, males and females exhibited some strikingly different attributes that lead to criminality. While many of the factors are the same for males and females, the authors were quick to point out that understanding the differences between male and female was important for early intervention efforts. When examining the data on male juvenile delinquents, the authors found that a cluster of factors seemed to be shared by all of the male juvenile delinquents. The most commonly shared characteristic was low social economic status. The majority of all incarcerated male delinquents that were a part of the study grew up either in poverty or very poor. Economic stresses were identified as a major factor in predicting juvenile crime. Another factor that contributes to male juvenile delinquency is exposure to trauma and violence early in childhood. Half of the participants in the study report being physically abused or witnessing acts of physical violence against family members. The authors point out that experiencing these sorts of traumas can lead to psychopathologies that result in criminal acts. Many male juvenile delinquents display signs of these pathologies. They have higher rates of depression, self-abuse, and remorselessness than does the non-delinquent population. A final indicator of an increased threat of delinquent activity is family structure. Males growing up in single family homes are more than twice as likely to commit crimes than males growing up in a home with both biological parents present.