Gang Violence and Juvenile Delinquency - Research Paper Example

? of the Gang Violence and Juvenile Delinquency Perceived problem with the juvenile laws Accordingto juvenile laws, Juvenile justice system has been given the mandate to rehabilitate children, and not to punish them for their wrong doing. Since the early 1980s, many faultfinders of these laws have sought to end this justice system, purporting that it has not succeeded in its rehabilitation duties as well as failing to give any penalty to serious juvenile offenders. However, supporters of juvenile justice system argue most of the juveniles, the present system has the capacity of solving most of their problems and defend that a small clique of errant children who have committed serious crimes and have not experience the Juvenile Justice System should not send the public into outcry about the ineffectiveness of the system (Bernard, 1992). According to the Finley (2007), cultural and social landscape has varied significantly since the establishment of the juvenile system in the early 1990s. In essence, gangs, drugs and easy accessibility to deadly weapons have contributed majorly to the increasing number of juvenile crimes including murder which currently has reached an alarming rate. They further claim that juvenile court system has insufficient resources to handle amicably the problems brought by amoral teenagers and children in the society. Rosenheim (2002) explains that the perceived clemency associated with the juvenile justice system as prescribed by the juvenile laws insinuate that it is not within the context of law for the juvenile court judge to warrant any form of punishment for the young criminal but to issue rehabilitation assistance to the juvenile. This has highly contributed to the juvenile system lack of capacity of correcting the amoral behavior fostered by the young but violent children. The system based on the current situation juvenile law stimulates a rotating-door course that leads the message that juvenile criminals are not held responsible for their wrong doings and not until these offenders are subjected to adults criminal courts that when they experience punishment for the first time in their lives. Based on my analysis, the law should be revised to allow for the punishing of the juveniles criminals in the first instance as this would prevent future amoral activities when the juvenile offender shall have grown into adult. In addition, accordance with the juvenile law, it is prohibited to release the juvenile criminal perpetrators from the authority of the juvenile court at an age above eighteen years. Serving less years in juvenile jail for an offense which would have earned an adult ten or more years sentence is unjust. For effective operation and success of this system, punishment for the misconduct should be the same irrespective of the age of the offender (Whitehead and Steven, 2006). Owing to these inadequacies and problems associated with juvenile laws, many critics have proposed for its complete overhaul or amendment of some of its laws, failure of which the crime rate among the young perpetrators would continue to escalate in the society. According to Scott and Steinberg (2008) some of these mitigation measures are juveniles should have complete DUEPROCESS rights such as right to trial by jury in the same way adult criminals are tried, freedom from the rehabilitation ideology associated with the juvenile system, allowing the juvenile to be tried to court once the young perpetrators are convicted and letting the juveniles to be accountable for their amoral actions. Theories of Delinquency Causation According to Banduras social theory, people acquire knowledge via observing others’ attitudes, behavior and results of those behaviors. Based on this theory, majority of human conduct is learned through observation and modeling. This infers that through observing how others conduct themselves, one comes up with the idea of how newly acquired behaviors are carried out and eventually this explicit information works as a blueprint for action. On the other hand, social learning theory illustrates human conduct based on continual reciprocal interfacing between behavioral, ecological and cognitive influences (Siegel and Welsh, 2012). In accordance with these observations, the rates at which juvenile crime cases or delinquencies are skyrocketing every year in our societies are astonishingly high. As per the Banduras theory, it is a common presumption that children acquire their behavior from the surrounding environment via observation and modeling. In this case, the behavioral, ecological and cognitive influences that affects or mold the young people behavior is in the hands of their families and friends. Basically, excellent parenting involves giving the child proper love, care and guidance and anything less than this, contributes significantly to high rate of juvenile delinquencies among the innocent kids. Another cause of high rate of juvenile delinquencies is hereditary factors. Just like hereditary diseases such as diabetes and alcoholism, parental delinquency as a disease that can be past to the child (Clark, 1990). Improper upbringing of the child implies that parents have the inability to take care of one another. This results into severe causes of juvenile delinquencies, separation and divorce cases. To some extent, divorce has a direct influence on the high rate of juvenile criminal activities and this can be justified by the fact that a single parent due to divorce cannot adequately bring up the child to a required standards as the child will have more time to hang out with the bad company. Another group that can pose a considerable amount of influence to a child is his or her friends. As Banduras puts it, human being behavior is modeled through observation. Given that often, a teenage spent more time with the friends than the parent, there is a high possibility that these teenagers especially the immoral ones would develop an errant character they acquire from their friends through observation (Knauerhase, 2000). According to peer influence model, inadequate parenting results to a child accompanying the amoral friends which in turn results to juvenile delinquency. Moreover, the negative influence of mass media can also contribute adversely to the child’s resultant behavior. Given that human acquire knowledge through observation of other’s attitude and behavior, coupled with the surrounding environment, certain books may contain obscene pictures or violent movies such that when exposed to young people, they will tend to emulate or curve their behaviors with respect to what they learnt or watch from the media or movie. For instance, children may watch horror and violent movies and start to believing that violent is a normal way of life and without an adult to caution them against this conviction, they are likely to develop amoral behavior that can culminates to juvenile delinquency (Clark, 1990). There are numerous ways that can be implemented to stop or prevent the occurrence of juvenile crimes. First, school education plays significant functions to teach and impart traditional values and beliefs in school going children at their young age. This would help in bringing the child in a proper manner with a knowledge that crimes comes with consequences and is highly unacceptable in the society. Secondly, based on the mass media, books and programs exposed to the children should be in good quality and the parents should play a supervisory and guidance role to ensure that this measure is carried out. In addition, parents should spend much time with their children to offer both family and societal education and they too, ought to be leading as the ultimate children behavior is based on what they see. Influences on Juveniles and Delinquency According to most psychologists, gender differences as defined by the way males and females socialize influence greatly the development of their behavior. Parents in many societies treat females and males children differently, enhancing what they recognized to be suitable female and male behavior. Socialization may also influence aggressive behavior as mature girls learn how to cope with provocative feelings and anxious unlike male children who are cheered to retaliate. There are also cognitive variations between female and male young children as prescribe by Banduras theory. Research reveals that gender variation in cognitive influences suggests girls’ supremacy on visual-motor speed and language prowess while males’ superiority is seen in mechanical and visual-spatial duties (Whitehead and Steven, 2006). In most cases, cognitive variations are narrow and small and are normally owed to cultural anticipations. Empirical evidence illustrate that young female children at puberty age are more prone to delinquency and so, are at enhanced risk of victimization being guided by their mood disorders. Essentially, socialization observations are in accordance with the concept that child’s social advances may contribute to proper understanding of delinquent behavior among children. For instance, parents may supervise their girl children more keenly than their male counterparts such that if they behave in a socially disapproved manner, their parents would be the first to notice. There is a substantial body of literature connecting abusive home lifestyles to gang involvement and amoral behavior. The socialization method of approach believes that family interaction is a major contributing factor to comprehending female delinquencies. Many liberal feminists purport that females are less prone to delinquency compared to their male counterparts, given their social roles that provide limited opportunities to participate in criminal activities (Knauerhase, 1990). There are numerous factors that affect individual behavior which must be taken into account when learning the concept of juvenile delinquencies and crime. Some of these factors are environment, metal status, poverty and the feelings of the minor. For example, a kid can participate in criminal activity because of the uncomfortable situation or environment at home or even financial problems. Young people need to have their financial obligations met, adequate parental control, self-worth and appreciation. There are measures that once implemented can influence juvenile delinquencies and these tactics include; specific deterrence, general deterrence, situation crime prevention and incapacitation. General deterrence essentially implies that by frightening to reprimand young criminals, kids would be threaten and grow with a conviction that committing crime is associated with severe punishment (Martin, 2009). Presently, a few juvenile courts have incorporated punishment and sentencing of the juvenile criminals just like adults with a view that if they realize how they would be punished on committing crime, they would less likely to commit crime. On the other hand, specific deterrence involves punishing the junior law offenders so severely that they can never think of criminal acts anymore. It is one of the famous techniques of deterrence known, given its approach to regulate criminal activities among the juveniles (Mills, 1996). There are several factors that are confirmed between the knowledge of undergoing punishment and the fear of being subjected to punishment. There is also Incapacitation as a form of deterrence which is always meant for the most lethal and continual juvenile criminals. It involves putting the juvenile criminals in adult prisons where they are subjected to harsh conditions and severe punishment with an aim of teaching the juvenile offenders that crime comes with harsh consequences. References Bernard, T. J. (1992). The Cycle of Juvenile Justice. New York: Oxford Univ. Press. Burke, M. K. (1995). “This Old Court: Abolitionists Once Again Line Up the Wrecking Ball on the Juvenile Court When All It Needs Is a Few Alterations.” University of Toledo Law Review 26. Clark, J. D. (1990). “Juveniles and the Death Penalty: A Square Peg in a Round Hole.” Mississippi College Law Review 10. Finley, L. L. (2007). Juvenile justice. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Feld, B. C. (1991). “The Transformation of the Juvenile Court.” Minnesota Law Review 75. Knauerhase, E. C. (2000). “The Federal Circle Game: The Precarious Constitutional Status of Status Offenders.” Cooley Law Review 7. Martin, D. R. (2009). “Conspiratorial Children? The Intersection of the Federal Juvenile Delinquency Act and Federal Conspiracy Law.” Boston University Law Review 74. Mills, D. L. (1996). “United States v. Johnson: Acknowledging the Shift in the Juvenile Court System from Rehabilitation to Punishment.” DePaul Law Review 45. Scott, E. S., & Steinberg, L. D. (2008). Rethinking juvenile justice. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. (2012). Juvenile delinquency: theory, practice, and law (11th ed.). Australia: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Rosenheim, M. K.( 2002). A Century of Juvenile Justice. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. Whitehead, J. T., & Steven, P. L. (2006). Juvenile Justice: An Introduction. Cincinnati. Read More