Criminal Justice - Delinquent and Criminal Behavior - Assignment Example

AbstractDelinquent and criminal behavior among juveniles, on their journey toward adulthood in this post-modern world, is the cardinal issue that this paper addresses. It presents some basic problem behaviors that contribute to delinquency and criminality. The paper also gives a description of the problem syndrome underlying this particular phenomenon. IntroductionIn our bid to identifying the behavior leading to delinquency and crime, it is important to find out how delinquent identity comes about.

Obviously, there is a syndrome that is responsible to all these behaviors, which is characterized by hyperactive and impulsive personality and attention deficit. In what they call developmental view, delinquency is a social problem that only the youth at- risk face characterizing the problem behavior syndrome. According to this analysis, delinquency is the umbrella word enveloping the many anti-social behavior. These risk factors include family dysfunction, sexual and related abuses, physical harm, early pregnancy, educational mediocrity and suicide attempts, underemployment and unemployment (Siegel & Welsh, p184).

Young offenders do not have a tendency to specialize in certain offences. However, as this hyperactivity and impulsivity takes toll, violent offenders commit a variety of offences and almost all chronic offenders have at one time or other committed a violent offence (Shepherd & Farrington, para7). It is important to note that delinquent identity is largely constructed as one in opposition to the conventional identity. Young people who are greatly vulnerable to adopting delinquent behavior often live in complicated circumstances.

Some children are at a greater risk of declining into juvenile delinquency. This is because of such reasons as parental alcoholism, poverty and squalor, family disintegration, overcrowding, abusive upbringing or the passing on of parents because of violence. These children may also be orphaned or unattended to and in serious want of care, may lack a sure means of subsistence, proper housing and other necessities of life. Sociologists have attempted to lay bare the hypothetical underpinnings of delinquency.

They assert that youth problem behaviors cannot be discussed in isolation, but with strict regard to the home, family, neighborhood, peers and a cluster of other variables that jointly or separately manipulate the person’s immediate social environment. We have educational structures in total collapse and terribly lacking opportunities for the youth to involve in meaningful clubs or associations. Many social services in our communities have been done away with, which has given young people a leeway to engage in delinquent groupings (World Youth Report, p200)ConclusionWhile delinquency is a common characteristic period and process of growing into adulthood, it is very important to acknowledge the fact that a great majority of young people who commit some of these offences at some point during their adolescence do not allow it to metamorphose into a criminal career in the end.

The role of the stakeholders then is to seek apt modalities to make our youth responsible for every action.Works citedShepherd, J. P, Farrington, P. D. (n.d). Preventing crime and violence. Retrieved 6th April, 2010, from http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/310/6975/271Siegel, L. J. & Welsh, B. C. (2008). Juvenile Delinquency: Theory, Practice, and Law. Belmont: Cengage Learning.World Youth Report, (2003). Juvenile Delinquency. Retrieved 6th April, 2010, from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unyin/documents/ch07.pdf