Juvenile Delinquency and the Family Structure - Research Proposal Example

Various Juvenile Justice Systems have undertaken researches geared towards identifying the actual causes of Juvenile delinquency (Petty 2009). In addition, there has been the application of varying theoretical perspectives to assess the relationships that exist between outcomes and variables. However, the most evident result from these researches is that there is no single cause of juvenile delinquency, but the existence of various risk factors have been ascribed to increasing the chances of youths engaging in criminal offences (Petty 2009).

One of these risk factors is children raised under military families i.e. a scenario where the mother or the father of a child is a military personnel and is deployed for military missions in other countries. Research has indicated that the deployment of parents (soldiers) is the factor that creates a gap between parents and their children especially when they are deployed for extended periods of time: Thus, this leads to a scenario where children lack the necessary parental care. In a research article published by the Worldwide Web 2007, it is indicated that youths within military families lack proper contacts with their parents creating a scenario of inappropriate mentorship.

The research also indicated that most of the mentorship programs provided to the youths, those whose parents are on missions, are quite ineffective and need re-evaluation for improvement. The article also indicated that a group of youths who participated in a roundtable meeting acknowledged that due to various psychological stresses caused by the essence of their parents being in overseas missions, compelled them to commit juvenile offences such as Underage drinking, truancy as well as the curfew violations.

Objectives of the StudyTo assess military family as a risk factor for increasing juvenile delinquencyTo examine efforts directed towards reducing juvenile delinquency among affected military children Justification of the StudyIt is imperative to research on probable risk factors, military family being one of them in order to facilitate the formulation of effective solutions. Apart from this, my desire to undertake this research is driven by a passion to contribute positively to the current efforts that have been directed towards the reduction of delinquency among youths.