Juvenile Delinquency as a Youths Behavior - Essay Example

Achievements of the Child Saving Movement in USA, 1880-1920 Youths turn their desires into actions and their impulses are apt to carry them away, leading to a long-term tendency to be rowdy (Kim and Kim, 2009:4). These thoughts and tendencies make youths drink excessively, fight with one another, and engage in reckless sexual activities. Truthfully, they carry on with this behavior for rest of their lives unless they receive rehabilitation. When youth related issues arose, there were few systems for handling such matters and consequently others ended up facing unfair treatment (Gore, 2009:78). As a result, there were determined people who saw that there was need to establish a concept to address juvenile delinquency and criminality in the US. Between 1880 and 1920, people did not draw a clear distinction between adolescents, children, and adults as people do in modern society (Goldson and Munice, 2006:47). Early paintings portrayed children as miniature adults with limited rights compared to adults (Conrad, 2009:99). During these days, killing of infants, throwing away of unwanted babies was a common phenomenon among societies. Moreover, youths encountered ruthless and merciless forces as adults abandoned unwanted children and practically sold them as slaves, into indentured servitude, and introducing them into selling their bodies (Hajnal, 2007:39). Moran points out that, economically stabilized mothers hired wet nurses to feed their babies. These babies ended up losing their lives at a very high rate since the hired wet nurses suffered from malnutrition (Moran, 2006:28). Furthermore, Clark asserts that some mothers swaddled their babies by wrapping bandages all over their babies’ bodies to restrict their movement. Upon growing up, these children could no longer stick to their homes hence ended up in the streets (Clark, 2011:64). This shows that children lived in very harsh and difficult conditions and as such ended up committing numerous crimes in view of their survival. Due to inhumane acts committed against children, the child saving movement established a juvenile delinquent court in the United States in 1899 that dealt with unruly activities committed by young adults (Power, 2003:9). Furthermore, due to civilization in the States, inhumane actions against children began to fade away. This was because of introduction of proper training regarding special treatment towards children (Downes and Rock, 2007:85). The Puritans were reformers who taught parents moral values in conjunction with hard work, and obedience to the laws of the Bible, which in turn taught their children, hence restrained them criminality (Machen, 2004:83). Reformers believed that schooling was important for children in different pats of America. Indeed, the reformers had a strong determination to establish welfare associations in order to protect the interests of the children; they started child saving campaigns in 1890. The education of children was a major child saving movement brought about by social reformers (Scheuering, 2004:92). Reformers’ goals in establishing teaching institutions sought to remove children from almshouses and to create societies that protected children from cruelty by offering them societal aid (Kipling, 2009:17). Additionally, these reformists fostered attempts to replace institutional care with juvenile probation and juvenile courts as well as compulsory education. They also introduced kindergartens and day-care services that extended help to mothers with tight schedules and established playgrounds as an incentive for children to play rather than engage in unacceptable behaviors (Kipling, 2009:24). The child saving movement achieved the foundation of the New York Children’s Aid Society, which provided aid to children (Tulchinsky and Varavikova, 2009:184). This foundation advocated for strict laws that imposed severe penalties on those children who disobeyed the rules of learning, reading, and writing (Buchan, 2007:34). Since those who ran and funded this organization were businesspeople, they aimed to develop a redefined authoritarian educational system that produced a working force equipped with an advanced sterile and corporate workplace ethos. Therefore, those young people trained in these organizations abstained from criminal activities and emerged to be educated, responsible adults. (Siegel, 2010:392). Agreeably, education and good ethos restrained youths from engaging themselves into criminal activities, which was a profound achievement for the child saving movement in the US. The child saving movement in the US served as an opportunity for women to restore part of the family’s authority and impose a spiritual influence that many children had lost during the process of urbanization. This would in turn foster moral values that fought against criminality (Gaines and Miller, 2010:134). Many women who participated in the child saving movement felt that there was a need to achieve change. Urbanization brought about crowded cities, a decline in traditional religious activities, and the introduction of new and simplified means of leisure. Idleness contributed to criminal activities that landed young people into trouble with the existing laws (Siegel, 2011:167). Women decided to join in the welfare programs as volunteers and condoning acquaintance of less privileged activities but with the view of making both their lives and those of their children better (Stevenson, 2008:108). This movement led to legitimate job opportunities for those women people considered career-minded who strived to support their children through school and better living standards thus keeping them away from criminal related activities. In addition, professionals and clergymen knew they would benefit from people who needed expertise and workforce respectively (Siegel, 2009:82). Surprisingly, the child saving movement influenced the growth of the economy leading to economic rewards due to transitional changes taking place because of welfare activities. The movement also led to emergency of prestigious classes of people as well as furnished lifestyles as the clergy declined rapidly creating opportunities for people with different areas of expertise. This reduced the level of juvenile delinquency since the clergy had dominated all cities and protected their personal interests as opposed to the new class of experts who were striving to attain a society free of criminality (Siegel & Welsh, 2011:201). People required lawyers for their professional expertise and paid academic specialists for consultancy services. Subsequently, the child saving movement led to everlasting careers for different people who passed on their resources to the following generation thus ensured continued fight against criminal activities in the US. The child saving movement freed women who suffered due to male domination together with their children (Junger-Tas, 2011:185). Through the child saving movement, reformists were able to establish welfare programs and allowed women to participate in the activities of those programs. As time went by, these women were able to free themselves from male domination in society and continued to participate fully in society’s activities (McShane and Williams, 2007:89). These liberated women contributed largely to the development of educational services within Massachusetts since they offered coaching services as surrogate parents during probation of juvenile delinquents. Consequently, they resolved towards the reduction of criminal issues in the society (Esbensen, 2011:108). The child saving movement acted as a founding base for Progressive reformists and child savers to back communism, as they did not conform to requirements of capitalists solutions. They knew that, with communism resolutions, most children would attend schools hence reducing the number of wandering youths in the streets, which would in turn reduce criminality. Most of the Progressive reformists and the child saving movement were in support of a newly structured order of industrial activities, which aimed to transform the existing cruel systems of industrial management as well as harmonize the surrounding harsh working conditions (Regoli, 2009:316). With zeal and passion for accelerating economic growth, Progressive reformists, in conjunction with child savers, introduced programs that fostered economic development and the subsequent balancing of economic inequalities (Carrington and Pereira, 2010). Hence, the child saving movement achieved prevalent programs that led to radical economic growth and improved working conditions thus reducing criminality. In order for the child saving movement to achieve its goal of a criminal-free society in the US, physician Hamilton Wey of the Elmira Reformatory argued to the National Prison Association in 1881 that, America had to start treating criminals as a distinctive kind of human species (Frost, 2010:118). Because of these remarks, child savers proposed to adopt and modify a rhetorical order of addressing the detention and rehabilitation of criminals urgently. Reformists introduced methods of registering and training potential criminals (Clear, 2008:304). Further, progressive reformists proposed to withdraw criminals at an early age from the community and keep them in confined rehabilitation centers where they could receive teachings regarding criminology and how to stay away from criminals and criminal related places. Therefore, child saving movement led to establishment of rehabilitation centers all over America, which reduced the level of criminal activities drastically. Finally, the child saving movement achieved many reforms. It established different institutions all with divergent purposes, but working to achieve common good. Its impact was extra ordinary as is illustrated in the lives of urban poor children (Lotz, 2005:149). Further, it aimed at eliminating troublesome paternalistic vocabulary (Keshen and Blake, 2006:71). It also eliminated communal based systems of punishing young offenders. The child saving movement transformed the years between 1880 and 1920 because of the ultra progressive initiatives and programs associated with autonomy and responsibility that this movement achieved. Bibliography Buchan , J. 2007. Greenmantle. Rockville,MD: Wildside Press LLC. Carrington, K. and Pereira, M., 2010. Offending youth: Sex, crime and justice. Leichhardt NSW :Federation Press. Clark, D. A., 2011. The notorious "Bull" Nelson, murdered Civil War general. Carbondale: SIU Press. Clear, T. R., 2008. American corrections. Ohio: Cengage Learning. 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