How Teenages Turn into Delinquents

What is causing children to act like animals by destroying and causing havoc in our streets? There are many theories and answers to the question of why juvenile delinquents continue to be born; I will be stating the main points. The main causes for children to become juvenile delinquents is childhood trauma, which involves child abuse, either sexual or physical; socio-economic status, usually children living in poverty and ghetto areas; peer influences, which is peer-pressure by the child or teenager from negative and pessimistic children or teenagers; and awful, terrible parenting from non-experienced parents. With all these reasons given, we will come to realize that these are the major topics citizens should focus on in order to eliminate juvenile delinquency.

A child growing up who is abused by a parent, relative, or a grown-up is highly likely to become a juvenile delinquent. If the child is being continuously beaten by their parent, or being continuously sexually abused, the child will be permanently damaged and scarred for life. Whether it is mental, psychological, physical, or sexual abuse, there is no doubt the child will be negatively affected, and sadly, the abuse is usually with an adult who is trusted by the child, such as a parent, uncle, teacher, or another relative, which greatly contributes to the child’s delinquent behavior. According to Siegfried, Ko, and Kelley, in 2004, “Numerous studies over the past 10 years have shown a clear relationship between youth victimization and a variety of problems in later life, including mental health problems, substance abuse, impaired social relationships, suicide, and delinquency”(p.5). This is not a surprising fact, which explains why children act delinquently. If children are abused, they are mentally and psychologically damaged, which means they believe the abused acts committed to them is normal and usual, thus resulting in those children committing criminal acts within a community, such as truancy, substance abuse, physical abuse amongst other peers, and even sexual abuse towards other siblings or younger children.

A juvenile’s socio-economic status also plays a major role in juvenile delinquency. A juvenile growing up in a poverty-filled, ghetto community will have other juveniles just like him or her. In these poverty-filled communities, statistics show that juveniles are more than likely to be raised by one guardian, usually the mother, and the child is abandoned by the father, thus leaving the child unsupervised because the mother will be working to make ends meet. The child will have much unsupervised time by him or herself, meaning no punishments for committing delinquent acts by a parent or guardian. This is when peer-influences play a major role in a juvenile’s delinquent act. With families facing the same issues in a poverty-filled community with only one guardian, juveniles will roam freely throughout the streets finding something fun to get into, such as negative fun. There are many street-gangs in communities that are filled with poverty, so the juvenile might join a gang committing drive-by shootings or drug-trafficking, or find another delinquent to commit burglaries with to make money because his or her mother is not making enough money at work to put food on the table. On the other hand, if a juvenile engages in positive acts when he or she is unsupervised by his or her guardian, such as athletics or art drawings and things of that nature, then there is a higher chance of the juvenile not committing in delinquent behaviors. The juvenile conducting in positive day-to-day activities will positively affect his lifestyle, thus he or she will stay away from a life of crime. During this stage of a juvenile’s life, a guardian plays a significant role in one’s life by providing them with the correct parenting.

The correct parenting technique’s is very crucial in the stage of a teenager’s life. This stage in a teenager’s life, he or she is going through puberty and experiencing many physical and mental changes in one’s body, which need correct supervision and parenting in order for the teenager to walk down the correct path, a path away from criminality. According to Matherene and Thomas, both suggests that a positive family influence with strong emotional bonding and positive communication strategies can mitigate the influence of deviant peers in a young person’s life. If the guardians do not properly communicate with the teenager during this stage of one’s life, the teenager will go out and do whatever he or she wants, such as delinquent acts with other peers, usually involving substance abuse, which can lead to robberies, burglaries, and gang activity. By the guardian not communicating properly and punishing the teenager for committing criminal acts, the teenager is more than likely to continue with criminality. With positive family influence and a strong, emotional bond with positive communication between the teenager and the guardian, the teenager will neglect the negative influences faced in this stage of one’s life. The teenager will have more trust with the guardian or parent, and will not want to disappoint or upset his or her parents because the teenager and the guardian communicated what are the right and the wrong things to do.

The reasons are clear to why adolescents end up in the life of crime. Abused children and teenagers, whether physical or sexual seem to be the major reason to why they commit acts of delinquency. The juvenile’s social environment, such as living in poverty-filled areas, does not help the situation because other teenagers will influence one another within the community to commit in acts of delinquency as well. Once these teenagers start committing in acts of delinquency, it is a must that they are correctly punished immediately, or else they will continue in the life of criminality, and sadly, this is the way society has been headed to, thus resulting in more juvenile delinquents.

Matherne, M, & Thomas, A. “Family Environment as a Predictor of Adolescent

Delinquency.” Adolescence, 36(144), 655-664, 2002.

Siegfried, C. B., Ko, S. J., & Kelley, A. “Victimization and Juvenile Offending.”

National Child Traumatic Stress Network. Jan 2004.

Walklate, S. Understanding Criminology – Current Theoretical Debates, 2nd edition.

Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2002.