495 Develop Recommendations

Juvenile Delinquency and Public Safety

Joshua D. Musick

University of Maryland Global College

PSAD 495

Professor: Barry Titler

November 10, 2019

There are several issues that are present today in public safety administration. Despite the growth in the area and presence of modern methods, there is one thing that is yet to be addressed, juvenile delinquency. The issue of juvenile delinquency is one which has always been horrifying when it is being discussed. Several administrators choose to ignore this matter and a majority of people in the United States are ill-informed. There are headlines which come up every now and then showing the acts of violence that are committed by adolescents. There are several debates surrounding this topic and many people tend to believe that this problem is not easy to control because of its nature. It is important to look at the issue of juvenile delinquency looking at what causes it and what can be done to prevent its flourishing. Several states have guidelines on when something becomes an offence and the age which one is liable to be prosecuted. A delinquent child is one who is between 7 to 17 years old and breaks the law set by the authorities. In Texas, one has to reach 10 years old before they can be held responsible for their actions. A six-year-old in North Carolina, however, can be arrested (Pennington, 2015).

One of the key demographics that need to be focused on are the serious and violent juvenile offenders. These are the ones who will most likely continue with their intensive criminal life and several intervention and prevention methods might not work. These are the children who are involved in theft, carjacking, drug trafficking, among other serious offenses. In the United States, juvenile delinquency has been a problem in the country for a long time. In 1985, there were 340,000 cases of juvenile delinquency in the US justice system. By 2017, there were an estimated 809,700 arrests of people who are under the age of 18 (Pardini, 2016). The major crimes that were there include the possession and carrying of weapons. There were also violent crimes which were there including forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, as well as manslaughter.

There are a variety of individual and community risks which are associated with violence among the youth. One of the factors that has been shown to affect these is gender. The statistics have shown that there are more males who are in crime compared to females. There are several things that have led to males being associated more with crime. There are things such as tetrastylon which make the male youth more likely to use violence towards others (Pardini, 2016). The gender roles which are assigned by boys and girls in the society also affect how the individual will turn out. The idea of masculinity which will expect the male adolescent to be fearless can make them be very determined to get success. It is also important to look at other issues such as parenting which is being done in the families (Thompson & Bynum, 2016). Girls are subjected to more intensely supervised parenting as opposed to the sons.

As a public safety administrator, one also needs to consider the race factor in the presence of juvenile delinquency. There are differences that are seen in criminality based on the race of the individual. The minority groups such as blacks and Hispanics are overrepresented in many areas involving criminal charges. The African American community makes up 46% of all of the criminal offenders in institutions and this is dispute being a minority in the US (Pennington, 2015). The biology of race is not to be blamed for the criminality but this can be explained by looking at the environment. Exposure to racial discrimination has also been found among the juveniles. At the same time. There are negative prejudices and racial hatred that many of these individuals are likely to experience. The African American man might be excluded from the working and social life and this is why they are more at risk of getting into trouble with the law (Thompson & Bynum, 2016).

The problem of juvenile delinquency is of concern to people around the world today because of the trends and patterns which are being seen. There are new accounts of serious crimes which are being committed by juveniles and they are sometimes referred to as super predators (Pardini, 2016). There is the general belief that the young people are today becoming more violent and the juvenile justice system is slowly becoming inadequate in dealing with the problem. The young children and adolescents when they end up in the adult system will find themselves having a greater variety of offenses. One of the major concerns that is there today is the presence of violent crime among the juveniles.

The issue of juvenile crime has always been there in the world and this is why the juvenile justice system exists. Because of the increased presence of the delinquents in violent crime, it is important to look at the root causes of the problem. The issue needs to be analyzed for the causes and mitigation measures that are there to see if they are working. There are other disciplines such as psychology which look at juvenile delinquency in terms of the mental welfare of the young people committing the crime.

References

Pennington, L. (2015). A case study approach to procedural justice: Parents’ views in two juvenile delinquency courts in the United States. British Journal of Criminology, 55(5), 901-920.

Pardini, D. (2016). Empirically based strategies for preventing juvenile delinquency. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics, 25(2), 257-268.

Thompson, W. E., & Bynum, J. E. (2016). Juvenile delinquency: A sociological approach. Rowman & Littlefield.