dic 3

3 Characteristics of Juvenile Offenders

Chapter Learning Objectives On completion of this chapter, students should be able to do the following:

Recognize differences between delinquency profiles based on official statistics and behavioral profiles Recognize and discuss the multitude of factors related to delinquency Discuss the impact of social factors (e.g., family, schools, social class) on delinquency Discuss the effects of physical factors (e.g., gender, age, race) on delinquency

What Would You Do?

You are a juvenile probation officer for youth referred through the court system. Recently, the Mendez family was referred to you at the time of Isabella’s third arrest, this time for drug possession. Isabella is a 15-year-old Latina who lives with her mother, Juanita, and younger brother, Gustavo. Juanita is a single parent whose husband is currently locked up in a medium-security prison for a robbery charge. Gustavo is 12 years old and loves his sister but views her as trouble for her mother. Juanita is upset about her daughter’s behavior and because she is afraid of losing custody of her daughter to the state.

Recently, the family was referred to the regional office of the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). Because Juanita only speaks Spanish, the family was assigned to a Latina bilingual case worker who made a point to call the family. When she called, she noted that there was screaming and fighting in the house during the call. The caseworker noted that the mother, Juanita, sounded overwhelmed. When the caseworker tried to arrange a session for the family, Juanita explained that she could not ever get Isabella to attend.

You indicate to Juanita that you plan to visit the home but would like to time it so that Isabella would be there when her mother was also there. Juanita works during the day as a domestic worker in a hotel, and Isabella is seldom home unless it is later at night, if at all. You set the time for about 8:30 p.m. the next evening. When you arrive, you find Ms. Mendez at home alone with Gustavo. Juanita explains that Isabella came to the house for a few brief moments and, without warning, left with her friends, giving no explanation. Juanita indicates that she has no idea when her daughter would be home. Young Gustavo also confirms his mother’s story and states that Isabella is always causing problems for his mother. He feels that because she does not want to be with them, she should just go away.

What Would You Do? 1. In today’s multicultural society, how important is it to have multilingual abilities in juvenile justice agencies? 2. In your opinion, do you think that because Isabella’s father is in prison that this is, perhaps, affecting her current behavior? 3. How likely do you think it is that Isabella’s behavior will affect Gustavo’s behavior when he is a teenager? 4. Do you believe that Juanita is a responsible parent?

The complex shown in this picture processes juvenile offenders, taking into consideration their various characteristics and their circumstances when determining the outcome for these young offenders.

Rampart Police Station by Ucla90024, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rampart_Police_Station.jpg. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

In any discussion of the general characteristics of juvenile offenders, we must be aware of possible errors in the data and must be cautious concerning the impression presented. In general, profiles of juvenile offenders are drawn from official files based on police contacts, arrests,

and/or incarceration. Although these profiles may accurately reflect the characteristics of juveniles who are or will be incarcerated or who have a good chance for an encounter with the justice system, as we saw in Chapter 2, they might not accurately reflect the characteristics of all juveniles who commit offenses.

Studies have established that the number of youthful offenders who formally enter the justice system is small in comparison with the total number of violations committed by juveniles (Langton, Berzofsky, Krebs, & Smiley-McDonald, 2012). Hidden-offender surveys, in which juveniles are asked to anonymously indicate the offenses they have committed, have indicated repeatedly that far more offenses are committed than are reported in official agency reports. In addition, even those juveniles who commit offenses resulting in official encounters are infrequently formally processed through the entire system. The determination of who will officially enter the justice system depends on many variables that are considered by law enforcement and other juvenile justice personnel. It is important to remember that official profiles of youthful offenders might not actually represent those who commit youthful offenses but rather represent only those who enter the system.

It is common practice to use official profiles of juveniles as a basis for development of delinquency prevention programs. Based on the characteristics of known offenders, prevention programs that ignore the characteristics of the hidden and/or unofficial delinquent have been initiated. For example, there is official statistical evidence indicating that the major proportion of delinquents comes from lower socioeconomic families and neighborhoods. The correlates of poverty and low social status include substandard housing, poor sanitation, poor medical care, high unemployment, and exposure to violence (Zahn et al., 2010). It has been suggested that if these conditions were altered, delinquency might be reduced. However, as Harcourt and Ludwig (2006) found out in their study of broken-windows policing, changing the disorder does not necessarily reduce or eliminate criminal behavior. (Recall our comments on middle-class delinquency in Chapter 2.)

The factors causing delinquency seem to be numerous and interwoven in complex ways (Tapia, 2011). Multiple factors must be considered if we are to improve our understanding of delinquency. For example, Mallett (2008), in a study using a random sample of all adjudicated delinquent youths who received probation supervision from the Cuyahoga County (greater Cleveland) Juvenile Court in 2004 and 2005, found that over 57% of delinquent youths on probation supervision had either a mental health disorder or a special education disability. Thornberry, Huizinga, and Loeber (2004) found that drug, school, and mental health problems are strong risk factors for male adolescents’ involvement in persistent and serious delinquency, although more than half of persistent serious offenders do not have such problems. Still, more than half of the males studied who did have persistent problems with drugs, school, or mental health were also persistent and serious delinquents. Fewer than half of persistent and serious female delinquents studied had drug, school, or mental health problems, but these problems alone or in combination were not strong risk factors for serious delinquency. However, Zahn and colleagues (2010, p. 11) concluded that “attachment to school has protective effects against delinquency for both genders, although several recent studies find a stronger effect for girls.” Mitchell and Shaw (2011) also noted that adolescent offenders have high levels of mental health problems, many of which go undetected and lead to poor outcomes. Most criminologists contend that a number of factors combine to produce delinquency (see In Practice 3.1). Further, at least some research indicates that risk factors for delinquency may be different for boys and girls (Carbone-Lopez, Esbensen, & Brick, 2010; Martin, Golder, Cynthia, & Sawning, 2013; National Girls Institute, 2013; Zahn et al., 2010).

In Practice 3.1: Ending Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System Issues related to racial disparity in the treatment of youth processed through the juvenile justice system are still problematic, despite efforts to eliminate this problem. Evidence that this problem still warrants substantive attention exists when one considers that the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) continues to allocate funds for grant-funded projects to address disparity problems in processing youthful offenders in the juvenile justice system. The Smart on Juvenile Justice: Technical Assistance to End Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System is one such project initiated by the OJJDP to do this. The overall goal of this project is to establish, operate, and maintain OJJDP’s initiative to end racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile system, serving as a comprehensive clearinghouse on issues related to eliminating racial and ethnic disparities in juvenile justice and to strategically focusing DMC reduction efforts.

This project supports the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, which requires participating states to address the disproportionate number of minority youth who come into contact with the juvenile justice system. Disproportionate minority contact (DMC) exists if the rate at which a specific minority group comes into contact with the juvenile justice system significantly differs from the rate of contact for non-Latino Caucasians or other minority groups. Research indicates that various contributing factors cause DMC, including but not limited to implicit bias; racial stereotyping; and laws, policies, and procedures that can have a disparate impact. As a result, racial and ethnic disparities throughout the juvenile justice system can occur.

The OJJDP has found that African American youth are arrested more than twice as often as non-Latino Caucasian youth and are diverted from the juvenile justice system less often than Caucasian youth. Going further, Native American youth are diverted less often and are transferred to adult court at more than 1.5 times the rate of Caucasian youth. National estimates from state data through the OJJDP show that Latino youth are placed in secure detention more than 1.5 times as often as Caucasian youth, with similar rates of transfers to adult court as Native American youth. Data such as these provide clear evidence from valid government sources that there is still work to be done to establish consistency in the justice system’s response to our youth who run errant of the law.

Source:Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (2017).

Questions to Consider 1. True or False: Latino youth, but not Native American youth, are transferred to adult court more frequently than Caucasian youth. 2. Multiple Choice: The OJJDP has found that African American youth are arrested more than _____________ as often as non-Latino Caucasian youth:

a. twice b. three times c. four times d. None of the above

3. What reasons do you think are likely to explain the disproportionate minority contact noted in In Practice 3.1?

Unfortunately, simplistic explanations are often appealing and sometimes lead to prevention and rehabilitation efforts that prove to be of very little value. With this in mind, let us now turn our attention to some of the factors viewed as important determinants of delinquent behavior. It must be emphasized once again that most of the information we have concerning these factors is based on official statistics. For a more accurate portrait of the characteristics of actual juvenile offenders, we must also concentrate on the vast majority of juveniles who commit delinquent acts but are never officially labeled as delinquent.

Social Factors As they grow up, children are exposed to a number of social factors that may increase their risk for problems such as abusing drugs and engaging in delinquent behavior. Risk factors appear to function in a cumulative fashion—that is, the greater the number of risk factors, the greater the likelihood that youth will engage in delinquent or other risky behavior. There is also evidence that problem behaviors associated with risk factors tend to cluster. For example, delinquency and violence cluster with other problems, such as drug abuse, mental health issues, teen pregnancy, and school misbehavior.

Shown in Chart 3.1 are a number of factors experienced by juveniles as individuals, as family members, in school, among their peers, and in their communities. For further information concerning the indicators of these risks and data sources associated with such indicators, visit the website from which the chart was adapted.

Chart 3.1 Risk Factors for Health and Behavior Problems

Individual

Antisocial behavior and alienation, delinquent beliefs, general delinquency involvement, and/or drug dealing

Gun possession, illegal gun ownership, and/or carrying

Teen parenthood

Favorable attitudes toward drug use and/or early onset of alcohol and other drug (AOD) use

Early onset of aggression and/or violence

Intellectual and/or developmental disabilities

Victimization and exposure to violence

Poor refusal skills

Life stressors

Early sexual involvement

Mental disorder and/or mental health problem

Family

Family history of problem behavior and/or parent criminality

Family management problems and poor parental supervision and/or monitoring

Poor family attachment or bonding

Child victimization and maltreatment

Pattern of high family conflict

Family violence

Having a young mother

Broken home

Sibling antisocial behavior

Family transitions

Parental use of harsh physical punishment and/or erratic discipline practices

Low parent education level and/or illiteracy

Maternal depression

School

Low academic achievement

Negative attitude toward school, low bonding, low school attachment, and/or low commitment to school

Truancy or frequent absences

Suspension

Dropping out of school

Inadequate school climate, poorly organized and functioning schools, and/or negative labeling by teachers

Identified as learning disabled

Frequent school transitions

Peer

Gang involvement and/or gang membership

Peer alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) use

Association with delinquent or aggressive peers

Peer rejection

Community

Availability or use of ATOD in neighborhood

Availability of firearms

High-crime neighborhood

Community instability

Low community attachment

Economic deprivation, poverty, and/or residence in a disadvantaged neighborhood

Neighborhood youth in trouble

Feeling unsafe in the neighborhood

Social and physical disorder or disorganized neighborhood

Source:Source: Adapted from youth.gov.

Family One of the most important factors influencing delinquent behavior is the family setting. It is within the family that the child internalizes those basic beliefs, values, attitudes, and general patterns of behavior that give direction to subsequent behaviors. Because the family is the initial transmitter of the culture (through the socialization process) and greatly shapes the personality characteristics of the child, considerable emphasis has been given to family structure, functions, and processes in delinquency research. Although it is not possible to review all such research here, we concentrate on several areas that have been the focus of attention.

Homelessness and poverty have been linked to delinquent behavior, although not all homeless youth or those living in poverty commit crimes.

Pixland/Thinkstock

A great deal of research focuses on the crucial influence of the family in the formation of behavioral patterns and personality. Contemporary theories attach great importance to the parental role in determining the personality characteristics of children. More than half a century ago, Glueck and Glueck (1950) focused attention on the relationship between family and delinquency, a relationship that has remained in the

spotlight ever since (see In Practice 3.2).

To young children, home and family are the basic sources of information about life. Thus, many researchers and theorists have focused on the types of values, attitudes, and beliefs maintained and passed on by the family over generations. Interest has focused on the types of behavior and attitudes transmitted to children through the socialization process resulting in a predisposition toward delinquent behavior. For example, the New Jersey Parents’ Caucus (2013) said the following:

In Practice 3.2: The Prevent Delinquency Project “These days, our lives are busier than ever. It’s difficult for families to find time to be together. Yet, never before has it been more important. The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University released a 2011 report stating that simply having dinner together as a family, five to seven times each week, substantially lowers your child’s risk of experimenting with drugs, including using tobacco, alcohol and marijuana.

“Studies also cite that children, including teenagers, whose parents provide little or no emotional support or involvement in their lives, and fail to monitor the child’s activities, are at far greater risk to become bullies. It’s sobering to discover that 60 percent of boys who have been classified as bullies ages 12 to 15 have at least one criminal conviction by the time they reach age 24, according to the US Dept. of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.”

The Prevent Delinquency Project is a group of dedicated volunteers who subscribe to one simple notion—that the majority of juvenile delinquency cases are preventable, through the implementation of proactive parenting techniques. Unfortunately, many parents, despite being well intentioned, don’t adequately supervise and guide their children toward leading healthy, happy, and productive lives. And those who do often lack an understanding of the threats their children face until it is too late. The goal of the Prevent Delinquency Project is to assist parents in improving their knowledge in each of these areas, so that they will be in a better position to safeguard their children from harm, and intervene at the first sign that trouble exists.

Some parents express discomfort with the idea of monitoring what their kids are up to. We ask them to consider the following: After September 11, 2001, few would argue against the merits of noninvasive intelligence programs, carefully constructed to protect civil liberties, in gathering information necessary to identify our enemies and safeguard us against outside forces. After all, we were, and continue to be, under the threat of constant attack, on our own soil and abroad. In a smaller and more personal sense, so are our families. Gangs, drugs, reckless sexual practices, and violence have taken footholds in our communities and represent increasing threats to the health and safety of our children. Is it wrong to educate ourselves, identify what may harm our kids, and take proactive measures to protect them?

The present juvenile justice system supports this level of intervention. By far the most common court-ordered disposition in delinquency matters is probation supervision. Few cases warrant the removal of children from the community and placement in more restrictive settings. The majority of wayward youth can be turned around and put back on track with supervision that monitors their adherence to curfews, mandates that they attend school, and ensures compliance with other reasonable terms and conditions, such as counseling, deemed in their best interests. If thought of in its simplest form, probation supervision is the court acting as a surrogate parent. In a lot of instances, this would not be necessary if parents knew what to do early on. Through the Prevent Delinquency Project, that is exactly what volunteers attempt to teach, by meeting with parent/teacher associations, community organizations, and individual parents who seek out our assistance.

Source:Source: Prevent Delinquency Project (n.d.). © Carl A. Bartol.

Questions to Consider 1. True or False: Most juvenile sanctions would not be needed with youth if their parents knew what to do early on when raising their child. 2. Multiple Choice: About ___________ of boys ages 12 to 15 who have been classified as bullies have at least one criminal conviction by the time they reach age

24. a. 40% b. 50% c. 60% d. 70%

3. What are some of the interventions mentioned that can be used to reform juvenile offenders who are on community supervision?

The NJPC Parents’ Empowerment Academy is a comprehensive training and education program that enables parents of children with emotional and behavioral challenges to appropriately and collaboratively negotiate with government agencies and other system partners . . . [and] professionals and providers in the child-serving arena to strengthen their knowledge of family engagement and provides practical tools and strategies which they can implement in their local organizations. (n.p.)

The primary objectives of the academy include the opportunity for parents to

1. Enhance their skills 2. Provide valuable input toward the development and implementation of services for their children 3. Build their capacity to serve as keepers for the vision of “effective and timely services for children with emotional and behavioral

challenges” 4. Empower other parents through the use of education, advocacy, and supportive services 5. Better serve their local communities

The primary objectives of the academy include the opportunity for professionals and providers to

1. Explore engagement strategies and barriers, history and principles of family involvement, and specific strategies for high-risk families 2. Develop additional skills focused on building consensus and collaboration with parents and family members, the critical elements of

family engagement, the impact of community in family engagement, family-specific strategies, and recruitment and retention

Further support for this argument comes from Worthen (2012), who found that both parent–child bonding and friend relationships affect delinquency and that these relationships differ by both gender and stage of adolescence. And, using data from a sample of 18,512 students in Grades 6, 8, 10, and 12, Fagan, Van Horn, Antaramian, and Hawkins (2011, p. 150) found the following:

Across grades, parents treated girls and boys differently, but neither sex received preferential treatment for all practices assessed, and younger children reported more positive parenting than older students. Family factors were significantly related to delinquency and drug use for both sexes and for all grades. Their findings suggest that “complexities in parent/child interactions that must be taken into account when investigating the causes of adolescent offending and when planning strategies to prevent the development of problem behaviors.” (p. 150)

Considerable research indicates a relationship between delinquency and the marital happiness of the children’s parents. Official delinquency seems to occur disproportionately among juveniles in unhappy homes marked by marital discord, lack of family communication, unaffectionate parents, high stress and tension, and a general lack of parental cohesiveness and solidarity (Davidson, 1990; Fleener, 1999; Gorman-Smith, Tolan, & Loeber, 1998; Wright & Cullen, 2001). In unhappy familial environments, it is not unusual to find that parents derive little sense of satisfaction from their child-rearing experiences. Genuine concern and interest are seldom expressed except on an erratic and convenient basis at the whim of the parents. Also typical of this familial climate are inconsistent guidance and discipline marked by laxity and a tendency to use children against the other parent (Simons, Simons, Burt, Brody, & Cutrona, 2005). It is not surprising to find poor self-images, personality problems, and conduct problems in children of such families. Families are primary venues for identity disruption, loss, and inner turmoil. The effects of troublesome family circumstances such as separation or divorce, illness, and death are well known and might be summarized by the concept family trouble (Francis, 2012). If there is any validity to the adage “chip off the old block,” it should not be surprising to find children in unpleasant family circumstances internalizing the types of attitudes, values, beliefs, and modes of behavior demonstrated by their parents.

It seems that in contemporary society, the family home has in many cases been replaced by a house where a related group of individuals reside, change clothes, and occasionally eat. It is somewhat ironic that we often continue to focus on broken homes (homes disrupted through divorce, separation, or desertion) as a major cause of delinquency rather than on unbroken homes where relationships are marked by familial disharmony and disorganization. There is no doubt that the stability and continuity of a family may be shaken when the home is broken by the loss of a parent through death, desertion, long separation, or divorce. At a minimum, one half of the potential socializing and control team is separated from the family. The belief that one-parent families produce more delinquents is supported both by official statistics and by numerous studies. Canter (1982), for example, indicated the following:

Youths from broken homes reported significantly more delinquent behavior than youths from intact homes. The general finding of greater male involvement in delinquency was unchanged when the focus was restricted to children from broken homes. Boys from broken homes reported more delinquent behavior than did girls from broken homes. (p. 164)

Canter concluded, “This finding gives credence to the proposition that broken homes reduce parental supervision, which in turn may increase involvement in delinquency, particularly among males” (p. 164). In the Pittsburgh Youth Study, Browning and Loeber (1999) found that the demographic variable most strongly related to delinquency was having a broken family. According to the Forum on Child and Family Statistics (2006), when children live with two parents who are married to each other, they tend to have more favorable life course outcomes.

There is also, however, some evidence that there may be more social organization and cohesion, guidance, and control in happy one-parent families than in two-parent families marked by discord. It may be that the broken family is not as important a determinant of delinquency as are the events leading to the broken home. Disruption, disorganization, and tension, which may lead to a broken family or may prevail in a family staying intact “for the children’s sake,” may be more important causative factors of delinquency than the actual breakup (Browning & Loeber, 1999; Emery, 1982; Stern, 1964; Texas Youth Commission, 2004). According to Rebellon (2002), broken homes are strongly associated with a range of delinquent behaviors, including minor status offenses and more severe property or violent offenses. According to Brown (2004), adolescents in single-parent families are significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two biological, married parents. Further, “Seven of the eight studies that used nationally representative data, for example, found that children in single-parent or other non-intact family structures were at greater risk of committing criminal or delinquent acts” (Americans for Divorce Reform, 2005). However, as just noted, several factors, including divorce or separation, recent remarriage, gender of parent, and the long-term presence of a stepparent, appear to be related to different types of delinquency.

Not all authorities agree that broken homes have a major influence on delinquency. Wells and Rankin (1991), reviewing the relationship between broken homes and delinquency, concluded that there is some impact of broken homes on delinquency, although it appears to be moderately weak, especially for serious crime. Bumphus and Anderson (1999) concluded that traditional measures of family structure relate more to criminal patterns of Caucasians than to those of African Americans. Rebellon (2002) found that single parenthood per se does not appear to be associated with delinquency; rather, certain types of changes in family composition appear to be related to delinquency. Schroeder, Osgood, and Oghia (2010), using data from the National Youth Study, determined that the process of family dissolution is not associated with concurrent increases in delinquency.

Demuth and Brown (2004), using data from the 1995 National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health, extended prior research investigating the effects of growing up in two-parent versus single-mother families by also examining delinquency in single-father families. The results indicate that juveniles in single-parent families are significantly more delinquent than their counterparts residing with two

biological married parents. However, the authors found that family processes fully account for the higher levels of delinquency exhibited by adolescents from single-father versus single-mother families.

In 2011, 69 percent of children ages 0–17 lived with two parents (65 percent with 2 married parents), 27 percent with one parent, and 4 percent with no parents. Among children living with neither parent, more than half lived with a grandparent. Seven percent of all children ages 0–17 lived with a parent who was in a cohabiting union. A cohabiting union could involve one parent and their cohabiting partner or two cohabiting parents. . . . The percentage of children with at least one parent working year round, full time fell to 71 percent in 2010, down from 72 percent in 2009 and the lowest since 1993. . . . Only 41 percent of children in families maintained by a single mother had a parent who worked year round, full time in 2010, down from 44 percent in 2009. Black, non- Hispanic children and Hispanic children were less likely than White, non-Hispanic children to have a parent working year round, full time. About 61 percent of Hispanic children and 53 percent of Black, non-Hispanic children lived in families with secure parental employment in 2010, compared with 79 percent of White, non-Hispanic children. (Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2012, pp. 4, 7)

The American family unit has changed considerably during the past 50 years. Large and extended families, composed of various relatives living close together, at one time provided mutual aid, comfort, and protection. Today, the family is smaller and has relinquished many of its socialization functions to specialized organizations and agencies that exert a great amount of influence in the education, training, care, guidance, and protection of children. This often results in normative conflict for children who find their attitudes differing from the views and standards of their parents. These changes may bring more economic wealth to the family, but they may make it more difficult for parents to give constructive guidance and protection to their children. In addition, the rise of “mixed families,” in which each parent brings children of his or her own into the family setting, may result in conflicts among the children or between one parent and the children of the other parent.

Over the years, there has been considerable interest in children with working parents who have come to be known as latchkey children. This term generally describes school-age children who return home from school to an empty house. Estimates indicate that there are 5 to 16 million children left unsupervised after school (Alston, 2013). These children are often left to fend for themselves before going to school in the morning, after school in the afternoon, and on school holidays when parents are working or otherwise occupied. This has resulted in older (but still rather young) children being required to care for younger siblings during these periods and is also a factor in the increasing number of children found in video arcades, in shopping malls, on the Internet, and in other areas without adult supervision at a relatively young age. Although the majority of latchkey children appear to survive relatively unscathed, some become involved in illegal or marginally legal activity without their parents’ knowledge (Alston, 2013; Coohey, 1998; Flannery, Williams, & Vazsonyi, 1999; Vander Ven, Cullen, Carrozza, & Wright, 2001; Vandivere, Tout, Capizzano, & Zaslow, 2003).

Problems with children occur in families of all races and social classes.

© iStockphoto.com/Tatiana Gladskikh

There is little doubt that family structure is related to delinquency in a variety of ways. However, relying on official statistics to assess the extent of that relationship may be misleading. It may be that the police, probation officers, and judges are more likely to deal officially with juveniles from broken homes than to deal officially with juveniles from more “ideal” family backgrounds. Several authorities, including Fenwick (1982) and Simonsen (1991), have concluded that the decision to drop charges against a juvenile depends, first, on the seriousness of the offense and the juvenile’s prior record and, second, on the juvenile’s family ties. “Youths are likely to be released if they are affiliated with a conventional domestic network” (Fenwick, 1982, p. 450). When parents can be easily contacted by the police and are willing to cooperate with the police, the likelihood is much greater (especially when the offense is minor) that a juvenile will be warned and released to his or her parents (Bynum & Thompson, 1999, p. 364; FindLaw, 2008; Kirk, 2009). Fader, Harris, Jones, and Poulin (2001) concluded that, in Philadelphia at least, juvenile court decision makers appear to give extra weight to child and family functioning factors in deciding on

dispositions for first-time offenders.

It often appears that the difference between placing juveniles in institutions and allowing them to remain in the family setting depends more on whether the family is intact than on the quality of life within the family. Concentrating on the broken family as the major or only cause of delinquency fails to take into account the vast number of juveniles from broken homes who do not become delinquent as well as the vast number of juveniles from intact families who do become delinquent (Krisberg, 2005, p. 73).

Education Schools, education, and families are very much interdependent and play a major role in shaping the future of children. In our society, education is recognized as one of the most important paths to success. The educational system occupies an important position and has taken over many functions formerly performed by the family. The total social well-being of children, including health, recreation, morality, and academic advancement, is a concern of educators. Some of the lofty objectives espoused by various educational commissions were summarized by Schafer and Polk (1967) more than a quarter century ago:

All children and youth must be given those skills, attitudes, and values that will enable them to perform adult activities and meet adult obligations. Public education must ensure the maximum development of general knowledge, intellectual competence, psychological stability, social skills, and social awareness so that each new generation will be enlightened, individually strong, yet socially and civically responsible. (p. 224)

The child is expected by his or her parents, and by society, to succeed in life, but the child from a poor family, where values and opportunities differ from those of white middle-class America, encounters many difficulties early in school. Studies indicate that students from middle-class family backgrounds are more likely to have internalized the values of competitiveness, politeness, and deferred gratification that are likely to lead to success in the public schools (Braun, 1976). Braun (1976) also found that teachers’ expectations were influenced by physical attractiveness, socioeconomic status, race, gender, name, and older siblings. Lower expectations existed for children who came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, belonged to minority groups, and had older siblings who had been unsuccessful in school. Alwin and Thornton (1984) found that the socioeconomic status of the family was related to academic success both during early childhood and during adolescence. Blair, Blair, and Madamba (1999) found that social class–based characteristics were the best predictors of educational performance among minority students. Hayes (2008) and Kreager, Rulison, and Moody (2011) noted that a number of factors can affect a teacher’s expectations of students and student behavior, including race, gender, class, and personality.

Numerous studies show that although some difficulties may be partially attributable to early experience in the family and neighborhood, others are created by the educational system itself (see In Practice 3.3). The label of low achiever, slow learner, or learning disabledlearning disabled may be attached shortly after, and sometimes even before, entering the first grade based on the performance of other family members who preceded the child in school. Teachers may expect little academic success as a result. Identification as a slow learner often sets into motion a series of reactions by the student, his or her peers, and the school itself that may lead to negative attitudes, frustrations, and eventually a climate where school becomes a highly unsatisfactory and bitter experience. Kelley (1977) found that early labeling in the school setting had a lasting impact on children’s educational careers and that such labeling occurred with respect to children with both very great and very limited academic potential.

In Practice 3.3: Goodwill Launches Program to Help Youth Goodwill Industries of Central Illinois is combining its commitment to vocational development with a new passion for helping youth.

GoodGuides youth mentoring program officially began Monday. The program funding came from the U.S. Department of Justice through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.

Fifty-six Goodwill agencies nationwide are sharing the two-year, $19 million grant. The central Illinois agency’s share of the grant money is about $300,000.

“The neat thing is, the program has a vocational focus, which fits in with Goodwill,” said Elizabeth McCombs, GoodGuides program manager.

GoodGuides is actively looking for youth participants and professional adults to serve as mentors.

“It would be nice if we had two lines of people out there—students in one and volunteers in the other,” said Bill Bontemps, director of vocational services. “But that’s not going to happen.”

Instead, Goodwill is seeking partnerships with other community programs and faith-based organizations, which can refer youth in need to the new program.

GoodGuides is similar to Big Brothers/Big Sisters. But whereas that program stops accepting youth at age 12, that’s when GoodGuides starts. At-risk youth ages 12 to 17 in Peoria, Tazewell and Woodford counties are eligible.

“At risk can mean a lot of things—academic failure, dropping out of school, delinquency,” McCombs said. “It can be teen pregnancy. At risk is an all-encompassing thing.”

Participants may have experienced those issues or simply be on a path to experience them. For example, a student considering dropping out of high school, with guidance from a mentor, may choose to stay in school.

“We’re just beginning to get them thinking about a career,” McCombs said. “If their career entails more schooling, that’s where we go. If their career entails specific vocational training or certification, we prepare them for that to enter the workforce. The end goal is to give them the positive influence to become more productive citizens.”

Volunteer professionals will be asked to commit to four hours a month for at least a year. About 60 adults are needed, with the goal of serving 100 youth.

Mentoring will be done in three ways: Peer to peer, adult to youth and in groups with an adult leader.

“If someone’s not comfortable doing one-on-one mentoring, they can do group mentoring,” McCombs said.

There’s also a family strengthening component, so others in the youth’s family may get access to training or services, if needed.

Volunteers must pass a drug screening and thorough background check, plus a check of their driving records if they will be driving youth. Each volunteer will be interviewed as well. Volunteers who pass all components will be trained a minimum of six hours. A support group for volunteers will allow them to share strategies and seek advice from other mentors.

Every four to six weeks, GoodGuides will sponsor an activity for all participants. That might be a picnic or a hockey game.

GoodGuides will employ some of the training opportunities already in place for adults at Goodwill, such as computer and personal finance training.

Mentors will be asked to tailor their career advice to the youth’s interests. If a student wants to be a veterinarian, they may be paired with a veterinarian or have a mentor who arranges for them to meet a veterinarian. The mentors will be expected to share their struggles and the paths they took to get where they are today.

“We want to put youth with someone who is what they want to be,” McCombs said. “Someone who’s relatable. It kind of gives them hope.”

Mentoring has been shown to help youth improve all aspects of their lives.

“Maybe sometimes the mentor might assist them with tutoring. A lot of time, when a youth has a positive influence and they have that attention and support, they become more motivated,” McCombs said. “They do better in school. They behave more positively.”

Source:Source: Towery (2010). Reprinted with permission of the Peoria Journal Star.

Questions to Consider 1. True or False: The GoodGuides program is designed to help youth ages 12 and up, the point in age where Big Brothers/Big Sisters ceases to take participants. 2. Multiple Choice: The GoodGuides program is associated with which well-known nonprofit agency?

a. The American Red Cross b. FEMA c. March of Dimes d. Goodwill Industries

3. What characteristics might make an individual a good mentor for youth?

Kvaraceus (1945) believed that although school might not directly cause delinquency, it might present conditions that foster delinquent behavior. When aspirations for success in the educational system are blocked, the student’s self-assessment, assessment of the value of education, and assessment of the school’s role in his or her life may progressively deteriorate. Hawkins and Lishner (1987) indicated that low cognitive ability, poor early academic performance, low attachment to school, low commitment to academic pursuits, and association with delinquent peers appear to contribute to delinquency. Unless the student is old enough to drop out of this highly frustrating experience, the only recourse may be to seek others within the school who find themselves in the same circumstances.

Thornberry, Moore, and Christenson (1985) noted that dropping out of school was positively related to delinquency and later crime over both the long and short terms. Although the presence of others who share the frustrating experience of the educational system may be a satisfactory alternative to dropping out of school, the collective alienation may lead to delinquent behavior. Rodney and Mupier (1999) found that being suspended from school, being expelled from school, and being held back in school increased the likelihood of being in juvenile detention among adolescent African American males. Lotz and Lee (1999) found that negative school experiences are significant predictors of delinquent behavior among white teenagers. Jarjoura (1996) found that dropping out of school is more likely to be associated with greater involvement in delinquency for middle-class youth than for lower-class youth.

Most theorists agree that negative experiences in school act as powerful forces that help to project juveniles into delinquency. Achievement and self-esteem will be satisfied in the peer group or gang. In many ways, the school contributes to delinquency by failing to provide a meaningful curriculum to lower-class youth in terms of future employment opportunities. There is a growing recognition by many juveniles of the fact that satisfying educational requirements is no guarantee of occupational success (Monk-Turner, 1990). More than a quarter century ago, Polk and Schafer (1972) noted that the role of the school was rarely acknowledged as producing these unfavorable conditions. Instead of recognizing and attacking deficiencies in the learning structure of the schools, educational authorities place the blame on “delinquent youth” and thus further alienate them from school. In summarizing, Polk and Schafer listed the following as unfavorable experiences:

(1) Lower socioeconomic–class children enter the formal educational process with a competitive disadvantage due to their social backgrounds; (2) the physical condition and educational climate of a school located in working class areas may not be conducive for the learning process; (3) youths may be labeled early and placed in ability groups where expectations have been reduced; and (4) curriculum and recognition of achievement revolve around the “college bound youth” and not the youth who intends to culminate his educational pursuit by graduating from high school. (p. 189)

Yablonsky and Haskell (1988), Battistich and Hom (1997), Yogan (2000), and Kowaleski-Jones (2000) all have discussed how school experiences may be related to delinquency. First, if a child experiences failure at school every day, he or she not only learns little but also becomes frustrated and unhappy. Curricula that do not promise a reasonable opportunity for every child to experience success in some area may, therefore, contribute to delinquency. Second, teaching without relating the subject matter to the needs and aspirations of the student leaves him or her with serious questions regarding the subject matter’s relevancy. Third, for many lower-class children, school is a prison or a “babysitting” operation where they just pass time. They find little or no activity designed to give pleasure or indicate an interest in their abilities. Fourth, the impersonal school atmosphere, devoid of close relationships, may contribute toward the child seeking relationships in peer groups or gangs outside of the educational setting. In a similar vein, Polk (1984) contended that the number of marginal juveniles is growing and agreed that this is so not only because less successful students have unpleasant school experiences but also because their future occupational aspirations are severely limited.

In 1981, Zimmerman, Rich, Keilitz, and Broder investigated the relationship between learning disabilities and delinquency. They concluded that “proportionately more adjudicated delinquent children than public school children were learning disabled,” although self-report data indicated no significant differences in the incidence of delinquent activity. They hypothesized that “the greater proportion of learning-disabled youth among adjudicated juvenile delinquents may be accounted for by differences in the way such children are treated within the juvenile justice system, rather than by differences in their delinquent behavior” (Zimmerman et al., 1981, p. 1). In keeping with this hypothesis, Harris, Baltodano, Bal, Jolivette, and Malcahy (2009) found evidence that juveniles with disabilities are overrepresented in correctional facilities.

In another study, Smykla and Willis (1981) found that 62% of the children under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court they studied were either learning disabled or mentally challenged. They concluded the following:

The findings of this study are in agreement with previous incidence studies that have demonstrated a correlation between juvenile delinquency and mental retardation. These results also forcefully demonstrate the need for special education strategies to be included in any program of delinquency prevention and control. (p. 225)

Hume (2010) has asked us to do the following:

Imagine what it must be like for a young person with learning disabilities to be apprehended and questioned by the police. Your fear and nervousness make your impairment more acute, and you do a poor job in answering the questions. Looking guilty (maybe because of your disability not actual guilt) you end up in front of a judge. Even more anxious and scared, you continue to have difficulty in processing verbal questions, sequencing events, mustering demand language and controlling your impulses. Odds are that no one will ask you if you have a disability, or understand what a learning disability is, even if you tell them. (p. 1)

Perhaps the best summation of the relationship between learning disabilities and delinquency is that provided by the National Center on Education, Disability, and Juvenile Justice (2007):

Educational disability does not cause delinquency, but learning and behavioral disorders place youth at greater risk for involvement with the juvenile courts and for incarceration. School failure, poorly developed social skills, and inadequate school and community supports are associated with the over-representation of youth with disabilities at all stages of the juvenile justice system. (p. 1)

The alienation that some students feel toward school and education demands our attention. Rebellion, retreatism, and delinquency may be responses to the false promises of education or simply responses to being “turned off” again in an environment where this has occurred too frequently. Without question, curriculum and caliber of instruction need to be relevant for all children. Social and academic skill remediation may be one means of preventing learning-disabled children from becoming involved in delinquency (Raskind, 2010; Winters, 1997). Beyond these primary educational concerns, the school may currently be the only institution where humanism and concern for the individual are expressed in an otherwise bleak environment. Even this onetime sanctuary is under attack by gang members involved with drugs and guns. In some cases, the question is not whether a child can learn in school but rather whether he or she can get to school and back home alive. Armed security guards, barred windows, and metal detectors have given many schools the appearance of being the prisons that some children have always found them to be. Despite these concerns, the percentage of youth ages 12 to 18 who feared attack at school, or on the way to and from school, fell by half from 1995 to 2001, from 12% in 1995 to 6% in 2001.

By 2013, it was found that only about 4.9% of Latino students, 4.6% of African American students, and 2.6% of Caucasian students still were in fear of an attack at school or on their way home from school (Child Trends DataBank, 2013). What is clear from these percentages is that the overall fear of victimization in school or on the way home from school had greatly declined since the 1990s. Further, the variation observed during the 1990s between these groups (in 1995 about 20.9% of Latino students, 20.3% of African American students, and 8.6% of Caucasian students expressed similar fears) had been significantly reduced during this time (see Figure 3.1).

Figure 3.1 Percentage of Students Ages 12 to 18 Who Feared Attack at School or on the Way to and From School, Selected Years, 1995– 2013

Source: National Center for Educational Statistics (2015).

Fear of attack at school or on the way to and from school may cause some students to miss days of school and may negatively affect academic performance. Fear at school can create an unhealthy school environment, affect students’ participation in class, and lead to more negative behaviors among students (Child Trends DataBank, 2013). Furthermore, students in lower grades are more likely to fear for their safety at school and on the way to and from school than are students in higher grades. Six percent of 6th-grade students had such fears, compared with 3% of 11th-grade students in 2009 (Child Trends DataBank, 2013).

In another survey of American schoolchildren, it was found that improvements in school safety have occurred over the past two decades. In 1995, 10% of students reported being victims of at least one crime at school, whereas 4% of students reported at least one victimization crime at school in 2005. Seven percent reported being victims of theft in 1995, and 3% reported theft in 2005. Three percent of students reported being victims of violent crime in 1995, and 1% reported being victims of violent crime in 2005. In both 1995 and 2005, less than 1% of students reported a serious violent crime (Bauer, Guerino, Nolle, Tang, & Chandler, 2008, p. 4). The violent crime victimization rate declined from 48 per 1,000 students in 1992 to 28 per 1,000 students in 2003. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2013) perhaps provided the best and clearest statement on violence at school when it said that “school associated violent deaths are rare” (p. 1). Despite the decrease, violence, theft, bullying, drugs, and weapons are still widespread in some schools, and events of the past few years have raised national concern about school safety. In 2011, over 5% of students in Grades 9 through 12 reported carrying a gun, knife, or club on school property on one or more days in the previous 30 days. Further, over 7% reported being threatened or injured with a weapon on school property one or more times in the past 12 months (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). A chronology of some of the most serious events leading to this concern follows (includes only events occurring in the United States in Grades 1 through 12 from 2005 through 2012, beginning with the most recent).

In recent years, school shootings have led to juveniles experiencing increased fears at school, on their way to school, and on their way home from school.

BananaStock/Thinkstock

December 14, 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six others at Sandy Hook Elementary School (Newtown, Connecticut).

March 6, 2012: A 28-year-old teacher at Episcopal High School (Jacksonville, Florida) returned to the campus after being fired and then shot and killed the headmistress.

February 27, 2012: At Chardon High School (Chardon, Ohio), a former classmate opened fire, killing three students and injuring six.

February 10, 2012: A 14-year-old student shot himself in front of 70 fellow students in Walpole, New Hampshire.

January 5, 2011: Two people opened fire during a Worthing High School (Houston, Texas) powder-puff football game. One former student died. Five other people were injured.

January 5, 2011: Two people were killed and two more injured in a shooting at Millard South High School in Omaha, Nebraska.

February 5, 2010: A ninth grader was shot and killed by another student at Discovery Middle School in Madison, Alabama.

November 12, 2008: A 15-year-old female student was shot and killed by a classmate at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale.

February 12, 2008: A 14-year-old boy shot a student at E. O. Green Junior High School (Oxnard, California), causing the 15-year-old victim to be brain-dead.

February 11, 2008: A 17-year-old student at Mitchell High School (Memphis, Tennessee) shot and wounded a classmate in gym class.

October 10, 2007: Asa H. Coon, a 14-year-old student at a Cleveland high school, shot and injured two students and two teachers before he shot and killed himself. The victims’ injuries were not life threatening.

January 3, 2007: Douglas Chanthabouly, 18, shot fellow student Samnang Kok, 17, in the hallway of Henry Foss High School (Tacoma, Washington).

October 3, 2006: Charles Carl Roberts, 32, took 10 girls hostage in an Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, killing five of them before killing himself.

September 29, 2006: Eric Hainstock, 15, took two guns into his Cazenovia, Wisconsin, school and fatally shot the principal before being captured and arrested.

September 27, 2006: Duane Morrison, 53, took six girls hostage at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, molesting them and holding them for hours before fatally shooting one girl and then himself.

August 24, 2006: Christopher Williams, 27, went to Essex Elementary School in Vermont, and when he could not find his ex-girlfriend, a teacher, he shot and killed one teacher and wounded another. Earlier, he had killed the ex-girlfriend’s mother. He attempted suicide but survived and was arrested.

November 8, 2005: Assistant principal Ken Bruce was killed and two other administrators were seriously wounded when Kenny Bartley, a 15- year-old student, opened fire in a Jacksboro, Tennessee, high school.

March 21, 2005: Jeff Weise, 16, shot to death his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend and then went to his high school in Red Lake, Minnesota, where he killed a security guard, a teacher, and five students and also wounded seven others before killing himself. (Information Please Database, n.d.)

Responses to these incidents of school violence have been varied, and the violent acts themselves have led to a national debate over control. Among the suggested responses to such violence are target hardening (e.g., locking down schools, using metal detectors, installing bars and safety closets), placing armed security or police personnel in schools, training and arming teachers and/or school administrators, placing bans on certain types of weapons, and improving or expanding background checks for those purchasing weapons. The extent to which any of these actions might reduce gun violence in schools is subject to heated debate.

It is difficult to determine the impact of these events on the students actually involved, on bystanders, and on those who become aware of the events through the national media, but there is little doubt that the impact is considerable. In addition to the school shootings just chronicled, there have been numerous shootings at colleges and universities in the United States during the same period.

The impact of school bullying also deserves our attention. Whether through the use of the Internet or through the use of physical threats or attacks, bullying has become a major focal point in recent years. “Defined as a repeated behavior intended to cause harm to another with one party having more power . . . bullying has increased among students and adults over recent years” (Arnold & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2012, p. 68). As Moon, Hwang, and McCluskey (2011) indicated, “A growing number of studies indicate the ubiquity of school bullying: It is a global concern, regardless of cultural differences” (p. 849). And there appear to be gender differences related to bullying, with boys being more likely to practice or experience physical aggression and violence and girls being more likely to cyberbully and employ forms of bullying designed to destroy peer relationships or lower self-esteem (Arnold & Rockinson-Szapkiw, 2012, p. 68). Some such acts of bullying have allegedly led to suicides of bullying victims.

Research by Brown, Aalsma, and Ott (2013) indicates that protecting youth from bullying at school is not easy. Based on a small sample of parents, the researchers identified three parent stages in attempting to deal with bullying: (1) discovering, (2) reporting, and (3) living with the aftermath.

In the discovery stage, parents reported giving advice in hopes of protecting their youth. As parents noticed negative psychosocial symptoms in their youth escalate, they shifted their focus to reporting the bullying to school officials. All but one parent experienced ongoing resistance from school officials in fully engaging the bullying problem. In the aftermath, 10 of the 11 parents were left with two choices: remove their youth from the school or let the victimization continue. (p. 494)

Although school officials have attempted to address bullying using a number of approaches, little is known about what specific intervention strategies are most successful in the school setting. Ayers, Wagaman, Geiger, Bermudez-Parsai, & Hedberg (2012) examined school-based disciplinary interventions using data from a sample of 1,221 students in Grades K through 12 who received an office disciplinary referral for bullying. They concluded that only parent–teacher conferences and loss of privileges were significant in reducing the rate of the reoccurrence of bullying and aggressive behaviors. More than 45 states have also enacted legislation that addresses bullying behaviors in the school and in cyberspace (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). The state of Georgia, for example, requires all schools to provide character education curriculums that include the following:

Focus on the students’ development of the following character traits: courage, patriotism, citizenship, honesty, fairness, respect for others, kindness, cooperation, self-respect, self-control, courtesy, compassion, tolerance, diligence, generosity, punctuality, cleanliness, cheerfulness, school pride, respect for the environment, respect for the creator, patience, creativity, sportsmanship, loyalty, perseverance, and virtue. Such program shall also address, by the start of the 1999–2000 school year, methods of discouraging bullying and violent acts against fellow students. Local boards shall implement such a program in all grade levels at the beginning of the 2000–2001 school year and shall provide opportunities for parental involvement in establishing expected outcomes of the character education program. (O.C.G.A. § 20-2-145 [2012])

The authors suggest that school personnel and legislators might develop strategies that deter the reoccurrence of bullying by identifying key factors that impact students, similar to what Georgia is attempting to accomplish (Ayers et al., 2012, p. 539).

Social Class During the 1950s and 1960s, a number of studies emerged focusing on the relationship between social class and delinquency (Cloward & Ohlin, 1960; Cohen, 1955; Merton, 1955; Miller, 1958). These studies indicated that socioeconomic status was a major contributing factor in delinquency. According to further research, the actual relationship between social class and delinquency may be that social class is important in determining whether a particular juvenile becomes part of the official statistics, not in determining whether a juvenile will actually commit a delinquent act (Dentler & Monroe, 1961; Short & Nye, 1958; Tittle, Villemez, & Smith, 1978). Most studies of self-reported delinquency have shown little or no difference by social class in the actual commission of delinquent acts. Morash and Chesney-Lind (1991), however, did find evidence that lower-class youth report more delinquency, and Elliott and Ageton (1980) found that lower-class juveniles may be more likely to commit serious offenses. Ackerman (1998) also concluded that crime is a function of poverty, at least in smaller communities, and Onifade, Petersen, Bynum, and Davidson (2011) suggested that the risk of delinquency and its relationship to recidivism is moderated by neighborhood socioeconomic ecology.

Some research indicates that middle-class youth are involved in delinquency to a far greater extent than was suspected previously. Scott and Vaz (1963), for example, found that middle-class delinquents adhere to specific patterns of activities, standards of conduct, and values different from their parents. Young people a generation ago had more in common with their parents, including attitudes and outlook on life. However, today’s middle-class youth are securely entrenched in a youth culture that is often apart from, or in conflict with, the dominant adult culture. Within the youth culture, juveniles are open to the influence of their peers and generally conform to whatever behavior patterns prevail. Scott and Vaz identified partying, joyriding, drinking, gambling, and various types of sexual behavior as dominant forms of conduct within the middle-class youth culture. By participating in and conforming to the youth culture, status and social success are achieved through peer approval. Scott and Vaz argued that the bulk of middle-class delinquency occurs in the course of customary nondelinquent activities but moves to the realm of delinquency as the result of a need to “be different” or “start something new.” Wooden and Blazak (2001) noted that these trends continue at the present time: “In the 1990s research began revealing what those who had survived the 1980s already knew: The safe cocoon of middle-class youth was eroding” (pp. 4–5).

Although more males than females are arrested for delinquency, the number of female delinquents has increased significantly during recent years.

© David Young-Wolff/Getty Images

In Youth Crisis: Growing Up in a High-Risk Society, Davis (1999) pointed out that adolescence is a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. Each of the institutions of this transition (e.g., the family, education, employment) is in a state of turmoil, causing adolescents to be in a state of crisis.

Accessibility to social objects for participating in the youth culture is an important part of delinquent behavior. Social objects, such as cars, the latest styles, alcoholic beverages, and drugs, are frequently part of middle-class delinquency. Peer recognition for male middle-class youth may be a reason for senseless acts of destruction of property. Acts of vandalism in which one’s bravery can be displayed for peer approval are somewhat different from the violent behavior often seen in lower-class youth, who may demonstrate their bravery by gang fights or shootings, muggings, robbery, and other crimes against people. Wooden and Blazak (2001) indicated that suburban youth are often told to act like adults but are not given the privileges of adulthood, forcing them into a subculture characterized by delinquency-producing focal concerns (p. 19). Some end up in trouble-oriented male groups, and they sometimes get involved in violent crime to conform to group norms. More typically, those in middle-class coed groups get involved in petty theft and drug use.

Although most evidence indicates that juveniles from all social classes may become delinquent (Elrod & Ryder, 2005, p. 61), the subculture theorists maintain that many delinquents grow up in lower-class slum areas. According to Cloward and Ohlin (1960), the type of delinquency exhibited depends in part on the type of slum in which juveniles grow up. The slum that produces professional criminals is characterized by the close-knit lives and activities of the people in the community. Constant exposure to delinquent and criminal processes coupled with an admiration of criminals provides the model and impetus for future delinquency and criminality. Cloward and Ohlin described this as a criminal subculture in which juveniles are encouraged and supported by well-established conventional and criminal institutions. Going one step further, Miller (1958), in his study of lower- and middle-class norms, values, and behavioral expectations, concluded that a delinquent subculture is inherent in lower-class standards and goals. The desirability of the achievement of status through toughness and smartness, as well as the concepts of trouble, excitement, fate, and autonomy, is interpreted differently depending on one’s socioeconomic status. Miller concluded that by adhering to lower-class norms, pressure toward delinquency is inevitable and is rewarded and respected in the lower-class value system.

Lawbreaking is not in and of itself a deliberate rejection of middle-class values, but it automatically violates certain moral and legal standards of the middle class. Miller believed that lower-class youth who become delinquent are primarily conforming to traditions and values held by their families, peers, and neighbors. As indicated earlier, Wooden and Blazak (2001) used this same approach to describe middle-class delinquency during the 21st century, and most recently, Siegel (2011) suggested that the maturation process is combined with opportunities to build social networks. These social networks are nurtured along by parents, teachers, family members, and other adults, and allow children to forge relationships that provide opportunities for educational and employment success. Children in lower socioeconomic classes are not able to build the same social networks; thus, they “simply do not have the means that bestow advantages on peers whose families are better off financially. They are disadvantaged educationally because of the schools they attend and the activities in which they can participate. Not surprisingly, then, poor children are less likely to graduate from high school and are more likely to become poor adults” (Siegel, 2011, p. 73).

In summarizing the findings with respect to the relationship between social class and delinquency, Johnson (1980) concluded that some conceptualizations of social class may have been inappropriate and that a more appropriate distinction is the one between the underclass and the earning class. His results suggest, however, that even given this distinction, there is no reason to expect that social class will emerge as a “major correlate of delinquent behavior, no matter how it is measured” (p. 86). Current evidence presented by Wooden and Blazak (2001) seems to indicate that this may well be the case, as does the paucity of current research in this area.

Still, the concept of the underclass (the extremely poor population that has been abandoned in the inner city as a result of the exodus of the middle class) seems to attract continuing attention (Bursik & Grasmick, 1995; Jarjoura, Triplett, & Brinker, 2002). As the more affluent withdraw from inner-city communities, they also tend to withdraw political support for public spending designed to benefit those communities. They do not want to pay taxes for schools they do not use, and they are not likely to use them because they find those left behind too frightening to be around (Ehrenreich, 1990). Those left behind are largely excluded, on a permanent basis, from the primary labor market and mainstream occupations. Economically motivated delinquency is one way of coping with this disenfranchisement to maintain a short-term cash flow. Because many children growing up in these circumstances see no relationship between attaining an education and future employment, they tend to drop out of school prior to graduation. Some then become involved in theft as a way of meeting economic needs, often as members of gangs that may become institutionalized in underclass neighborhoods (Bursik & Grasmick, 1995, p. 122).

Perhaps Chambliss (1973) summed up the impact of social class on delinquency best some years ago when he concluded that the results of some delinquents’ activities are seen as less serious than others as the result of class in American society:

No representative of the upper class drew up the operations chart for the police which led them to look in the ghettoes and on street corners—which led them to see the demeanor of lower class youth as troublesome and that of upper middle class youth as tolerable. Rather, the procedures simply developed from experience—experience with irate and influential upper middle class parents insisting that their son’s vandalism was simply a prank and his drunkenness only a momentary “sowing of wild oats”—experience with cooperative or indifferent, powerless lower class parents who acquiesced to the law’s definition of their son’s behavior. (p. 30)

Gangs The influence of juvenile gangs is so important and has received so much attention in the recent past that we have devoted a separate chapter (Chapter 12) to the subject. In this section, we simply note that gangs are an important factor in the development of delinquent behavior not only in inner-city areas but also increasingly in suburban and rural areas.

Drugs Although drugs clearly have physical effects on those who use them, drug use is also a social act. We have more to say about drug use later in the book, but for now a brief discussion of the topic is in order.

In 2004, juvenile courts in the United States handled an estimated 193,700 delinquency cases in which a drug offense was the most serious charge. Between 1991 and 2004, the number of cases involving drug offenses that juvenile courts handled more than doubled. Drug offense cases accounted for 12% of the delinquency caseload in 2004, compared with 7% in 1985. (Stahl, 2008a, p. 1)

Our society is characterized by high rates of drug use and abuse, and it should not be surprising to find such use and abuse among juveniles. However, it would appear that this drug use is declining in popularity. Consider that, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2016),

5.4 percent of 8th graders, 9.8 percent of 10th graders, and 14.3 percent of 12th graders used illicit drugs (excluding marijuana) during the past year. When compared to peak rates that were observed 15 years prior, it can be seen that the rate of illicit drug use went down for each age group. Further, daily use of marijuana declined among 8th (from 1.1 to 0.7 percent) and 10th (from 3.6 to 2.5 percent) graders and, though remaining the same among 12th graders (6.0 percent), it did not increase as witnessed during the past few years prior. (p. 1)

Simultaneously, the following is true:

Alcohol use among teens remains at low levels of use. In 2016, 17.6 percent of 8th graders, 38.3 percent of 10th graders, and 55.6 percent of 12th graders reported getting drunk in the past year, continuing a long-term trend of low alcohol use among youth in the 8th grade and above. Further, low levels of daily alcohol use by 8th and 10th graders continued, with a significant decline in daily use by 12th graders (from 2.5 to 1.3 percent, in 2016). In 2016, binge drinking (defined as 5 or more drinks in a row in the past 2 weeks) among 8th graders declined to around 3.4 percent. (p. 1)

One should keep in mind that these statistics apply to students still in school and do not include data from those who have dropped out of school. A 1985 study by Fagan and Pabon (1990) found that 54% of dropouts reported using illicit drugs during the past year, as compared with 30% of students.

The following are data presented by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2013):

“The fact that nearly one in seven students drops out of high school has enormous public health implications for our nation,” SAMHSA Administrator Pamela Hyde said in an agency news release. “Dropouts are at increased risk of substance abuse, which is particularly troubling given that they are also at greater risk of poverty, not having health insurance, and other health problems. We have to do everything we can to keep youth in school so they can go on to lead healthy, productive lives, free from substance abuse.”

The study revealed high school seniors (typically between 16 and 18 years of age) who dropped out of school were more than twice as likely to be smokers—or have smoked in the past month—than students who stayed in school. The study also found that more than 31 percent of seniors who didn’t receive their diploma used drugs, compared with about 18 percent of students who had finished high school. (p. 1)

The researchers also noted that about 27% of high school dropouts smoked marijuana, whereas close to one in every 10 abused prescription drugs. Meanwhile, only about 15% of those who completed high school used marijuana, and just 5% abused prescription drugs. Dropouts were also more likely to drink; the study showed that nearly 42% of seniors who didn’t finish high school drank, and about a third engaged in binge drinking.

Watson (2004) indicated that research over the past 20 years has established the correlation of substance abuse to juvenile delinquency. There has, of course, been a good deal written about the relationship between illegal drug use and crime. This has been particularly true since the mid-1980s when crack, a cocaine-based stimulant drug, first appeared. As Inciardi, Horowitz, and Pottieger (1993) noted, “Cocaine is the drug of primary concern in examining drug/crime relationships among adolescents today. It is a powerful drug widely available at a cheap price per dose, but its extreme addictiveness can rapidly increase the need for more money” (p. 48). Today, this concern has been replaced in many areas by a concern with the abuse of prescription narcotics and methamphetamines, which, like cocaine, produce a feeling of euphoria. A meth high can last more than 12 hours, and heavy use can lead to psychotic behavior (paranoia and hallucinations) as well as to serious physical ailments. Some evidence suggests that chronic meth users tend to be more violent than heavy cocaine users (Parsons, 1998, p. 4). Abuse of prescription stimulants, opioids, and depressants can result in similar affects to methamphetamines with increased risks of poor judgment and physiological issues (National Institute on Drug Abuse, 2013).

There is also considerable interest in the relationship between illegal drugs and gangs. For example, it was reported that gang members accounted for 86% of serious delinquent acts, 69% of violent delinquent acts, and 70% of drug sales in Rochester, New York (Cohn, 1999a). Possession, sale, manufacture, and distribution of any of a number of illegal drugs are, in themselves, crimes. Purchase and consumption of some legal drugs, such as alcohol and tobacco, by juveniles are also illegal. Juveniles who violate statutes relating to these offenses may be labeled as delinquent or status offenders. Equally important, however, are other illegal acts often engaged in by drug users to support their drug habits. Such offenses are known to include theft, burglary, robbery, and prostitution, among others. It is also possible that use of certain drugs, such as cocaine and its derivatives and amphetamines, is related to the commission of violent crimes, although the exact nature of the relationship between drug abuse and crime is controversial. Some maintain that delinquents are more likely to use drugs than are nondelinquents—that is, drug use follows rather than precedes delinquency—whereas others argue the opposite (Bjerregaard, 2010; Dawkins, 1997; Thornton, Voight, & Doerner, 1987; Williams, Ayers, & Abbott, 1999). Whatever the nature of the relationship between drug abuse and delinquency, the two are intimately intertwined for some delinquents, whereas drug abuse is not a factor for others. Why some juveniles become drug abusers and others in similar environments avoid such involvement is the subject of a great deal of research. The single most important determinant of drug abuse appears to be the interpersonal relationships in which the juvenile is involved—particularly interpersonal relationships with peers. Drug abuse is a social phenomenon that occurs in social networks accepting, tolerating, and/or encouraging such behavior. Although the available evidence suggests that peer influence is most important, there is also evidence to indicate that juveniles whose parents are involved in drug abuse are more likely to abuse drugs than are juveniles whose parents are not involved in drug abuse. Furthermore, behavior of parents and peers appears to be more important in drug abuse than do the values and beliefs espoused (Schinke & Gilchrist, 1984; Williams et al., 1999).

There is no way of knowing how many juveniles suffering from school-, parent-, or peer-related depression and/or the general ambiguity surrounding adolescence turn to drugs as a means of escape, but the prevalence of teen suicide, combined with information obtained from self- reports of juveniles, indicates that the numbers are large. Although juvenile involvement with drugs in general apparently declined during the

1980s, it now appears that the trend has been reversed. There is little doubt that such involvement remains a major problem, particularly in light of gang-related drug operations. When gangs invade and take over a community, drugs are sold openly in junior and senior high schools, on street corners, and in shopping centers. The same is true of methamphetamines that are manufactured easily and sold inexpensively (Bartollas, 1993, p. 341; Scaramella, 2000).

Howell and Decker (1999) and Bjerregaard (2010) suggested that the relationship among gangs, drugs, and violence is complex. Pharmacological effects of drugs can lead to violence, and the high cost of drug use often causes users to support continued use with violent crimes. It is clear that violence is common among gang members, but the exact nature of the relationship among gangs, drugs, and violence is still being investigated (Bjerregaard, 2010).

Physical Factors In addition to social factors, a number of physical factors are often employed to characterize juvenile delinquents. The physical factors most commonly discussed are age, gender, and race.

Age For purposes of discussing official statistics concerning persons under the age of 18 years, we should note that little official action is taken with respect to delinquency under the age of 10 years. Rather than considering the entire age range from birth to 18 years, we are basically reviewing statistics covering an age range from 10 to 18 years. Keep in mind also our earlier observations (Chapter 2) concerning the problems inherent in the use of official statistics as we review the data provided by the FBI.

As Table 3.1 indicates, crimes committed by persons under 18 years of age (the maximum age for delinquency in a number of states) declined by 8.4% from 2014 to 2015. However, murder and nonnegligent manslaughter arrests increased by about 6.8%, as did rape arrests by 6.7%, whereas robbery arrests decreased by about 2% and aggravated assault arrests decreased by about 5% among those under 18 years of age.

Table 3.1 also includes statistics on less serious offenses. Considering these offenses, gambling arrests decreased by roughly 8.2% among those under 18 years of age, and weapons-related offenses decreased by 4.8%. As you can see in Table 3.1, total offenses among those under 15 years of age declined by more than 8% from 2014 to 2015.

As illustrated in Table 3.2, the total number of persons under the age of 18 years arrested for all crimes decreased by 36%, the number of persons in this category arrested for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter decreased almost 8.5%, and the number arrested for robbery decreased by 24.2% from 2011 to 2015. The number of arrests for auto theft remained about the same. Among offenses other than index crimes, carrying or possessing weapons (29% decrease), drug abuse violations (31.5% decrease), gambling (52.4% decrease), driving under the influence (36.8% decrease), drunkenness (36.8% decrease), and vandalism (37.4% decrease), among others, showed significant changes among those under 18 years of age.

It is sometimes interesting to compare short-term trends, such as those in Table 3.2, with trends over the longer term. Ten-year arrest trends (2006–2015) in Table 3.3 show a significant decrease in total crime rates among those under 18 years of age (56.1%) and also show decreases in both violent crimes (47.7%) and property crimes (49.1%).

Table 3.1 Current Year Over Previous Year Arrest Trends Totals, 2014 to 2015

Offense charged

Number of persons arrested

Total all ages Under 15 years of age Under 18 years of age 18 years of age and over

2014 2015 Percentchange 2014 2015 Percent change 2014 2015

Percent change 2014 2015

Percent change

TOTAL1 7,967,934 7,689,755 −3.5 197,475 180,987 −8.3 709,317 649,970 −8.4 7,258,617 7,039,785 −3.0

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter

7,044 7,519 +6.7 41 47 +14.6 488 521 +6.8 6,556 6,998 +6.7

Rape2 14,991 15,934 +6.3 939 991 +5.5 2,356 2,515 +6.7 12,635 13,419 +6.2

Robbery 64,612 66,138 +2.4 2,533 2,348 −7.3 12,597 12,347 −2.0 52,015 53,791 +3.4

Aggravated 269,114 271,650 +0.9 7,033 6,667 −5.2 21,579 20,503 −5.0 247,535 251,147 +1.5

assault

Burglary 171,437 156,419 −8.8 8,052 7,543 −6.3 28,386 25,527 −10.1 143,051 130,892 −8.5

Larceny-theft 891,541 838,874 −5.9 35,758 31,006 −13.3 126,889 113,114 −10.9 764,652 725,760 −5.1

Motor vehicle theft 47,027 53,315 +13.4 1,917 2,055 +7.2 8,182 9,236 +12.9 38,845 44,079 +13.5

Arson 6,802 6,064 −10.8 1,330 1,143 −14.1 2,282 1,897 −16.9 4,520 4,167 −7.8

Violent crime3 355,761 361,241 +1.5 10,546 10,053 −4.7 37,020 35,886 −3.1 318,741 325,355 +2.1

Property crime3 1,116,807 1,054,672 −5.6 47,057 41,747 −11.3 165,739 149,774 −9.6 951,068 904,898 −4.9

Other assaults 775,729 768,114 −1.0 37,723 35,954 −4.7 97,993 94,079 −4.0 677,736 674,035 −0.5

Forgery and counterfeiting 40,838 39,918 −2.3 111 92 −17.1 844 752 −10.9 39,994 39,166 −2.1

Fraud 101,126 94,201 −6.8 606 583 −3.8 3,138 2,977 −5.1 97,988 91,224 −6.9

Embezzlement 11,837 11,657 −1.5 21 25 +19.0 330 436 +32.1 11,507 11,221 −2.5

Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing

64,555 63,702 −1.3 1,663 1,628 −2.1 7,333 7,407 +1.0 57,222 56,295 −1.6

Vandalism 140,863 138,415 −1.7 12,765 11,870 −7.0 32,429 30,534 –5.8 108,434 107,881 −0.5

Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.

97,809 101,895 +4.2 4,685 4,262 −9.0 13,994 13,317 –4.8 83,815 88,578 +5.7

Prostitution and commercialized vice

32,767 29,274 −10.7 68 48 −29.4 533 426 −20.1 32,234 28,848 −10.5

Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)

38,930 37,123 −4.6 3,303 3,038 −8.0 6,786 6,390 −5.8 32,144 30,733 −4.4

Drug abuse violations 1,102,280 1,058,297 −4.0 13,510 11,222 −16.9 79,504 69,964 −12.0 1,022,776 988,333 −3.4

Gambling 2,686 2,580 −3.9 44 33 −25.0 244 224 −8.2 2,442 2,356 −3.5

Offenses against the family and children

70,042 68,628 −2.0 914 877 −4.0 2,513 2,384 −5.1 67,529 66,244 −1.9

Driving under the influence 819,396 783,473 −4.4 121 108 −10.7 4,999 4,753 −4.9 814,397 778,720 −4.4

Liquor laws 231,142 193,643 −16.2 3,641 3,316 −8.9 38,408 31,549 −17.9 192,734 162,094 −15.9

Drunkenness 314,519 289,734 −7.9 586 499 −14.8 4,949 4,026 −18.7 309,570 285,708 −7.7

Disorderly conduct 298,631 272,809 −8.6 21,239 20,005 −5.8 55,145 50,888 −7.7 243,486 221,921 −8.9

Vagrancy 20,254 18,856 −6.9 165 205 +24.2 707 792 +12.0 19,547 18,064 −7.6

All other offenses (except traffic)

2,306,755 2,278,685 −1.2 32,180 29,528 −8.2 131,502 120,574 −8.3 2,175,253 2,158,111 −0.8

Suspicion 750 836 +11.5 58 48 −17.2 164 135 −17.7 586 701 +19.6

Curfew and loitering law violations

25,207 22,838 −9.4 6,527 5,894 −9.7 25,207 22,838 −9.4 −

Source:Source: Adapted from FBI (2016b).

1 Does not include suspicion.

2 The rape figures in this table are aggregate totals of the data submitted based on both the legacy and revised Uniform Crime Reporting definitions.

3 Violent crimes are offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Table 3.2 Five-Year Arrest Trends Totals, 2011 to 2015

Offense charged

Number of persons arrested

Total all ages Under 18 years of age 18 years of age and over

2011 2015 Percentchange 2011 2015 Percent change 2011 2015

Percent change

TOTAL1 8,225,888 7,213,389 −12.3 991,398 634,718 −36.0 7,234,490 6,578,671 −9.1

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter 6,968 7,005 +0.5 539 493 −8.5 6,429 6,512 +1.3

Rape2 13,168 15,126 − 1,917 2,401 − 11,251 12,725 −

Robbery 67,650 60,085 −11.2 15,037 11,404 −24.2 52,613 48,681 −7.5

Aggravated assault 259,015 246,238 −4.9 26,421 19,008 −28.1 232,594 227,230 −2.3

Burglary 197,756 145,163 −26.6 41,018 23,887 −41.8 156,738 121,276 −22.6

Larceny-theft 855,183 799,643 −6.5 175,433 109,356 −37.7 679,750 690,287 +1.6

Motor vehicle theft 44,336 50,447 +13.8 9,581 9,624 +0.4 34,755 40,823 +17.5

Arson 7,876 6,133 −22.1 3,352 1,914 −42.9 4,524 4,219 −6.7

Violent crime3 346,801 328,454 −5.3 43,914 33,306 −24.2 302,887 295,148 −2.6

Property crime3 1,105,151 1,001,386 −9.4 229,384 144,781 −36.9 875,767 856,605 −2.2

Other assaults 827,577 727,435 −12.1 127,310 89,835 −29.4 700,267 637,600 −8.9

Forgery and counterfeiting 46,264 36,642 −20.8 1,065 694 −34.8 45,199 35,948 −20.5

Fraud 110,363 90,590 −17.9 3,583 3,246 −9.4 106,780 87,344 −18.2

Embezzlement 10,931 11,011 +0.7 301 426 +41.5 10,630 10,585 −0.4

Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing 63,792 59,223 −7.2 9,127 6,715 −26.4 54,665 52,508 −3.9

Vandalism 160,380 130,154 −18.8 46,688 29,227 −37.4 113,692 100,927 −11.2

Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc. 99,115 95,803 −3.3 18,665 13,078 −29.9 80,450 82,725 +2.8

Prostitution and commercialized vice 26,777 19,797 −26.1 461 292 −36.7 26,316 19,505 −25.9

Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution) 44,870 34,420 −23.3 8,482 6,048 −28.7 36,388 28,372 −22.0

Drug abuse violations 1,020,875 1,016,402 −0.4 101,191 69,355 −31.5 919,684 947,047 +3.0

Gambling 4,929 3,055 −38.0 618 294 −52.4 4,311 2,761 −36.0

Offenses against the family and children 76,387 65,357 −14.4 2,378 2,335 −1.8 74,009 63,022 −14.8

Driving under the influence 825,909 676,560 −18.1 7,013 4,432 −36.8 818,896 672,128 −17.9

Liquor laws 323,529 181,462 −43.9 63,622 30,876 −51.5 259,907 150,586 −42.1

Drunkenness 361,587 268,115 −25.9 8,185 3,836 −53.1 353,402 264,279 −25.2

Disorderly conduct 382,589 264,528 −30.9 91,752 49,315 −46.3 290,837 215,213 −26.0

Vagrancy 14,587 15,495 +6.2 641 648 +1.1 13,946 14,847 +6.5

All other offenses (except traffic) 2,325,288 2,157,131 −7.2 178,831 115,610 −35.4 2,146,457 2,041,521 −4.9

Suspicion 732 573 −21.7 78 132 +69.2 654 441 −32.6

Curfew and loitering law violations 48,187 30,369 −37.0 48,187 30,369 −37.0

Source:Source: Adapted from FBI (2016c).

1 Does not include suspicion.

2 The 2011 rape figures are based on the legacy definition, and the 2015 rape figures are aggregate totals based on both the legacy and revised Uniform Crime Reporting definitions. For this reason, a percent change is not provided.

3 Violent crimes are offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Table 3.3 Ten-Year Arrest Trends by Sex, 2006–2015

Male Female

Offense charged

Total Under 18 Total Under 18

2006 2015 Percentchange 2006 2015 Percent change 2006 2015

Percent change 2006 2015

Percent change

TOTAL1 6,605,457 4,913,199 −25.6 922,499 405,325 −56.1 2,070,999 1,826,164 −11.8 357,696 173,213 −51.6

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter

6,292 5,463 −13.2 612 394 −35.6 812 738 −9.1 30 27 −10.0

Rape2 13,932 13,536 − 2,071 2,154 – 188 409 – 40 85 –

Robbery 60,460 46,060 −23.8 16,413 8,658 −47.2 7,977 7,943 −0.4 1,788 1,095 −38.8

Aggravated assault 216,482 179,138 −17.3 27,741 13,273 −52.2 55,258 52,690 −4.6 8,243 4,444 −46.1

Burglary 159,767 110,416 −30.9 45,896 19,254 −58.0 28,355 26,049 −8.1 6,057 2,802 −53.7

Larceny-theft 418,187 424,952 +1.6 106,506 60,365 −43.3 261,103 328,713 +25.9 74,117 41,533 −44.0

Motor vehicle theft 59,234 36,177 −38.9 14,361 6,029 −58.0 13,416 10,286 −23.3 3,290 1,518 −53.9

Arson 8,738 4,633 −47.0 4,538 1,536 −66.2 1,707 1,104 −35.3 685 275 −59.9

Violent crime3 297,166 244,197 −17.8 46,837 24,479 −47.7 64,235 61,780 −3.8 10,101 5,651 −44.1

Property crime3 645,926 576,178 −10.8 171,301 87,184 −49.1 304,581 366,152 +20.2 84,149 46,128 −45.2

Other assaults 592,204 486,355 −17.9 101,366 52,882 −47.8 199,974 192,182 −3.9 51,030 30,807 −39.6

Forgery and counterfeiting 41,028 22,493 −45.2 1,513 470 −68.9 27,291 12,418 −54.5 775 162 −79.1

Fraud 99,184 52,967 −46.6 3,297 1,811 −45.1 82,679 33,517 −59.5 1,793 965 −46.2

Embezzlement 6,101 4,850 −20.5 517 220 −57.4 6,907 5,073 −26.6 432 171 −60.4

Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing

63,904 45,331 −29.1 11,930 5,514 −53.8 15,173 12,587 −17.0 2,102 1,086 −48.3

Vandalism 158,590 97,844 −38.3 66,281 23,174 −65.0 31,277 26,214 −16.2 9,921 4,619 −53.4

Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.

105,054 78,496 − 25,051 10,331 −58.8 9,050 7,947 −12.2 2,656 1,283 −51.7

Prostitution and commercialized vice

11,754 7,103 −39.6 182 85 −53.3 21,648 10,560 −51.2 551 184 −66.6

Sex offenses (except rape and 47,168 29,862 −36.7 9,029 4,914 −45.6 3,488 2,494 −28.5 919 729 −20.7

prostitution)

Drug abuse violations 865,257 715,904 −17.3 93,508 49,170 −47.4 212,899 212,218 −0.3 19,624 13,865 −29.3

Gambling 2,366 1,272 −46.2 279 121 −56.6 441 385 −12.7 13 12 −7.7

Offenses against the family and children

60,217 41,552 −31.0 2,070 1,379 −33.4 19,351 16,825 −13.1 1,278 829 −35.1

Driving under the influence 738,512 508,633 −31.1 9,943 3,251 −67.3 187,306 167,327 −10.7 3,004 1,043 −65.3

Liquor laws 294,825 123,435 −58.1 60,064 17,707 −70.5 113,686 50,795 −55.3 34,665 11,823 −65.9

Drunkenness 310,500 202,628 −34.7 8,281 2,503 −69.8 57,771 48,796 −15.5 2,812 1,025 −63.5

Disorderly conduct 308,923 171,960 −44.3 87,098 29,356 −66.3 113,264 68,763 −39.3 42,850 16,303 −62.0

Vagrancy 13,876 11,847 −14.6 2,390 457 −80.9 4,230 3,170 −25.1 1,085 141 −87.0

All other offenses (except traffic)

1,902,249 1,477,329 −22.3 180,909 77,354 −57.2 575,732 520,470 −9.6 67,920 29,896 −56.0

Suspicion 869 384 −55.8 157 95 −39.5 256 96 −62.5 46 32 −30.4

Curfew and loitering law violations

40,653 12,963 −68.1 40,653 12,963 −68.1 20,016 6,491 −67.6 20,016 6,491 −67.6

Source:Source: Adapted from FBI (2016d).

1 Does not include suspicion.

2 The 2006 rape figures are based on the legacy definition, and the 2015 rape figures are aggregate totals based on both the legacy and revised Uniform Crime Reporting definitions. For this reason, a percent change is not provided.

3 Violent crimes are offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Gender As indicated in Table 3.4, total crime in the under-18-years-of-age category declined over the 5-year period from 2011 to 2015 by 36% among males and by 35.9% among females. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter (6.1%) and robbery (25.3%) among males decreased significantly. Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter decreased significantly among females (33%), and robbery also decreased by 13% during the same period. Aggravated assault decreased among males (28.8%) and females (25.7%). Overall, violent crime decreased among males and females under the age of 18 years (roughly 30% for each group). Property crime decreased for males (24.5%) and for females (22.7%). Weapons offenses decreased among both males and females, as did gambling. Whereas vagrancy went down for males, it increased for females under 18 years of age by 29.6%. Prostitution-related offenses also decreased among both males and females under 18 years of age over the 5-year period in question.

Historically, we have observed three to four arrests of juvenile males for every arrest of a juvenile female. During the period from 2011 to 2015, this ratio changed considerably so that juvenile females now account for roughly 41% of arrests of those under 18 years of age (see Table 3.4). The total number of arrests of males and females under age 18 decreased by about 31% and 19%, respectively.

Females have often been overlooked by those interested in juvenile justice (Chesney-Lind, 1999; OJJDP, 1998), and indeed, many of their survival mechanisms (e.g., running away when confronted with abusers) have been criminalized. The juvenile justice network has not always acted in the best interests of female juveniles because it often ignores their unique problems (Cobbina, Like-Haislip, & Miller, 2010; Dennis, 2012; Holsinger, 2000; Martin et al., 2013; National Girls Institute, 2013). Still, there are a number of girls involved in delinquent behavior and others as victims of abuse, and it may well be that we need to develop treatment methods that address their specific problems. For example, a study conducted by Ellis, O’Hara, and Sowers (1999) found that troubled female adolescents have a profile distinctly different from that of males. The female group was characterized as abused, self-harmful, and social, whereas the male group was seen as aggressive, destructive, and asocial. The authors concluded that different treatment modalities (more supportive and more comprehensive in nature) may need to be developed to treat troubled female adolescents. Johnson (1998) maintained that the increasing number of delinquent females can be addressed only by a multiagency approach based on nationwide and systemwide cooperation. Peters and Peters’s (1998) findings seem to provide support for Johnson’s proposal. They concluded that violent offending by females is the result of a complex web of victimization, substance abuse, economic conditions, and dysfunctional families, and this would seem to suggest the need for a multiagency response. To research this and other issues and to provide a sound foundation for implementation of strategies designed to prevent girls’ delinquency, the OJJDP convened its Girls Study Group in 2004 (Zahn et al., 2010).

It is fairly common for girls fleeing from abusive parents to be labeled as runaways. Krisberg (2005; see also Zahn et al., 2010, p. 3) concluded, “Research on young women who enter the juvenile justice system suggests that they often have histories of physical and sexual abuse. Girls in the juvenile justice system have severe problems with substance abuse and mental health issues” (p. 123). If they are dealt with simply by being placed on probation, the underlying causes of the problems they confront are unlikely to be addressed. To deal with these causes, counseling may be needed for all parties involved, school authorities may need to be informed if truancy is involved, and further action in adult court may be necessary. If, as often happens, a girl’s family moves from place to place, the process may begin all over because there is no transfer of information or records from one agency or place to another. According to Krisberg, “There are very few juvenile justice programs that are specifically designed for young women. Gender-responsive programs and policies are urgently needed” (p. 123). The conclusion that female delinquents may benefit from gender-directed programs is supported by Zahn and colleagues (2010, p. 12), who found the following eight factors significantly correlated with girls’ delinquency:

Table 3.4 Five-Year Arrest Trends by Sex, 2011 to 2015

Offense charged

Male Female

Total Under 18 Total Under 18

2011 2015 Percentchange 2011 2015 Percent change 2011 2015

Percent change 2011 2015

Percent change

TOTAL1 6,088,595 5,259,673 −13.6 700,443 448,078 −36.0 2,137,293 1,953,716 −8.6 290,955 186,640 −35.9

Murder and nonnegligent manslaughter

6,143 6,195 +0.8 491 461 −6.1 825 810 −1.8 48 32 −33.3

Rape2 13,007 14,667 − 1,872 2,303 − 161 459 − 45 98 −

Robbery 59,300 51,513 −13.1 13,651 10,198 −25.3 8,350 8,572 +2.7 1,386 1,206 −13.0

Aggravated assault

200,997 189,945 −5.5 20,057 14,280 −28.8 58,018 56,293 −3.0 6,364 4,728 −25.7

Burglary 165,578 117,307 −29.2 35,931 20,564 −42.8 32,178 27,856 −13.4 5,087 3,323 34.7

Larceny-theft 483,506 453,042 −6.3 98,996 65,070 −34.3 371,677 346,601 −6.7 76,437 44,286 42.1

Motor vehicle theft 36,406 39,750 +9.2 8,029 7,866 −2.0 7,930 10,697 +34.9 1,552 1,758 +13.3

Arson 6,497 4,924 −24.2 2,873 1,610 −44.0 1,379 1,209 −12.3 479 304 −36.5

Violent crime3 279,447 262,320 −6.1 36,071 27,242 -24.5 67,354 66,134 −1.8 7,843 6,064 22.7

Property crime3 691,987 615,023 −11.1 145,829 95,110 −34.8 413,164 386,363 −6.5 83,555 49,671 40.6

Other assaults 601,228 523,074 −13.0 82,291 57,093 −30.6 226,349 204,361 −9.7 45,019 32,742 27.3

Forgery and counterfeiting 28,751 23,598 −17.9 759 509 −32.9 17,513 13,044 −25.5 306 185 39.5

Fraud 64,431 55,618 −13.7 2,348 2,160 −8.0 45,932 34,972 −23.9 1,235 1,086 12.1

Embezzlement 5,508 5,436 −1.3 183 244 +33.3 5,423 5,575 +2.8 118 182 +54.2

Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing

50,724 46,335 −8.7 7,550 5,614 −25.6 13,068 12,888 −1.4 1,577 1,101 −30.2

Vandalism 129,917 102,401 −21.2 39,722 24,312 −38.8 30,463 27,753 −8.9 6,966 4,915 29.4

Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.

90,934 87,083 −4.2 16,739 11,666 −30.3 8,181 8,720 +6.6 1,926 1,412 26.7

Prostitution and commercialized vice

8,922 7,945 −11.0 129 98 −24.0 17,855 11,852 −33.6 332 194 41.6

Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)

41,586 31,775 −23.6 7,563 5,272 −30.3 3,284 2,645 −19.5 919 776 15.6

Drug abuse violations 816,249 785,537 −3.8 84,160 54,534 −35.2 204,626 230,865 +12.8 17,031 14,821 13.0

Gambling 4,383 2,445 −44.2 573 264 −53.9 546 610 +11.7 45 30 33.3

Offenses against the family and children

57,203 46,809 −18.2 1,467 1,448 −1.3 19,184 18,548 −3.3 911 887 2.6

Driving under the influence 621,125 505,968 −18.5 5,192 3,336 −35.7 204,784 170,592 −16.7 1,821 1,096 39.8

Liquor laws 225,595 128,074 −43.2 38,110 18,478 −51.5 97,934 53,388 −45.5 25,512 12,398 51.4

Drunkenness 294,364 215,650 −26.7 5,994 2,734 −54.4 67,223 52,465 −22.0 2,191 1,102 49.7

Disorderly conduct 275,904 189,745 −31.2 60,256 32,008 −46.9 106,685 74,783 −29.9 31,496 17,307 45.1

Vagrancy 11,904 12,198 +2.5 533 508 −4.7 2,683 3,297 +22.9 108 140 +29.6

All other offenses (except traffic)

1,754,766 1,590,807 −9.3 131,307 83,616 −36.3 570,522 566,324 −0.7 47,524 31,994 −32.7

Suspicion 569 457 −19.7 52 99 +90.4 163 116 −28.8 26 33 +26.9

Curfew and loitering law violations

33,667 21,832 −35.2 33,667 21,832 −35.2 14,520 8,537 −41.2 14,520 8,537 −41.2

Source:Source: Adapted from FBI (2016e).

1 Does not include suspicion.

2 The 2011 rape figures are based on the legacy definition, and the 2015 rape figures are aggregate totals based on both the legacy and revised Uniform Crime Reporting definitions. For this reason, a percent change is not provided.

3 Violent crimes are offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

1. Negative and critical mothers 2. Harsh discipline 3. Inconsistent discipline 4. Family conflict 5. Frequent family moves 6. Multiple caregivers 7. Longer periods of time with a single parent 8. Growing up in socioeconomically disadvantaged families

While some of these factors are significantly related to male delinquency as well, the lack of prevention, diversion, and treatment programs for girls involved in the juvenile justice network is well documented and requires attention (Cobbina et al., 2010; Dennis, 2012; Martin et al., 2013; National Girls Institute, 2013).

Race The disproportionate minority contact (DMC) mandate was included in the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act in 1988. The mandate required states to assess the extent of DMC and to develop strategies to achieve equal treatment of youth within the juvenile justice system. Some authorities argue that DMC is the result of racial bias within the juvenile justice system. The Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice (2010) said the following:

Research on disproportionate minority contact illustrates how the inequity often begins long before a youth enters the juvenile justice system. It can begin in early childhood when minority youth disproportionately enter the child welfare system, where they are put into foster care faster and stay there longer than other children. The inequity is further exacerbated in the education system, where minority children are more likely to be excluded from school and referred to the court by school officials or law enforcement. The disparity continues once minority youth enter the juvenile justice system, where they are treated differently by law enforcement and throughout the legal process. (p. 2)

Leiber, Bishop, and Chamlin (2011) analyzed data from one juvenile court (note the very small sample size) to determine whether the predictors of juvenile justice decision making before and after the mandate changed, especially in terms of race. They found that the factors impacting decision making, for the most part, did not change in significance or relative impact when considering case outcomes. In other words, the impact of race (among other factors) remained the same after the DMC mandate, at least in the juvenile court in question.

Official statistics on race are subject to a number of errors, as pointed out in Chapter 2. Any index of nonwhite arrests may be inflated as a result of discriminatory practices among criminal justice personnel (Armour & Hammond, 2009, p. 5; Federal Advisory Committee on

Juvenile Justice, 2010; National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2014). For example, the presence of a black youth under “suspicious circumstances” may result in an official arrest even though the police officer knows the charge(s) will be dismissed. The National Center for Juvenile Justice (2014) found that black juveniles receive harsher dispositions from the justice system when they live in areas with high proportions of whites (i.e., where they are true numerical minority group members). Hanser and Gomila (2015) found that juvenile justice outcomes were influenced by race at every stage of the juvenile system, including adjudication. Joiner (2005) found that blacks were charged with more offenses more often than were whites and that whites received no charges more often than did blacks. The National Center for Juvenile Justice (2014) found partial support for their hypothesis that African Americans charged with drug offenses would be treated more harshly in jurisdictions characterized by economic and racial inequality and adherence to beliefs in racial differences than in jurisdictions without such characteristics. Hanser and Gomila (2015) pointed out that young black males are more likely to be labeled as slow learners or mentally challenged, to have learning difficulties in school, to lag behind their peers in basic educational competencies or skills, and to drop out of school at an early age. Juvenile black males are also more likely to be institutionalized or placed in foster care. In fact, Huizinga, Thornberry, Knight, and Lovegrove (2007) noted that “disproportionate minority contact (DMC), which we define as contact at any point within the juvenile justice system, is evident at all decision points” (p. 1). And Rodriguez (2010) concluded, “Despite federal and state legislation aimed at producing equitable treatment of youth in the juvenile court system, studies continue to find that race and ethnicity play a significant role in juvenile court outcomes” (p. 391). His own analysis of over 23,000 youth processed in Arizona found that black, Latino, and American Indian youth were treated more severely in juvenile court outcomes than their white counterparts.

Many minority group members live in lower-class neighborhoods in large urban centers where the greatest concentration of law enforcement officers exists. Because arrest statistics are more complete for large cities, we must take into account the sizable proportion of blacks found in these cities rather than the 13% statistic derived from calculating the proportion of blacks in our society. It is these same arrest statistics that lead many to believe that any overrepresentation of black and other minority juveniles in these statistics reflects racial inequities in the juvenile and criminal justice networks. For example, in Illinois, “African Americans comprised 18 percent of the state’s youth population but 57 percent of youth arrested; Latino youth are nearly twice as likely as whites to be detained” (Black, 2010, p. 1). Analysis of official arrest statistics of persons under the age of 18 years has traditionally shown a disproportionate number of African Americans. Data presented in Table 3.5 show that African Americans accounted for 33.9% of all arrests of individuals under 18 in 2015. African Americans accounted for 50.8% of reported arrests for violent crime and 37.7% of the arrests for property crimes in the under-18-years-of-age category. American Indians or Alaskan Natives and Asian or Pacific Islanders accounted for very small portions of all crimes, as can be seen in Table 3.5.

With respect to specific crimes, African Americans under the age of 18 years accounted for well over half (60.1%) of the arrests for murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, more than two-thirds (68.6%) of the arrests for robbery, 41.4% of aggravated assaults, 41.6% of burglaries and 47.7% of auto thefts, and 60.4% of the arrests for prostitution-related offenses. They also accounted for some 75% of all arrests for gambling. Based on population parameters, African Americans under the age of 18 years account for a disproportionate amount of the juvenile violations committed, particularly those that are more serious in nature.

As indicated previously, social–environmental factors have an important impact on delinquency rates and perhaps especially on official delinquency rates. Race and ethnicity as causes of delinquency are complicated by social class (Hanser & Gomila, 2015; Huizinga et al., 2007; National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2014). A disproportionate number of blacks are found in the lower socioeconomic class with all of the correlates conducive to high delinquency. Unless these conditions are changed, each generation caught in this environment not only inherits the same conditions that created high crime and delinquency rates for its parents but also transmits them to the next generation. It is interesting to note that, according to research, when ethnic or racial groups leave high crime and delinquency areas, they tend to take on the crime rate of the specific part of the community to which they move. It should also be noted that there are differential crime and delinquency rates among black neighborhoods, giving further credibility to the influence of the social–environmental approach to explaining high crime and delinquency rates (Armour & Hammond, 2009, p. 4). It is unlikely that any single factor can be used to explain the disproportionate number of black juveniles involved in some type of delinquency. The most plausible explanations currently center on environmental and socioeconomic factors characteristic of ghetto areas (National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2014). Violence and a belief that planning and thrift are not realistic possibilities may be transmitted across generations. This transmission is cultural, not genetic, and may account in part for high rates of violent crime and gambling (luck as an alternative to planning).

Table 3.5 Juvenile Arrests by Race and Ethnicity Under the Age of 18, 2015

Offense charged

Arrests under 18

Race Percent distribution1

Total White Black or African American

American Indian or Alaska Native

Asian

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

Total White Black or African American

American Indian or Alaska Native

Asian

Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander

TOTAL 702,957 442,364 238,542 11,999 7,392 2,660 100.0 62.9 33.9 1.7 1.1 0.4

Murder and

nonnegligent manslaughter

601 234 361 5 1 0 100.0 38.9 60.1 0.8 0.2 0.0

Rape3 2,715 1,802 835 42 26 10 100.0 66.4 30.8 1.5 1.0 0.4

Robbery 14,142 4,190 9,702 60 100 90 100.0 29.6 68.6 0.4 0.7 0.6

Aggravated assault 21,865 12,180 9,061 333 222 69 100.0 55.7 41.4 1.5 1.0 0.3

Burglary 27,344 15,287 11,373 344 262 78 100.0 55.9 41.6 1.3 1.0 0.3

Larceny-theft 119,712 72,434 43,232 1,751 1,815 480 100.0 60.5 36.1 1.5 1.5 0.4

Motor vehicle theft 11,111 5,535 5,296 176 71 33 100.0 49.8 47.7 1.6 0.6 0.3

Arson 2,067 1,517 469 58 17 6 100.0 73.4 22.7 2.8 0.8 0.3

Violent crime4 39,323 18,406 19,959 440 349 169 100.0 46.8 50.8 1.1 0.9 0.4

Property crime4 160,234 94,773 60,370 2,329 2,165 597 100.0 59.1 37.7 1.5 1.4 0.4

Other assaults 100,264 58,646 39,133 1,332 772 381 100.0 58.5 39.0 1.3 0.8 0.4

Forgery and counterfeiting 786 481 291 6 6 2 100.0 61.2 37.0 0.8 0.8 0.3

Fraud 3,425 1,730 1,583 60 47 5 100.0 50.5 46.2 1.8 1.4 0.1

Embezzlement 443 256 175 5 6 1 100.0 57.8 39.5 1.1 1.4 0.2

Stolen property; buying, receiving, possessing

7,941 3,442 4,322 72 88 17 100.0 43.3 54.4 0.9 1.1 0.2

Vandalism 31,840 22,359 8,562 508 308 103 100.0 70.2 26.9 1.6 1.0 0.3

Weapons; carrying, possessing, etc.

14,687 8,308 5,994 135 215 35 100.0 56.6 40.8 0.9 1.5 0.2

Prostitution and commercialized vice

442 162 267 2 6 5 100.0 36.7 60.4 0.5 1.4 1.1

Sex offenses (except rape and prostitution)

6,632 4,739 1,697 73 83 40 100.0 71.5 25.6 1.1 1.3 0.6

Drug abuse violations 75,461 56,617 16,419 1,347 836 242 100.0 75.0 21.8 1.8 1.1 0.3

Gambling 355 77 267 6 5 0 100.0 21.7 75.2 1.7 1.4 0.0

Offenses

against the family and children

2,597 1,656 784 135 22 0 100.0 63.8 30.2 5.2 0.8 0.0

Driving under the influence 4,993 4,430 295 177 73 18 100.0 88.7 5.9 3.5 1.5 0.4

Liquor laws 32,663 28,684 2,184 1,326 386 83 100.0 87.8 6.7 4.1 1.2 0.3

Drunkenness 4,209 3,495 386 271 47 10 100.0 83.0 9.2 6.4 1.1 0.2

Disorderly conduct 54,686 30,061 23,100 1,058 367 100 100.0 55.0 42.2 1.9 0.7 0.2

Vagrancy 820 472 313 26 9 0 100.0 57.6 38.2 3.2 1.1 0.0

All other offenses (except traffic)

127,312 85,689 37,354 2,284 1,250 735 100.0 67.3 29.3 1.8 1.0 0.6

Suspicion 144 99 34 11 0 0 100.0 68.8 23.6 7.6 0.0 0.0

Curfew and loitering law violations

33,700 17,782 15,053 396 352 117 100.0 52.8 44.7 1.2 1.0 0.3

Source:Source: Adapted from FBI (2016f).

1 Because of rounding, the percentages may not add to 100.0.

2 The ethnicity totals are representative of those agencies that provided ethnicity breakdowns. Not all agencies provide ethnicity data; therefore, the race and ethnicity totals will not equal.

3 The rape figures in this table are aggregate totals of the data submitted based on both the legacy and revised Uniform Crime Reporting definitions.

4 Violent crimes are offenses of murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Property crimes are offenses of burglary, larceny-theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson.

Whatever the reasons, it is quite clear that black juveniles are overrepresented in delinquency statistics—especially with respect to violent offenses—and that inner-city black neighborhoods are among the most dangerous places in America to live. Because most black offenders commit their offenses in black neighborhoods against black victims, these neighborhoods are often characterized by violence, and children living in them grow up as observers and/or victims of violence. Such violence undoubtedly takes a toll on children’s ability to do well in school, to develop a sense of trust and respect for others, and to develop and adopt nonviolent alternatives. The same concerns exist for members of other racial and ethnic groups growing up under similar conditions.

Krisberg (2005) summed up the current state of knowledge concerning the impact of the characteristics of juvenile offenders as follows:

If you are feeling confused and getting a mild headache after considering these complexities, you are probably getting the right messages. Terms such as race, ethnicity, and social class are used imprecisely and sometimes interchangeably. This is a big problem that is embedded in the existing data and research. There is no simple solution to this conceptual quagmire except to recognize that it exists and frustrates both good research and sound public policy discussions on this topic. (pp. 83–84)

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Summary Official profiles of juvenile offenders reflect only the characteristics of those who have been apprehended and officially processed. Although they tell little or nothing about the characteristics of all juveniles who actually commit delinquent acts, they are useful in dealing with juveniles who have been officially processed. These official statistics currently lead us to some discomforting conclusions about the nature of delinquency in America as it relates to social and physical factors.

It might not be the broken home itself that leads to delinquency; instead, it may be the quality of life within the family in terms of consistency of discipline, level of tension, and ease of communication. Therefore, in some instances, it may be better to remove children from intact families that do not provide a suitable environment than to maintain the integrity of the families. In addition, it might not be necessary to automatically place juveniles from broken homes into institutions, foster homes, and so forth provided that the quality of life within the broken homes is good.

We perhaps need to rethink our position on the “ideal” family consisting of two biological parents and their children. This family no longer exists for most American children. For many children, the family of reality consists of a single mother who is head of the household or a biological parent and stepparent. Although many one-parent families experience varying degrees of delinquency and abuse or neglect, children in many others are valued, protected, and raised in circumstances designed to give them a chance at success in life.

Because education is an important determinant of occupational success in our society and because occupational success is an important determinant of life satisfaction, it is important that we attempt to minimize the number of juveniles who are “pushed out” of the educational system. Both juvenile justice practitioners and school officials need to pursue programs that minimize the number of juveniles who drop out. It may be that we are currently asking too much of educators when we require them not only to provide academic and vocational information but also to promote psychological and social well-being, moral development, and a sense of direction for juveniles (formerly provided basically by the family). At the current time, however, if educators fail to provide for these concerns, the juvenile often has nowhere else to turn except his or her peers, who may be experiencing similar problems. One result of this alienation from both the family and the educational system is the development of delinquent behavior patterns. Another may be direct attacks on school personnel or fellow students. Though schools in the United States remain relatively safe havens for students, there is no denying the impact of bullying (both physical and cyber) on students and the school environment. There are indications that schools have gone too far in zero-tolerance policies in some cases, although in others, bullying has not been taken seriously, and it is imperative that programs to prevent bullying through early identification and intervention are made available to school administrators, teachers, and parents. Programs aimed directly at youth may also be effective. Although school shootings are rare occurrences, they undoubtedly cause extreme concern among the students, youth, and parents involved. Further, they attract national media attention and thereby involve many, if not most, Americans on some level. It may never be possible to totally prevent such tragedies, but steps like target hardening; improved security; and training for schoolteachers, administrators, and students are widely regarded as necessary. We have concentrated our interest and research activities on delinquency and abuse and neglect of the lower social class and have generally ignored the existence of these problems in the middle and upper classes. The importance of lower-class delinquency cannot be ignored, but we must also realize that the problem may be equally widespread, although perhaps in different forms, in the middle and upper classes. We can no longer afford the luxury of viewing delinquency as only a problem of lower-class neighborhoods in urban areas. The delinquency also exists in what are commonly considered to be “quiet middle-class suburban areas” and in many rural areas as well. Because motivations and types of offenses committed by middle-class delinquents may differ from those of their lower-class counterparts, new techniques and approaches for dealing with these problems may be required.

If those working with children can develop more effective ways of promoting good relationships between juveniles and their families and of making the importance of a relevant education clear to juveniles, involvement in gang activities may be lessened. At the current time, however, understanding the importance of peer group pressure and the demands of the gang on the individual juvenile is extremely important in understanding drug abuse and related activities. If gangs could be used to promote legitimate concerns rather than illegitimate concerns, one of the major sources of support for certain types of delinquent activities (e.g., vandalism, drug abuse) could be weakened considerably. Reasonable alternatives to current gang activities need to be developed and promoted.

Finally, there is no denying that black juveniles are disproportionately involved in official delinquency. Although there are still those who argue racial connections to such delinquency, the evidence that such behavior is a result of family, school, and neighborhood conditions and perhaps the actions of juvenile justice practitioners rather than genetics is overwhelming. Whatever the reasons for the high rates of delinquency—and especially violent offenses—in black neighborhoods, it behooves us all to address this issue with as many resources as possible in the interests of those living in both high-crime areas and the larger society.

None of the factors discussed in this chapter can be considered a direct cause of delinquency. It is important to remember that official statistics reflect only a small proportion of all delinquent activities. We use them because they are one of the most consistent sources of data available, but we must always keep in mind their limitations. Profiles based on the characteristics discussed in this chapter are valuable to the extent that they alert us to a number of problem areas that must be addressed if we are to make progress in the battle against delinquency.

Attempts to improve the quality of family life and the relevancy of education and attempts to change discriminatory practices in terms of social class, race, and gender are needed badly. Improvements in these areas will go a long way toward reducing the frequency of certain types of delinquent activity.

Key Terms broken homes 44 bullying 54 crack 59 criminal subculture 56 disproportionate minority contact (DMC) 69 dropouts 58 latchkey children 46 learning disabled 48 methamphetamines 59 social factors 39 socialization process 41 socioeconomic status 47 underclass 57 youth culture 55

Critical Thinking Questions 1. What is the relationship between profiles of delinquents based on official statistics and the actual extent of delinquency? 2. Discuss the relationships among the family, the educational system, drugs, and delinquency. 3. Discuss some of the possible reasons for the overrepresentation of black juveniles in official delinquency statistics. What could be done

to decrease the proportion of young blacks involved in delinquency? 4. Discuss DMC and its consequences. 5. How do an area of the city, race, and social class combine to affect delinquency? 6. Is delinquency basically a lower-class phenomenon? If so, why should those in the middle and upper classes be concerned about it? 7. Discuss the methamphetamine crisis. How does it differ from other drug-related crises we have faced in the past? What do you think can

be done to deal with this crisis?

Suggested Readings Alston, F. K. (2013). Latch key children. New York, NY: NYU Study Center. Retrieved from www.education.com/reference/article/Ref_Latch_Key_Children/?page=2

Bishop, D. M., Leiber, M., & Johnson, J. (2010). Contexts of decision making in the juvenile justice system: An organizational approach to understanding minority overrepresentation. Youth Violence & Juvenile Justice, 8(3), 213–233.

Bjerregaard, B. (2010). Gang membership and drug involvement: Untangling the complex relationship. Crime and Delinquency, 56(1), 3–34.

Brown, J. R., Aalsma, M. C., & Ott, M. A. (2013). The experiences of parents who report youth bullying victimization to school officials. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 28(3), 494–518.

Carter, P. L. (2003). “Black” cultural capital, status positioning, and schooling conflicts for low-income African American youth. Social Problems, 50, 136–155.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2013). Fact sheet: Understanding school violence. Atlanta, GA: Author. Retrieved from www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/schoolviolence_factsheet-a.pdf

De Coster, S., Heimer, K., & Wittrock, S. M. (2006). Neighborhood disadvantage, social capital, street context, and youth violence. Sociological Quarterly, 17, 723–753.

Demuth, S., & Brown, S. L. (2004). Family structure, family processes, and adolescent delinquency: The significance of parental absence versus parental gender. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 41, 58–81.

Deutsch, A., Crockett, L., Wolff, J., & Russell, S. (2012). Parent and peer pathways to adolescent delinquency: Variations by ethnicity and neighborhood context. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 41(8), 1078–1094.

Forum on Child and Family Statistics. (2012). America’s children in brief: Key national indicators of well-being, 2012. Retrieved from www.childstats.gov/pdf/ac2012/ac_12.pdf

Francis, A. A. (2012). The dynamics of family trouble: Middle-class parents whose children have problems. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 41(4), 371–401.

Ginwright, S. A. (2002). Classed out: The challenges of social class in black community change. Social Problems, 49, 544–562.

Hanser, R. D., & Gomila, M. D. (2015). Multiculturalism and the criminal justice system. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Hayes, L. (2008). Teachers’ expectations affect kids’ grades, student-teacher relationships. EduGuide. Retrieved from www.eduguide.org

Huizinga, D., Thornberry, T., Knight, K., & Lovegrove, P. (2007, September). Disproportionate minority contact in the juvenile justice system: A study of differential minority arrest/referral to court in three cities. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved from www.ojjdp.ncjrs.gov/dmc

Hume, R. (2010). Learning disabilities and the juvenile justice system. Lansing, MI: Learning Disabilities Association of Michigan. Retrieved from www.ldaofmichigan.org/articles/ld.jj.htm

Joiner, C. T. (2005). An examination of racial profiling data in a large metropolitan area. Professional Issues in Criminal Justice, 1(2), 1–14.

Leiber, M., Bishop, D., & Chamlin, M. B. (2011). Juvenile justice decision-making before and after the implementation of the disproportionate minority contact (DMC) mandate. JQ: Justice Quarterly, 28(3), 460–492.

Mallett, C. (2008). The disconnect between youths with mental health and special education disabilities and juvenile court outcomes. Corrections Compendium, 33(5), 1–7.

McNulty, T. L., & Bellair, P. E. (2003). Explaining racial and ethnic differences in adolescent violence: Structural disadvantage, family well- being, and social capital. Justice Quarterly, 20, 1–31.

Mitchell, P., & Shaw, J. (2011). Factors affecting the recognition of mental health problems among adolescent offenders in custody. Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 22(3), 381–394.

National Center for Juvenile Justice. (2014). Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2014 National Report. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2013). Facts on drugs: Prescription drugs. Retrieved from http://teens.drugabuse.gov/drug- facts/prescription-drugs

National Institute on Drug Abuse. (2016). Monitoring the future survey: High school and youth trends. Bethesda, MD: NIDA. Retrieved from https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/monitoring-future-survey-high-school-youth-trends

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. (2010). How OJJDP is forming partnerships and finding solutions: Annual report. Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/237051.pdf

Raskind, M. (2010). Research trends: Is there a link between LD and juvenile delinquency? San Francisco, CA: Great Schools. Retrieved from www.greatschools.org/LD/managing/link-between-ld-and-juvenile-delinquency.gs?content=932

Schroeder, R. D., Osgood, A. K., & Oghia, M. J. (2010). Family transitions and juvenile delinquency. Sociological Inquiry, 80(4), 579–604.

Seigel, J. A. (2011). Disrupted childhoods: Children of women in prison. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2013, February 14). Drug, alcohol abuse more likely among high school dropouts. Rockville, MD: U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved from www.healthfinder.gov/News/Article.aspx?id=673547

Weerman, F. M., & Hoeve, M. (2012). Peers and delinquency among girls and boys: Are sex differences in delinquency explained by peer factors? European Journal of Criminology, 9(4), 228–244.

Zahn, M. A., Agnew, R., Fishbein, D., Miller, S., Winn, D.-M., Dakoff, G., . . . Chesney-Lind, M. (2010, April). Causes and correlates of girls’ delinquency. Girls study group: Understanding and responding to girls’ delinquency. Washington, DC: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Retrieved from www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/226358.pdf

Sharpen your skills with SAGE edge at edge.sagepub.com/coxjj9e. SAGE edge for students provides a personalized approach to help you accomplish your coursework goals in an easy-to-use learning environment. You’ll find action plans, mobile-friendly eFlashcards, and quizzes as well as video and web resources and links to SAGE journal articles to support and expand on the concepts presented in this chapter.