Introduction
Juvenile delinquency is criminality committed by children. Despite being less severe than adult crimes, these offences may have significant consequences for the person and society. Understanding juvenile crime and delinquency may assist in preventing child crime. Teenage misconduct has the potential to hurt people, families, and communities. Criminal histories may have an impact on housing, work, and education. Delinquency may also result in a vicious cycle of unemployment and crime.
Biological, psychological, and sociological variables explain delinquency. Biological theories connect hormones, brain problems, and genetics to criminality. Psychologists believe mental illness, cognitive deficits, and personality abnormalities may cause crime. Sociological views say peer pressure, social dysfunction, and poverty cause crime. In order to reduce juvenile delinquency, it will also explore integrated theories and preventive and intervention strategies. It may be possible to lessen juvenile crime and enhance adolescent outcomes by comprehending the reasons for delinquency and discovering efficient preventative and intervention techniques.
Biological Theories
According to biological theories of delinquency, there are underlying biological causes of criminal conduct. These ideas suggest that criminals have a hereditary or early-life environmental propensity. Italian physician and criminologist Cesare Lombroso promoted atavism in the late 1800s. According to proponents of this view, those who commit crimes are “born criminals” or evolutionary relics who retain certain features of their caveman ancestors (Griffiths et al., 2023). Lombroso said these biological traits led to criminal conduct and made convicts inferior to the general population. American psychologist William Sheldon established somatotypes in the 1940s. This theory states that mesomorphs are more likely to commit crimes. Sheldon believed mesomorphs were naturally hostile and criminal (Nickerson, 2022). Sheldon believed that mesomorphs, by virtue of their physique, were predisposed to hostility and criminal activity.
Biological theories have the advantage of offering a potential biological explanation for criminal conduct. However, these ideas also include a number of caveats. The problem of establishing cause and effect is a significant constraint. Simply because a biological element is linked to antisocial conduct does not entail that it causes it. Social and environmental variables may also contribute to criminal conduct, although they are often ignored by biological explanations. Antisocial behaviour has been found to have associations with genetics, brain abnormalities, and hormones. Genetics, brain disorders, and hormones may cause antisocial behaviour. Brain imaging has shown that delinquents have different brain structures and functions than non-delinquents. Certain genes may increase criminal risk, according to research. High amounts of testosterone and other hormone abnormalities have also been related to antisocial conduct.
Psychological Theories
According to psychological theories of delinquency, mental components like cognition and emotion have a role in criminal conduct. It is the basic idea of these explanations that cognitive impairments, socialization processes, and unconscious conflicts contribute to offending conduct.
According to Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory, criminal conduct stems from repressed emotions. Freud theorized that antisocial conduct is the outward manifestation of latent urges and impulses that have been denied or repressed. Deviant conduct might surface as a result of an individual’s inability to regulate these drives and impulses in a healthy way.
According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, antisocial conduct is the product of positive reinforcement and the normalization of previously antisocial behaviour. This idea proposes that people pick up antisocial habits by emulating those around them and having their own actions rewarded (Baştan & Dülek, 2023). If a person sees their friends participating in delinquent conduct and being applauded or rewarded for it, that person may be more motivated to follow suit.
According to the theory of cognitive development advanced by Jean Piaget, mental impairments may lead to antisocial conduct. Piaget argues that intellectual growth is essential to the maturation of moral thinking and decision-making. A person’s inability to make good choices and engage in lawless activity may be the consequence of a delay or deficit in cognitive development. Psychological theories have the advantage of offering a potential psychological explanation for antisocial conduct. These theories have some disadvantages. Psychological theories, like biological ones, neglect social and environmental factors in antisocial behaviour. In addition, the intricate interplay between personal and societal influences is frequently overlooked by these ideas. behaviour may lead to learning impairments, mental illness, and personality disorders. Criminals may have conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder. Due to impulse control and decision-making issues, ADHD and other cognitive disorders may increase delinquency.
Sociological Theories
According to sociological theories of delinquency, variables including poverty, social disorganization, and peer pressure all play a role in shaping antisocial conduct. These hypotheses postulate that delinquency stems from problems within the home, the classroom, and the wider community. According to Robert Merton’s strain theory, antisocial conduct develops when people feel pressured to conform yet are unable to accomplish their cultural aspirations. The idea behind this thesis is that those who fail to succeed in society via proper channels may resort to more questionable methods, such as criminal activity (Levesque, 2020). According to the social disorganization hypothesis proposed by Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay, criminal activity thrives in areas where social institutions have collapsed. This hypothesis proposes that high rates of delinquency may be explained by the absence of social control and order in impoverished and socially disorganized communities (Sampson, 2017). However, according to Edwin Lemert’s labelling hypothesis, people engage in antisocial conduct because they have been socially stigmatized. This idea proposes that the stigma and prejudice experienced by those who have been branded as deviant or delinquent makes them more inclined to continue participating in such activity.
One of sociology’s strong points is that it helps us understand how upbringing and peer pressure play a role in shaping antisocial conduct. However, these theories may fail to explain why some people in identical social and environmental situations do not participate in delinquent conduct because they fail to account for individual variances in behaviour. Poverty, social disorder, and peer pressure are just a few of the sociological elements that have been linked to antisocial conduct. People in poverty, for instance, may resort to criminal activity as a method of escaping their precarious living situations. Similarly, communities with high levels of social disorder and little social control may be ideal breeding grounds for criminal activity. Peer pressure to participate in dangerous or unlawful activities is another important contributor to the emergence of delinquent conduct.
Integrated Theories
Integrated theories of delinquency give a more holistic explanation for antisocial conduct by taking into account not just one but many potential causes. These hypotheses hold that antisocial conduct develops as a consequence of a combination of personal and societal influences. According to Terrie Moffitt’s theory of development, antisocial conduct is a product of internal and external influences at play throughout a person’s lifetime. It proposes a dichotomy between “life-course persistent” and “adolescent-limited” delinquents (Belsky et al., 2020). There are two types of delinquents: those whose criminal behaviour starts in infancy and continues throughout maturity and those whose criminal behaviour is confined to adolescence.
Life cycle theory, developed by psychologists Robert Sampson and John Laub, holds that repeated negative experiences lead to criminal behaviour. Poor people and those in unstable families, for example, are more inclined to commit crimes in accordance with this hypothesis. Integrative theories have the potential to better explain antisocial behaviour since they take into account additional variables. However, the intricacy of these ideas may make them harder to evaluate and put into practice. Some suggested integrated theories take into account both biological and social contexts, as in the biosocial theory, and both psychological and social contexts, as in the social learning theory. These theories point to the necessity for a more all-encompassing strategy of intervention and prevention by positing that various variables interact to impact antisocial behaviour.
Intervention and Preventive Measures
The prime objective of early intervention programs is to promptly recognize and provide support to vulnerable children and adolescents. Early intervention schemes include preschool, parenting as well as mental health services, among others. The aim of these undertakings is not only to prevent the development of delinquent behaviour but also to strengthen protective factors while weakening circumstances that promote its occurrence (Kumpfer & Magalhães, 2018). Restorative justice endeavours are intended to repair relationships ruptured by criminal actions through candid dialogues and community engagement. In such initiatives, the perpetrator takes responsibility for their wrongdoings, whereas perpetrators and victims both undergo healing procedures via restorative justice approaches. Community service projects, together with negotiations between offenders and victims, constitute examples so restorative justice schemes.
Prevention and intervention programs have the potential to be customized to fit the needs of people and communities. However, if these strategies fail to address the basic sociocultural and ecological factors that trigger delinquent conduct, their efficacy may be limited. Some juvenile intervention and preventive initiatives may also stigmatize and label participants, which may encourage even more antisocial behaviour.
Conclusion
In summation, the exhibition of felonious activities involves multiple elements: physiological, mental and societal. When considering possible roots for this type of conduct due to genetic makeup, cerebral function or hormonal balance based on some assumptions, one can find a connection between biology and crime. Psychological concepts indicate that an individual’s comportment involves more than just physical factors. Sociologists suggest that environmental conditions such as poverty or peer pressure contribute significantly towards delinquency while looking at Social aspects as causative agents too. Integrated ideas propose a multifaceted array of influencing elements upon criminal activities along with its resultant effects.
To decrease the occurrence of juvenile delinquency and improve outcomes for adolescents, it is necessary to implement a combination of preventative measures and interventions. Restorative justice programs, as well as early intervention initiatives, have proven effective in mitigating deviant behaviour while also rehabilitating both victims’ and perpetrators’ lives. Given that genetics, along with upbringing, play significant roles in developing antisocial tendencies, multiple layers of prevention/interception are required when dealing with such matters. Future studies on adolescent offences ought to keep dissecting how personal/environmental variables interact together; experts should study means by which social & environmental factors fostering criminal activity can be reduced too. Lastly, researchers need to try eliminating negative associations linked exclusively towards youth who’ve committed infractions so that all young people’s prospects may become more promising, successfully moving forward into adulthood without fear or stigma attached due solely based upon their past mistakes made during childhood.
References
Sampson, R. J. (2017). Family management and child development: Insights from social disorganization theory. In Facts, frameworks, and Forecasts (pp. 63-94). Routledge.
Levesque, M. (2020). Juvenile Delinquency and General Strain Theory (Doctoral dissertation).
Belsky, J., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Poulton, R. (2020). The Origins of You: How childhood shapes later life. Harvard University Press.
Kumpfer, K. L., & Magalhães, C. (2018). Strengthening Families Program: An evidence-based family intervention for parents of high-risk children and adolescents. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 27(3), 174-179.
Baştan, A., & Dülek, A. (2023). Learned Violence: Bandura’s Social Learning Theory In Edward Bond’s The Children. Nevşehir Hacı Bektaş Veli Üniversitesi Sbe Dergisi, 13(1), 106-118.
Griffiths, S., Jalava, J., & Colaguori, C. (2023). Crime, Psychopathology, and the Idea of the Natural-Born Criminal. Crime, Deviance, and Social Control in the 21st Century: A Justice and Rights Perspective, 235.
Nickerson, C. (2022). Sheldon’s Constitutional Theory: Somatotyping. Simply Psychology.
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