Juvenile Delinquency In Our Society: The Possible Solutions
When a person reaches adulthood, antisocial and criminal behavior done by him or her can be seen as a crime.
But violation of law by a child is called Juvenile Delinquency.
What’s Juvenile Delinquency?
For most young people, juvenile delinquency is just the beginning stages of what becomes anti-social behavior for a lifetime. After unveiling the definition of Juvenile Delinquency, what are the causes, effects, prevention, possible juvenile justice and rehabilitation? Continue reading to get answers to the questions above.
Juvenile Delinquency: encompasses criminal offenses committed by persons between the ages of 7 and 17; excluding status offenses.
These offenses include: drinking or possession of alcohol, consumption of tobacco, truancy, running away from home, violation of curfew etc.
Causes:
1. Peer influence: Juveniles can be engaged in activities that do not have concrete objectives and commitments; this activities are likely to lead to volatile relationships that may promote deliquent behavior.
Young people who form relationships with positive commitments and tend to shun deliquent behaviors, thus the peer group, young people associate themselves with, goes a long way in influencing them to engage in deliquent behaviors.
2. Family influence: this is another factor that has been proved to encourage juvenile delinquency.
Family influence contributes more deliquent behaviors than peer pressure. Juveniles from families with weak emotional bonding turn out to be deliquent, this may be because they develop psychological problems.
The family also have an ethical obligation to the victim of the deliquent, this is costly and disruptive in a way.
3. Communal effect: As we all know, juvenile delinquency is related to drug use, gang involvements, sexual abusive activities etc.
All these activities hurt the society. It also challenges government, police, various social organizations, educators, faith communities and politicians alike.
From the above effects we can say that Delinquency is always negative and bad, therefore how do we prevent it?.
-The family: It’s vital to ensure that families influence children positively due to the contribution of it’s influence to deliquent behavior in Juveniles.
This can be achieved by exhibiting strong emotional bonding in the family, and laying out effective strategies for communication.
– The School:
Schools should also check the background of children to fill in the blanks that may be left by the parents.
Teachers can also help to counsel a child who’s involved in violence at home or a child who has a criminal parent.
– Keeping good company of friends:
Parents should closely monitor the kind of company their children and wards keep.
They should ensure their children are engaged in productive social activities.
Teachers should keep a close eye on the pupils to ensure that they are involved in good activities as this will go a long way in reducing the chances of children becoming deliquents.
– Racism Eradication:
Another way of preventing Delinquency, through reducing or eradicating racism from society because it also affects badly. It’s major targets are the deliquents in minority groups. This will help in the reduction of several Juveniles in these minority groups who commits offenses.
Juvenile Justice And Rehabilitation
While the juvenile are held responsible for the violation of the law and are being kept in juvenile homes or other similar correctional facilities for public safety, the primary objective is to rehabilitate them.
Rehabilitation Process Includes:
I – Psychological assessment of the crime committed by the juvenile.
II – The environment which caused it to happen and possibly separation from such an environment.
III – Therapeutic guidance.
IV – Skill development which involves them in yoga and other activities for mind development.
In conclusion, parents, teachers, community leaders, constituted authority and the society at large should rise up and say no!!! to Juvenile Delinquency by contributing positively to the prevention.
Script written by: Mamah Ebubechukwu Jennifer.
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