Juvenile delinquency
This change occurred on 1 April 2022 when the Japanese Diet activated a law lowering the age of minor status in the country.
[25] A serious crime is defined by the US Department of Justice as one of the following eight offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape (legacy & revised), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson.
[29] According to Laurence Steinberg's book Adolescence, the two largest predictors of juvenile delinquency are parenting style and peer group association.
[16] Robert Vargas's "Being in 'Bad' Company," explains that adolescents who can choose between groups of friends are less susceptible to peer influence that could lead them to commit illegal acts.
Aronson, Wilson, & Akert (2013)[41] point to the research experiment conducted by Solomon Asch (1956),[42] to ascertain whether a group could influence an individual's behavior.
[47] As stated in research by Matthew Theriot, the increased police presence in school and use of tougher punishment methods leads student actions to be criminalized and in turn referred to juvenile justice systems.
[52][53] Different predictors of delinquency emerge when analyzing distinct offending types across gender, but overall it is evident that males commit more crimes than females.
[56] When it comes to minor offenses such as fighting, vandalism, shoplifting, and the carrying of weapons, differences in gender are limited because they are most common among both males as well as females.
[53] Individual psychological or behavioral risk factors that may make offending more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the inability to delay gratification, aggression, lack of empathy, and restlessness.
[61] Juvenile delinquents who have recurring encounters with the criminal justice system, or in other words those who are life-course-persistent offenders, are sometimes diagnosed with conduct disorders because they show a continuous disregard for their own and others safety and/or property.
Once the juvenile continues to exhibit the same behavioral patterns and turns eighteen he is then at risk of being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and much more prone to become a serious criminal offender.
Therefore, while there is a high rate of juvenile delinquency, it is the small percentage of life-course persistent, career criminals that are responsible for most of the violent crimes.
[65] Since those with, for instance, poor educational attainment have difficulty achieving wealth and status by securing well-paid employment, they are more likely to use criminal means to obtain those goals.
[66] Merton's suggests five adaptations to this dilemma: A difficulty with strain theory is that it does not explore why children of low-income families have poor educational attainment in the first place.
Differential association is another theory that deals with young people in a group context and looks at how peer pressure and the existence of gangs could lead them into crime.
These four types of control can help prevent juvenile delinquency: Direct by which punishment is threatened or applied for wrongful behavior, and compliance is rewarded by parents, family, and authority figures.
[71] Juveniles in youth detention centers are sometimes subject to many of the same punishments as adults, such as solitary confinement, despite a younger age or the presence of disabilities.
Children in juvenile detention have a compromised or nonexistent schooling which to a higher number of drop outs and failure to complete secondary education.
Increasing availability and use of family planning services, including education and contraceptives helps to reduce unintended pregnancy and unwanted births, which are risk factors for delinquency.
[77] According to research done by Scott Lilienfeld, this type of intervention is often harmful because of juvenile offenders' vicarious exposure to criminal role models and the possibility of increased resentment in reaction to the confrontational interactions.
[80] Interventions such as hiring more counselors as opposed to security professionals or focusing on talking through problems would be included in a restorative justice approach.
In practice, this is complicated since juvenile delinquents return home to varying and unpredictable circumstances, including poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, etc..
[84] Sex crimes are defined as sexually abusive behavior committed by a person under the age of 18 that is perpetrated "against the victim's will, without consent, and in an aggressive, exploitative, manipulative, and/or threatening manner".
[86] Using appropriate expressions can facilitate a more accurate depiction of juvenile sex offenders and may decrease the subsequent aversive psychological affects from using such labels.
[86] In the Arab Gulf states [sic], homosexual acts are classified as an offense, and constitute one of the primary crimes for which juvenile males are charged.
[87] Examining prevalence data and the characteristics of juvenile sex offenders is a fundamental component to obtain a precise understanding of this heterogeneous group.
[86] The Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports indicate that in 2008 youth under the age of 18 accounted for 16.7% of forcible rapes and 20.61% of other sexual offenses.
[88] Center for Sex Offender Management indicates that approximately one-fifth of all rapes and one-half of all sexual child molestation can be accounted for by juveniles.
[91] The OJJDP also reported that the total number of juvenile arrests in 2006 for sex offenses (other than forcible rape) was 15,900 with 10% being female and 47% being under the age of 15.
These include, for children under 12, foster care options in order to get them a safer family, and, for young offenders over 12, being sentenced to complying with a range of socio-educative measures that can go from a warning to community work and even to internment in specialized facilities, which include basic schooling and occupational training courses that aim at preventing the offenders from resorting to crime to support themselves, although conditions in such facilities are often subpar.
