Perceptions on the Causes of Juvenile Delinquency

Bob Fellmuth of the Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI) noted that youth crime correlates with the following:

1. Poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Twenty-seven percent of children in California live in poverty. Youth unemployment is three times the adult level. <1> California ranks 42nd in the country in its school drop-out rate. Although drop-out rates have declined from 20.1 percent in 1990 to 16.6 percent in 1992 and to 15.2 percent in 1993, in our poorer communiities, the rate exceeds 50 percent. <2>

2. Incidence of child abuse: Mandated reports of child abuse have increased markedly over the past decade and now stand at over 660,000 per year. Witnessing or being a victim of violence at a very early age can have a demonstrable long-term effect on a child's decision to use physical force.

3. Availability of guns, drugs, and alcohol. Alcohol is involved in about half of the hospital-reported firearm injuries in North America. Illegal drugs have similar consequences and serve as a source of income in an underground economy associated with violence.

4. Media glorification of macho violence and avoidance of its real life consequences; and

5. The absence of involved fathers in homes. The absence of secure biological fathers in the home has become a growing phenomenon.<3>

Peter Greenwood and his associates have found that troublesome and delinquent children are more likely to come from troubled familes and neighborhoods. Family factors associated with higher rates of delinquency include early (teenage) childbearing, and substance abuse during pregnancy, low birth weight, other types of birth complications, parent's criminal record or mental health problems, poor parental supervision, erratic child-rearing behavior, parental disharmony and parental rejection of the child.

Delinquent youth are also more likely to use drugs, have problems in school, drop out of school and become pregnant. There appears to be a relationship between these behaviors, which means that intervention with one could reduce the others. <4>

Sociologists at U. C. Berkeley found that four factors determined whether a man spent time in jail. They looked at the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a study of over ten thousand young Americans involving several interviews over more than a decade. The NLSY administered the Armed Forces Qualifying Test (AFQT) to its subjects in 1980. The four factors associated with time in jail of the NLSY subjects were: the schooling men had received at the time they took the AFQT, the kind of high school they last attended, having been poor just before the 1980's and least important of the four, their score on the AFQT. <5>

Learning Disabilities Association of California (LDA-CA): There is a high correlation between learning disabilites and Juvenile Justice. "If you cannot read there are two ways to make a living - the welfare system or crime - and crime has more status." <6> Approximately 70 percent of the 8,300 students being served by the California Youth Authority (CYA) could qualify for Special education. Nationally, 50 percent of juvenile delinquents tested were found to have undetected learning disabilities. <7>

The Center for Disease Control in The Prevention of Youth Violence states that: "Violence is a learned behavior. The basic values, attitudes and interpersonal skills acquired early in life are likely to be pivotal in developing predispositions for violent behavior later in life." <8>

Elizabeth Thoman, writing in Better Viewing Magazine, states that:

If the stories our children see routinely involve violence as a solution to problems, or simply as a random omnipresence, what kind of personal value system and cultural world view are we passing on to our children? Even if we don't become more aggressive ourselves, we - or our neighbors, or the kids at school - may become overly fearful of others, or desensitized to the seriousness of violence to others. <9>

State Bar of California: The Carlton Research Company was recently commissioned by the State Bar to question 600 10-14 year olds about how they thought the law affected themselves. The study report indicates that those young people interviewed often do not know what is and is not legal. Although they know they should not kill or use illegal drugs, they often do not know that truancy, breaking curfew, or fighting is illegal. Also, those interviewed indicated that they are more likely to obey a law when they fear being caught. They are only half as likely to break curfew, skip school or break school rules if they believe their parents will find out.Those who were most likely to break the law were least likely to turn to their parents for support when they have a problem. Most of the young people interviewed said that they still turn to their parents when they have a problem, but only 15 percent said they learned what is and is not legal and what the consequences are from their parents. Most learned from school (46 percent) or from television (28 percent). These young people respect law in general, understand that most laws are there for their protection, but do not quite make the connection between the law and their own behavior. <10>

Juvenile Justice in California: Facts & Issues TOC. Next section.