Drugs And Alcohol Essay, Research Paper

Imagine a thirteen-year-old male child life with his female parent. His parents have been

divorced since he was four-years-old. He has ne’er truly known his male parent

and therefore uses his friends for his male function theoretical accounts. His female parent has to work

two occupations to back up her household and is hence non at that place to pass much clip

with her kid. This is the type of kid that is usually delinquent. Add to this

scenario a group of teenage friends that are involved in delinquent activities and

it is about guaranteed that a juvenile delinquent will emerge out of this

state of affairs. In an interview that I conducted with a juvenile corrections officer

this scenario was seen as one of the biggest causes of juvenile delinquency.

He, Mike Smith, said that: The three chief causes of juvenile delinquency are

male parents non being in the place, kids being unsupervised, and kid maltreatment.

This is because kids learn through mold, or what they see, so if there is

non a strong, good function theoretical account, they learn through their equals. ( 1999 ) One of the

biggest jobs of juvenile delinquents, or one of their biggest beginnings of

delinquency, harmonizing to Mike Smith is, & # 8220 ; without a uncertainty, ? drugs and intoxicant.

These are normally the things that lead to other delinquent Acts of the Apostless such as jumping

school, stealing, and Acts of the Apostless of force and devastation ( 1999 ) . & # 8221 ; The lone manner

that these jobs can of all time be solved is by everyone working together to

do a difference in every kid? s life. Harmonizing to Smith, rectifying the

job of juvenile delinquency, & # 8220 ; Would affect alterations from the person

degree all the manner up to the social degree ( 1999 ) . & # 8221 ; This would intend that

plans such as the Big Brother Program would be good plans to put in

in individual parent households. The lone job with this is that kids do non necessitate

merely a male and female function theoretical account in their life ; they need a good male and

female function theoretical account in their life. In this instance it is non measure of function theoretical accounts it is

the quality of function theoretical accounts in an person? s life. The chief theory that best

supports this interview is Hirschi? s societal bond theory. This theory suggests that

there are four elements of adhering that & # 8220 ; tie the person to conventional

society and therefore prevent delinquency ( Bynum and Thompson, 1999: 193 ) . & # 8221 ;

These elements are: fond regard, committedness, engagement, and belief.

Harmonizing to this theory, if all four elements are present in an person the

person will non perpetrate delinquent Acts of the Apostless. Yet if an person lacks even one of

these elements, that person has a higher likeliness of perpetrating delinquent

Acts of the Apostless. Hirschi said that there is big fluctuation among persons in the sum

of fond regard, committedness, engagement, and belief in conventional behaviour

and hence there is variableness in their ability to defy pervert and delinquent

behavior ( Bynum and Thompson, 1999: 193 ) . & # 8220 ; He said that delinquents tend to

hold comparatively weak societal bonds and accordingly experience small compunction for

go againsting by and large accepted societal criterions ( Bynum and Thompson ) . & # 8221 ; The

findings in a survey of four-thousand young persons conducted in the metropoliss of Denver,

Pittsburgh, and Rochester gave five causes of juvenile delinquency. This

study sampled young persons at high hazard for serious delinquency and drug usage and

found that: ( 1 ) The more earnestly involved in drugs a young person was, the more

earnestly that juvenile was involved in delinquency, ( 2 ) greater hazards exist for

violent piquing when a kid is physically abused or neglected in early life, ( 3 )

pupils who we

rhenium non committed to school had higher rates of delinquency, ( 4 )

hapless household life exacerbates delinquency and drug usage, and ( 5 ) association with

street packs and illegal gun ownership are both prognostic of delinquency.

( Schmallenger, 1997: 532 ) These five causes that are listed in the survey are

about precisely what the individual that I interviewed said were the causes of

juvenile delinquency. The lone fluctuation in what Smith said and what the survey

found is that my interviewee left out engagement in packs and engagement in

school. These two elements are really of import in the causing of juvenile

delinquency. Gangs are of import because of the strong sum of equal

force per unit area involved in gang life. For some packs, induction involves some type of

condemnable act, such as shrinkage or robbery. There is besides the added factor of

drug usage and drug distribution for some packs. Engagement with school is besides

really of import because a non-delinquent kid? s twenty-four hours normally involves seven to

eight hours of schooling. Whereas a juvenile who is delinquent is normally either

non in school, or they are in school, but acquiring into a batch of problem while at that place.

This same survey besides identified young persons who have many of the same hazard factors

for delinquency, yet did non prosecute in delinquent behaviour. The survey identified

six factors that are said to beef up juveniles so that they do non go

delinquent. These factors are known as protective factors and include the

following: Committedness to school, accomplishment at school, continuation of

instruction ( no dropping out ) , high degrees of parental supervising, high degrees of

fond regard to parents, and association with conventional equals and equals

approved of by their parents ( Schmallenger, 1997: 533 ) These factors explain

why some kids who have high hazard factors for going a juvenile

delinquent do non needfully ever turn out to be delinquent. In my sentiment,

non all kids who happen to be in state of affairss of individual parent households are

traveling to go delinquent. There are some instances where there is no male parent in

the family but an uncle or gramps has stepped into the function of & # 8220 ; father & # 8221 ;

and they end up make fulling that function better that the biological male parent of all time could.

There are besides some instances where there are two parents in the family yet

both parents are bad function theoretical accounts. This is a state of affairs in which the kid of

parents such as these will normally turn out to be a batch like the parents. The

simplest manner to explicate this is that people, as human existences, learn by illustration.

We pick up on what the people around us do and we tend to move as they do, non

as they tell us to make, if they happen to state us to move different than they act.

When I think of juvenile delinquency, I think of Acts of the Apostless that juveniles commit that

are in misdemeanor of the jurisprudence. I think that the causes of juvenile delinquency are

precisely what my interviewee said that they were, deficiency of a strong male function

theoretical account, kids being left unsupervised, and kid maltreatment. The job of so

many kids today is deficiency of strong parental figures. There are excessively many

young persons that have been raised by the telecasting. Until we begin to see our young person

as the most of import plus, we will ne’er work out the job of juvenile

delinquency.

Bynum, Jack E. and William E. Thompson. ( 1999 ) . Juvenile

delinquency: A sociological attack ( 4th ed. ) . Needham Heights, MA: Allyn

& A ; Bacon. Schmallenger, Frank. ( 1997 ) . Condemnable justness today ( 4th ed. ) . Upper

Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Smith, Mike. ( 1999 ) . Personal interview. Troy,

MO.