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Juvenile Delinquent Behavior A growth and toughening of juvenile delinquency is observed last years. Juvenile criminals are becoming a real threat to health, safety, and life of people. Schools and police do not give desirable results in their attempts to stop juvenile delinquency that became an integral part of our reality. Teenagers obscenity, the fences, walls of houses filled up by a children's hand do not arouse indignation now. Criminal chronicle about crimes committed by youth regularly appears on the pages of newspapers and journals, in TV and radio reports. Animals, old people and children usually become objects of children's cruelty.
Teachers and scientists, police and courts, authority and public are anxious with this serious problem. The juvenile delinquency becomes a topic of discussion at the meetings and in the commissions. Plans of educational work are worked out in schools, children's colonies, special establishments; joint councils are created in schools, families, public, and law machinery. Meanwhile, teenagers continue to plunder, steal, beat. (Blanchard 2003) Are juvenile delinquents criminals or victims? And what is the real function of correctional facility - punishing or bringing up? Is legislature perfect concerning minors?
Should juvenile criminals be punished like adults? In search of the answer to these and many other questions we come to the necessity of serious public discussion. Today it is important to look at three various approaches to the problem. Supporters of the first approach think that the law is too lenient with juvenile criminals. Supporters of the second approach believe that education is the main force, capable to save a teenager from the criminal world. Those who believe in the third approach see the main goal in creation of conditions for the maintenance of the full occupation of teenagers.
The study and work will not leave any time and forces to think about something illegal. Three different approaches are the three different visions of a problem and ways of its solution. Approach 1. Toughening: to punish juvenile delinquents severely.
Based on humanity and protection of rights of minors, the law ceases to be retributive measure concerning juvenile criminals. The mild attitude towards them derivatives feeling of impunity. The supporters state that the appropriate punishment should follow any crime. It makes people respect the law.
Conditional sentence does not give any results. During this term a teenager drinks, behaves like a hooligan. Bringing him to the police is also useless: courts are too busy. A teenager remains free and continues committing crimes. The opponents of the given approach state that toughening of the law concerning minors does not guarantee its fair performance.
More skilled and competent will always expose the beginner. It is impossible to speak about teenager as about developed personality. His parents should be responsible for him. It is necessary to punish parents together with children, down to imprisonment.
Strengthening of punishment for the teenager will relieve his parents of the rest of responsibility for his education. We can make a conclusion that the given approach is a secondary measure. The main thing is to direct energies and means to the anticipation of criminality. To feed, to dress, to provide protection of life and health, to create conditions for development of creative abilities, to provide family with social guarantees are the main tasks of the society. Caring about punishment and the construction of new colonies, we distract the attention and the finance from preventive measures. Cruelty always causes cruelty.
Severe punishment for a small fault causes the following serious offence, then a crime. This chain should be broken. (Kirrane 2001) Approach 2. Education: to eliminate lawful illiteracy. The supporters state that ignorance of the rights and duties, loss of moral values, stream of the inconsistent information will disorient the behaviour of teenager. Only education, explanation of borders between impossible and possible will allow a teenager to choose his way and to avoid illegal actions.
It is impossible to follow the rules, if you do not know them. Before making the teenager answer for, it is necessary to explain to him the rules. Supporters of this approach miss that only those who want to study will study, i. e. the teenagers, which are far from the criminal world. Children inclined to offences already have generated attributes of fatal morals.
Unwillingness to study is among roughness, cruelty, drinking. Supporters of this approach also underestimate juvenile offenders. Many of them are the encyclopaedias of legal knowledge. They receive bases of the legislation from the own experience. This knowledge raises their authority in the criminal environment, causes respect on the part of younger, but never prevents from the new offences. (Kirrane 2001) Approach 3. Activity: to provide the occupation for teenagers.
Abundance of the free time, the closed clubs and sections, absence of accessible places for free time spending incite teenagers to search for other ways of communication. Only the provision of the most full occupation of teenagers will not leave time and forces to violate the law. The opponents state that now there are no reasons, which would induce the teenager to make the decision and to choose the useful occupation independently. The child inclined to immoral behaviour, realizes itself in other kinds of activity, which demand roughness, cruelty, physical strength, not abilities to dances or love to painting. There are no obvious methods, which could provide occupation of the teenager in that measure what is required for the decision of the given problem. (Kirrane 2001) Having analysed the three approaches to the given problem, we can see that there are no right or wrong opinions concerning these approaches.
Both the supporters and their opponents are quite right. So the following conclusion suggests itself: it is necessary to combine the forces in realisation of all three approaches. Certainly, juvenile delinquents should be punished and sometimes severely, but the society should take care of their families in order not to provoke their appearance. Our children should be safe, well educated, engaged and first of all understanding. They should understand the simple rules of life that cant be violated and we should keep explaining them both to well- and ill-bred children.
Bibliography Blanchard, Karl (2003). The Power of punishment. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc. Kirrane, David (2001). Managing Values: A Systematic Approach to Juvenile delinquency. Training and Development Journal 44, 11 Diamond, Jane (1998).
Juvenile delinquency. British-Yemeni Society Journal
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Research essay sample on Juvenile Delinquency Juvenile Criminals
