Assignment:
Criminal Justice Proposal: Preventing the Inception of Crime in Adolescent
Delinquency in adolescents is one of the world's social problems troubling judiciary systems in the majority of nations today. Data from various sources illustrate a significant increase in criminal activities in youths in many countries. In the US, there have even been calls for expansions as well as the establishment of new more juvenile jails, prisons and rehabilitation facilities. With the future of the current society lying in in the hands of the adolescents, it is a crisis to have the lion's share of them involved in wrongdoings as opposed to keeping their heads upright both legally and ethically. As a result, there is a pressing need for the current society to wake up and prevent the inception of delinquency in youths.
Juvenile delinquency is not a new topic in social problems and criminal justice in particular. In fact the problem is one of the most researched issues in criminal justice today. Patacchini (2009), for instance, in the article "Juvenile Delinquency and Conformism" researched whether conformism behavior posts any effect on individual outcomes in crime subsequently finding out that conformity plays a crucial role for all crimes, about especially for the petty ones. Vaughan (2012), on the other hand, in "Juvenile Crime" researched and described the criminalities teenagers commit, the approaches and modifications in the juvenile court system, and how the police and other social services deal with youthful lawbreakers.
In "The psycho-analytical approach to juvenile delinquency; theory, case-studies, treatment," in addition, Friedlander (2013) demonstrated whether psychoanalysis is applicable in the understanding of the facets of juvenile delinquencies and to what extend is it utilizable. He illustrated the means through which sociological and criminological research workers can apply and execute the psychoanalytical findings in juvenile criminalities cases in a bid to enhance their own investigations as well as understanding. Unfortunately, while there are a lot of studies on this topic; juvenile delinquency, only a few, if any, has been interested in engineering the prevention of the problem.
In this paper, we propose to fill this gap of knowledge. We propose to undertake a study, which will facilitate the resolution of this problem. The research seeks to establish the causative factors of the adolescent delinquencies thereby assisting with possible intervention of the young offenders before they graduate into the criminal justice system. It will focus on three major issues namely
1) Childhood maltreatment,
2) Neighborhood disadvantage and
3) Lack of monitoring in adolescents. Usually, you cannot prevent something you do not know its cause. In his logic, we cannot successfully avert the inception of youthful delinquency without a mastery of its sources. As a result, other than founding solutions to juvenile criminalities, this study will also help in understanding the causal factors of juvenile delinquency. Through the research, we will know the factors that see youths involve themselves in wrongdoings. With the roots of the problem at in our hands, we will then explore the ways of solving them. In other words, the knowledge of the causative agents of the youthful crimes will help us understand how to prevent them.
References
Friedlaender, K. (2013). The psycho-analytical approach to juvenile delinquency: Theory: case-studies: treatment. London: Routledge.
Patacchini, E & Zenou, Y., (2009). Juvenile Delinquency and Conformism. The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization.