PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology



Psychology

Juvenile offending, or juvenile delinquency, or youth crime, pertains to the minors' participation in certain behaviors and activities which are illegal and unlawful. There are various legal systems which specify certain procedures for handling these juveniles, and include places as courts and juvenile detention centers. The career criminal, today, has been substitute by an unstable teenager who has the courage and willingness to pull the trigger over a joke, insult, or any problems that the person is countering with the social life. (Zigler, Taussig, Black, 1992).

During the year 1977, a psychology professor of Stanford University, Albert Bandura, published the juvenile delinquency theory of Social Learning Theory. In this theory, it was postulated that the learning of human being is a constant mutual interaction and contact of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental elements. This is sometimes also known as the observational learning. The social learning theory stresses upon the concept of behavior modeling, which states that it is the observation and imitation of the behaviors and attitudes of other children or adults that is undertaken by the child. These people and conditions may present around the children and thus, influence them directly (Siegel, Larry, and Brandon Welsh, 2011).

Bandura, while researching for the social learning theory, also examined the ways in which the violence is depicted through the mass media, and is capable of impacting the behaviors of particular types if children in a negative manner. According to his observation, there are some children who, after watching the television, tend to imitate the behavior of the characters and like it very much. Therefore, it can be concluded that, imitating the aggressive actions ultimately leads to the occurrence of juvenile delinquency. Bandura referred this towards the process of direct learning which is commanded through instant aligning of the observed behavior to the ...