Youth and gangs

Youth and gangs

Introduction

Undoubtedly, the modern world and society is deemed as the most facilitative era, with respects to the endowments that it has bestowed on the mankind. However, the possibility of the phenomenon that every development or process endures a downside as well cannot be rule out. Hence, it will not be inaccurate to eloquently articulate that similar is the case with the modern day development, which has undoubtedly paved way for the extremely different choice of the lifestyle by the youngsters and adolescents.

Juvenile Delinquency

Primarily, the term Juvenile refers to a young individual, who still has to advance to the brink of maturity and adulthood. Such is a very delicate stage for any person, while he is growing up. There lie solid grounds for this stage to be extremely delicate; mainly because, at this stage of life, a person is still growing up and being exposed to the actual realities of the life.

The mind of a child, at this phase is extremely naïve and is not yet equipped to analyse, comprehend and assimilate matters, on its own; therefore, its vulnerability grants him the probabilities of taking things on their face values, and allows the respective approaches assumed by the inhabitants of the society, to be inculcated. Hence, bearing in mind the naivety and the vulnerability of a juvenile mind, numerous individuals fall prey to the curse of certain criminal activities and delinquency, based on varying factors rendered by this world and his surroundings (White, 2012).

There are no definite predictions that reflect which children engage in delinquent activities and behavior. However, some stats show that boys are arrested more frequently than girls and children from other socio-economic class are found less involved in delinquent activities and behaviors than the children from lower socio-economic class. The social environment plays an important role in children`s brought up. The youngsters that grow up in damaged environments are engaged in more delinquent activities. Destruction and theft of the property are included in the delinquency offences. The sale of drugs and possession of illegal weapon are also type of delinquency offences (Sontheimer, 1993).

The development of delinquent behavior is due to the three main factors, which are discussed below:

Family

The most important factor which causes the juvenile delinquency is the family conflicts i.e. intense and relentless. These conflicts could be due to non-expression of feelings and affections toward a child, violence or in the case of child abuse, strict or rigid behavior with the child and other domestic issues.

Peers

Adolescence is a stage of development in which acceptance by one's peers becomes extremely important to the juvenile's sense of self-worth. Associating with a circle of friends who exhibit delinquent behaviors and perform delinquent acts increases the risk of non-conformity to social norms as well as deviant and delinquent behaviors.

School

Another factor which results in juvenile delinquency is the poor performance in school and academics. It also involves poor behavior in classroom and lack of academic competency creates inferiority complex and low ...