JUNVEILE DELEQUENCY IN SINGLE FAMILY HOUSEHOLDS

Junveile delequency in single family households

Junveile delequency in single family households

Introduction

The literature describing various approaches to the prevention, control, and treatment of delinquency can be differentiated according to the theories of causation which shaped them; that is, the focus of intervention differs according to the theoretical view of the causes of delinquency. At various times, these theories have emphasized physiological and psychological characteristics of the individual or the structure of the family within the broader social structure itself or within an integrated complex of factors which includes community characteristics.

Over several decades, numerous investigators have found statistically significant relationships between crime and certain inherited and biologically identifiable characteristics such as skull formation, body type, chromosomal abnormalities, and glandular or neurological anomalies (Klein, 2001). One by one these single variable explanations were dropped because they failed to explain the diversity of causal pathways and outcomes among juvenile delinquents.

Individual and Family Theories

Psychology has been contributing to delinquency research throughout the past century. According to Binder and Binder (2003), the earliest period of exploration emphasized individual psychological characteristics of delinquents, with particular emphasis on intelligence (Goddard, 2002; Burt, 2002; Hathaway & Monachesi, 2000; Conger, 2004). Goddard began by arguing that mental deficiency was the major cause of delinquency. Later developments amended that view to distinguish between deficits in intelligence and specific maladaptive accommodations to learning disabilities. Perlmutter (2002), for example, postulated that delinquent behavior results from the learning disabled student's attempts to compensate for academic failure and frustration.

Social learning theory has contributed the view that social skills deficits are possible causes of delinquent behavior. Long and Sherer (2004) suggest that delinquents behave maladaptively while seeking to attain conventional goals because they lacks the requisite skills to act appropriately. Social Strain Theory

The social strain theory of delinquency is based on the idea that delinquency results when individuals are unable to achieve their goals through legitimate channels (Cohen, 2002; Cloward & Ohlin, 2000). Cloward and Ohlin suggest that a democratic ideology espouses equality of opportunity and universally high aspirations for success, but when there is a discrepancy between aspirations and opportunity, delinquent solutions evolve.

Cloward and Ohlin's monograph has been criticized for the dearth of empirical support for its central theoretical tenets. Agnew (2002) reasoned that if strain theory did explain juvenile delinquency, delinquents would have high aspirations for success while perceiving little prospect of its achievement.

Social Control Theory

As presented by Hirschi (1999), social control theory argues that delinquency is inherent in human nature and requires no complex set of variable conditions to emerge. Rather, our bonds to conventional society impose normative constraints that prevent us from acting on deviant impulses. Delinquency emerges when these constraints are substantially attentuated. Unlike strain theory which assumes that individuals are positively socialized and resort to deviance only when they are confronted with inconsistencies between their aspirations and opportunities, social control theory treats the socialization process and commitment to conventional norms and values as problematic (Elliot, Ageton, & ...