useful for B.Sc. Forensic Science students

1. JUVENILE
DELINQUENCY
Ms Ravinder Kaur
Assistant Professor of Forensic Science
School of Allied Health Sciences, VMRF-DU

2. CONTENTS
Introduction
Delinquency Causation
Correlates of Delinquency
Competency Evaluations pertaining to Juvenile Offenders

3. Introduction
Juvenile Delinquency refers to a variety of law-violating behaviours by youths.
The nature of juvenile offenses is varied and can include anything from status
offenses to murder.
Overall, there are about 2 million juvenile arrests each year: 1 million are sent to
juvenile court, about 500,000 are admitted to detention centres, and about 10,000
of these juveniles are sent to criminal court for further adjudication (Shoemaker &
Wolfe, 2005).
About 19% of forcible rapes are committed by male perpetrators under the age of
19 and about one-third of child molesters are juveniles (Finkelhor, Ormrod, &
Chaffin, 2009).
The general approach to youthful offenders within the justice system has been
largely rehabilitative rather than punitive because:
-Juvenile offenders are believed to be more malleable to behaviour change than
adults, given their vulnerable developmental stage.
-There is a greater hope that these offenders, whose early criminal career is more
easily disrupted, will become productive members of society.

4. Delinquency Causation
Biological
factors
Genetic factors
Psychodynamic
factors
Social factors

5. Biological factors
Lombroso suggested biological factors are responsible for criminal
behaviour.
 Individual differences in responsiveness to pain and the need for
stimulation and sensation-seeking.
 Differences in automatic nervous system
 Lewis suggested neurological injuries involving the central nervous
system contribute to the development of aggressive and delinquent
behaviour.
 Penner suggested a high incidence of vision, speech, and hearing
problems associated with antisocial behaviour.
Genetic factors
 Norway Dalgaard and Kringlen suggested genetic factors are
responsible for criminal behaviour.

6. Psychodynamics factors
 Psychological problems encountered during the formative years
and their influence on growth and development.
 Delinquent behaviour was thought to be symptomatic of deep
emotional conflicts and unconscious motivations.
Social factors
 Social learning theorists assume that delinquency behaviours are
acquired through direct and observational learning experiences,
poor examples, or lack of reinforcement of prosocial behaviours.

7. Correlates of Delinquency
Sex
Cognitive and Intellectual Factors
Hyperactivity
Learning disabilities
Preoperational
Environmental factors

8. Sex:
There is a general agreement that boys are more involved in
delinquent behaviour than girls.
Official and self report studies disagree on the nature of sex
differences in delinquency.
Boys primarily involved in property and violent crimes whereas
girls are more involved in traditionally female crimes, like-
prostitution, running away from home, and so forth.
Canter found small but consistent sex differences in all
subcategories of crime examined
Type of Crime Ratio = Boys:Girls
Robbery 7:1
Drugs 1:1

9. Cognitive and Intellectual factors:
A number of studies have found an inverse relationship between
intelligence quotient (IQ) and delinquency.
Moffitt and associates found a negative relationship between IQ and
delinquency, controlling for socioeconomic status.
They note that low IQ children may be likely to engage in delinquent
behaviour because their poor verbal abilities limit their opportunities to
obtain rewards in the school environment.
Hyperactivity:
Hyperactivity or Attention Deficit Disorder with hyperactivity has been
linked to delinquency.
Children with this disorder displays signs of developmentally inappropriate
inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity.

10. Learning Abilities:
Numerous studies have documented a link between juvenile delinquency
and specific learning disabilities.
Most are based on children from predominantly lower-class backgrounds,
so that the relationship between learning disabilities and children arrested
for delinquency is confounded with social class.
Preoperational:
It refers to the transitional period between the development of
sensorimotor skills and adaptations typically associated with infancy and
the first signs of the development of the capacity for conceptual and
symbolic thinking.

11. Environmental factors:
Family:
Delinquency is not primarily a lower-class problem.
It has been suggested that as family size increases, the likelihood of
delinquency in children also increases.
Interactions between delinquent adolescents and their parents have
consistently been found to be less supportive and more coercive than those
between non-delinquents and their parents.
Psychiatric disturbance in parents as well as hospitalization for mental illness
has been linked to delinquency.
McCord and co-workers found that violent delinquents, as children, tended to
have parents who were rejecting and punitive, who supervised them poorly,
disciplined erratically, and who themselves were aggressive, alcoholic, or
convicted.
Broken homes:
In a longitudinal study of British youths, Wadsworth found that delinquency
was strongly associated with early disruption of a parent-child relationship
through death or marital separation.
Findings from other research also indicate that the impact of family structure
varies with other factors such as sex, race, type of offense, and community
attitudes towards broken homes.

12. Child Abuse:
Child abuse has been implicated as a factor in later delinquent behaviour.
In addition to the failure to provide adequate supervision and socialization
for their children, abusive parents might also serve as models for
aggression and impulsivity.
School Experiences:
Delinquent behaviour has been related more clearly and consistently to
success or failure in school experiences.
Nutritional Deficits:
Nutritional deficits have also been implicated in the development of
delinquency. It has been hypothesized that iron deficiency may cause
perceptual alteration, which in turn might lead to learning and behavioural
problems.

13. Competency Evaluations pertaining to
Juvenile Offenders
The competence of a juvenile was rarely an issue in the juvenile courts
when rehabilitation was the focus, but as there has been recognition of the
courts’ more punitive stance.
 Forensic psychologists have been called upon increasingly to perform
competency evaluations.
 Issues related to competency become especially difficult to determine in
regard to juveniles because of their immaturity and underdeveloped
cognitive abilities and the disposition of a case where incompetence is due
to developmental issues.