Getting Started

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Getting Started
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You might be a juvenile delinquent if

• Before you became an adult, did you ever?
• Smoke Cigarettes or use any other tobacco product
  such as snuff or chew
  
• Drive a car without a license
• Purchase alcohol
• Consume alcohol
• Use a false ID
• Use any regulated legal drug without a
  prescription
  
• Have sexincluding any sexual behavior
• Use or purchase pornography
• Skip school
• Cheat in school

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You might be a juvenile delinquent if

• Run away from home
• Take money from a parent without telling them
• Eat food on a subway
• Use curse or swear words
• Open your Christmas present early
• Stay out too late
• Talk back to or defy your parents
• Hit, threaten, or become insubordinate with a
  teacher
  
• Take a knife, gun or other weapon such as nail
  clippers to school
  
• Wear disapproved of clothing to school
• Drive your parents car while it contained alcohol

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Why arent most kids called delinquents?

• All of the above could get you sent to juvenile
  detention. Why werent you sent to juvy?
  
• Social structures, circumstances and lucknot
  behaviorare the greatest determinants of whether
  a person becomes delinquent
  

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Status Offenses vs. Crimes

• Kids have more opportunities to get into
  trouble because status offenses can get them
  into trouble.
  
• Examples
• Status Offense Crime
• Skipping School Battery of Teacher
• Smoking Cigarettes Smoking Weed

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• General truths about juvenile status offenses
• All kids are potentially juvenile delinquents
• Normal Behavior is often a status offense if
  you are in a bad situation, wrong place, or fit
  some profile
  
• If you define a situation as real, it is real in
  its consequences. A so-called bad kid will be
  arrested for normal behaviors.
  
• Until the latter part of the 20th century, states
  treated status offenders and juvenile criminals
  alike
  
• We run the risk of creating more problems for
  status offenders if we treat them like criminals.

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• General truths about juvenile crime
• Criminal Behavior Peaks around Age 19-20.
• Kids are more likely to commit crimes as they age
  into adolescence.
  
• Most offenders will commit fewer crimes as they
  transition to adulthood, this is called Aging
  Outeven with no sanctions, most will stop
  committing crimes
• Juveniles commit a disproportionate number of
  crimes (rate for age group) but not more crimes
  than adults
  
• In many ways, crime is a problem that hits
  juveniles hardestas victims
  
• The majority of juvenile crime events, however,
  are by a small proportion of kids
  
• We run the risk of creating more problems if
  treat all juvenile criminals like criminals.
  

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Most kids could be called delinquents.

• Group WorkExpect Juvenile Crime and Status
  Offenses
  
• We often ask why juveniles commit crimes or break
  rulesas if we are shocked and surprised when we
  see that.
  
• But shouldnt we expect juveniles to break the
  rules more than adults?
  
• Group discussion
• Briefly provide three (3) reasons that it makes
  sense for juveniles to be more involved in crime
  and rule violations than older persons.
  
• Provide common sense reasons that parents,
  teachers, and others should expect kids to get
  into trouble, and should not feel that kids are
  headed for lives of crime when they do.
• Choose a group spokesperson to present your ideas
  to the classyou must turn in a paper for your
  group (or you may turn in your own paper
  individually).

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Most kids could be called delinquents.

• Our job is not to
• Understand what differentiates kids who break
  rules from those who do not
  
• Our job
• Understand processes that lead some kids to break
  rules far more than others
  
• Understand why delinquency severity differs by
  groups
  
• Understand why some kids become delinquent
  while others do not
  

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• We should expect a lot of juvenile delinquency in
  the US compared with other places because of our
  American ways.
  
• Linked to Juvenile Delinquency
• Guns
• Poverty
• Few Family Resources
• Urban Neglect
• Inadequate Education
• US youths face these issues more often than those
  in other high-income countries.

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some rough numbers to consider
• Guns
• Firearm deaths of children and teens have dropped
  from 15 a day in the peak year of 1994 to nearly
  eight a day in 2004. Since 1979 gun violence has
  snuffed out the lives of 101,413 children and
  teens in America.
• 2004 Gun Deaths of Children and Teens by Age and
  Manner
  
• California Gun Deaths 2002 406 2003
  429 2004 468
  
• Source http//www.childrensdefense.org/site/Pag
  eServer?pagenameSafe_Start_Gun_Report
  
• A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide
  of a household member by 3 times and the risk of
  suicide by 5 times compared to homes where no gun
  is present.
• Source Kellerman AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et
  al. "Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun
  Ownership." NEJM. 1992 327(7)467-474682)

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and
  Prevention, U.S. children under age 15 are
  
• 12 times more likely to die from gunfire
• 16 times more likely to be murdered by a gun
• 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun
  
  
• Nine times more likely to die in a firearm
  accident
  
• than children in 25 other industrialized
  countries combined.
  
• Source  The State of America's Children Yearbook
  2001.
  

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some rough numbers to consider
• Poverty (Less than 20,000/year for a family of
  four)
  
• 17 of all children live below the poverty line
  (19 in California)Compare with 9 of senior
  citizens
  
• Affordable and quality child care is out of
  reach, and for many working families, it is
  barely affordable.
  
• 11 of children younger than 18 have no health
  insurance Compare with almost all senior
  citizens who do

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Poverty (Less than 20,000/year for a family
of four)
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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some rough numbers to consider
• Few Family Resources
• Divorce affects about half of all marriages
• Children in single-parent households are more
  poor and more delinquent, and half of all
  children will live part of their childhood with
  one parent
• There has been a slow, steady decline in overall
  teen birth rates in the United States since the
  1950s, but we still have the highest teen
  pregnancy and birth rates among western
  industrialized nationscurrently 43/1,000 females
  15 19 (41 in California).
• Around a million confirmed victims of
  maltreatment (including physical abuse, neglect,
  medical neglect, sexual abuse, psychological
  abuse, and other abuses) each year.
• Three-quarters of the perpetrators of child
  maltreatment were parents, and an additional
  tenth were other relatives.

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some rough numbers to consider
• Urban Neglect
• Cities are more expensive to maintain per square
  foot, but often house poor, powerful
  corporations, and tax-exempt entities that
  suppress the tax base
• The 1980s saw a divestment from urban areas, we
  were recovering in the 1990s, but are now
  divesting againslightly different in SV
  
• Opportunities for criminal involvement are
  greater in run down areas.
  
• Economic deprivation, increased homicide, more
  wrecked lives from poverty and/or dependence,
  homelessness lead to less direction, more
  despair, and greater ambivalence toward norms

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some rough numbers to consider
• Inadequate Education
• Full-day child care easily costs 4,000 to
  10,000/year (prohibitive for many)
  
• Education is the success filter in American
  society, but disadvantaged (poor or minority)
  children attend significantly worse schools
  
• American K-12 educational achievement lags many
  industrialized countries
  
• 10 High school drop-out rate for current
  students (11 California)

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Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United
States

• Some would argue that Americans wage a war on its
  children.
  
• We do not lack wealth, but our children are worse
  off than those in most other developed
  countries.
  
• Where America Stands, May, 2001
• Among 25 industrialized countries, the United
  States ranks
  
• First in military technology
• First in Gross Domestic Product
• First in the number of millionaires and
  billionaires
  
• First in health technology
• First in military exports
• First in defense spending
• 10th in eighth-grade science scores
• 11th in the proportion of children living in
  poverty
  
• 16th in living standards among the poorest
  one-fifth of children
  
• 16th in efforts to lift children out of poverty
• 17th in rates of low birth weight births
• 18th in the income gap between rich and poor
  children
  
• 21st in eighth-grade math scores
• 22nd in infant mortality
• Last in protecting our children against gun
  violence

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Source The State of Americas Children, 2005
Childrens Defense Fund