Adolescent Delinquency and Social Problems

Social difficulties are among the factors that contribute to a nation's deterioration when it comes to establishing and developing it. They are always connected with kids and teenagers, who require a great deal of attention and concentration as the leaders of tomorrow. It has been attempted in a variety of methods to overcome these barriers, but no nation has provided evidence to date. They tried everything they could to stop it, but it was all in vain. The community is the key contributor to these problems since all the activities supported by the community may either have the positive or negative outcome to the youth and in most cases it has been from the negative side, specifically affecting the economy, cultural activities and the overall development of the society in one way or another. There are several social problems, in this case, the main one being the adolescent delinquency which will be discussed in this paper. Whenever the adolescents are subjected to these social problems, they normally break the nation’s set laws and regulations, both deliberately and unknowingly.

Social problems and delinquency among the youth have been a critical condition all over the world, with all the governments looking for the cause and the suitable methods and resolutions to end the issue. This is not easily attainable. The essay will, therefore, identify and examine the causes of social problems and the way the community aspects affect the adolescent to develop delinquent and anti-social behavior, citing the individual factors, family issues, the peers and school environments which favor the youth in developing these unacceptable behaviors in the society. The research conducted here will be of great importance to all the nations faced by these challenges and the resolutions provided will help end and prevent the bad behavior from spreading all over if well formulated as per the given measures. The issue will automatically fit in the development framework in that all the youth will be focused on the nation’s development agenda and tomorrow leadership since it is in their hands (Light et al ., 2012).

The topic will be guided by the approach of thorough research and laying down the achievable measures to decline. It is clear that adolescent/juvenile delinquency has been in rapid growth, varying from year to year especially in Canada, Malaysia, and the USA and thus immediate action should be taken. Suitable approaches need to be formulated to rehabilitate those teenagers who find themselves in such scenarios of life, not knowing how they entered the massacre.

Referencing from various articles which have been written by scholars on the same shall be used in this research to provide the actual information and best actions possible to get out of the state as it diminishes the freedom and the value of youth in the society. Various strategies and examination of existing theories and their comparison will be applied to come up with an appropriate all time resolutions for the state. This will enable a determination of the relevant measures to solve the issues. The main purpose of the research will, therefore, be to investigate how the community aspects affect the adolescent developing delinquent and anti-social behavior in the society.

The community is full of specific aspects which affect the adolescent and lead them to anti-social behaviors which destroy their living conditions as well as of those who they associate and stay with. Juvenile delinquency is contributed to, by factors such as individual factors, the family, the peers, socioeconomic class and the school, just to name a few, others to be discussed in the essay as well. All these aspects have negative impacts on the lives of the youth just because of negligence and evasion of responsibilities by various stakeholders, who should support and monitor the day to day life experience of the adolescents until when they attain 18years of age and be recognized as mature people who can take care of themselves as well as making the best decisions for the success of their lives. The aspects are discussed below.

The Family

Whenever there is a problem in the family of the adolescent, may it be from the parents, siblings or relatives, it transforms the life of the youth and mostly stay affected by the issue either psychologically, mentally or physically. It is very easy to notice someone living in this state. Daily conflicts in the family and lack of adequate parental guidance and control to the young ones acquaint the youth with more depression and regrets, ever wishing to be out of the homestead. Many families end up having a divorce or family breakdown as the only solution to end the suffering, forgetting that it is only because they failed to play their responsibilities appropriately. This encourages the youth to get associated with immoral behaviors such as drug and substance abuse, trafficking, irresponsible sexual behaviors, theft among others to relieve stress they get from their parents as well as sustaining their lives in the streets (Whitney et al., 2010).

Lack of affection and companionship from parents to children has also contributed adolescent delinquency. Whenever they assume their responsibilities, the children are in one way or another educated to live a violent life just like their careless parents. Today’s parents fail to equip their children with the basic social, responsible and religious lifestyles which enables the adolescent to acquire direction of life and focus on a fruitful future to one day sustain their lives without disturbing their parents. It is clear and evident that children raised from religious backgrounds are less likely to be found engaging in irresponsible anti-social behaviors in the community since they have already been taught by their parents to live God-fearing lives which in whichever way can’t harm anybody. They are always different from those reared by caress and irresponsible parents. Good behavior is always associated with good religious practices which please people and God as well.

School Educational Experience

The best life can only be gotten from the education centers where teachers play the responsibility of the second parent. Good morals are given here, and that’s why there are always great noticeable differences between those who have been to school and those who have never attended a single class in any institution all over the world. The school environment alone plays a major role in shaping and determining the future of the children, if only they take it positively as taught to them by their teachers. The best life values, skills and positive attitudes towards life are acquired from these institutions. Adolescents are also denied access to the society’s immoral behaviors as they are always committed to the school program hence limited time to get to the outside world. Their friends from home whose parents don’t bear the responsibility of paying school fees end up getting into bad behaviors to relieve stress is given to them from their irresponsible parents (Chen et al., 2016).

Those youth who engage in crime and delinquencies mostly do it as a result of mind idleness which can be reciprocated by attending to school to acquire knowledge. Below is a table showing some of the adolescent delinquency statuses according to research carried out in Malaysia, portraying the low level of education among the adolescents who have been found to be engaging in anti-social behaviors.

Level of education Frequency

Not schooling 16

Standard 1 – 3 46

Standard 4 – 6 103

Form 1 – 3 298

Form 3 – 5 69

Form 6 and above 0

It is therefore very advisable to parents to take their children to school to ensure that they acquire knowledge to sustain themselves in future as well as evading immoral behaviors and bad friends in the society.

Individual Factors

Development of adolescent delinquency is affected by several individual factors which include aggressiveness, complications during pregnancy and delivery, age, gender and substance use among others. They normally influence the adolescents to engage in delinquency behaviors mostly as a result of thoughts and meditations that comes to one’s mind whenever they are alone. Some factors in this case maybe obtain actually before the birth of the victim or naturally as they grow. They have the anxiety of engaging in activities which they have never had experience of them earlier before to know how their friends feel whenever they are in the actions. It sometimes comes to their mind when they begin to think deeper on what they have always been told by their friends to do, but they deny due to various reasons. At this age, thorough guidance is crucial to help discourage their body desires from ruling and outweighing the good morals in mind (Keijsers et al., 2012).

Other young people, especially the male, have the mentality of trying what they see being done by the friends, age mates and classmates to experience how they feel. This makes them end up trying several substances, both good and bad, which normally complicate their lives. Development of abnormal individual behaviors is mostly witnessed in the adolescent stage, for example, one may wish to always be on the road at late hours which may result in sexual harassment by strangers and may also be subjected to drug abuse to reduce commotions and misunderstandings during the act. This mostly happens because the children wish to stay alone, far from their parents since they have the notion that the parents and becoming less warm and not affectionate to them as earlier because they are growing old day by day.

Community Aspects

Everyone is part and parcel of the community and all that it entails. The community-level risk factors which have great impacts on adolescent life include school and neighborhood attributes. There are various things that arise from the community and can ruin the lives of the adolescents since they are the category who just try everything that comes by their way. The eroded community is described by the actions of the youth, and there are norms and traditions followed in the society which are of negative impacts. A good example is the female Genital Mutilation which can highly transmit STDs since the adolescents don’t care, so they engage in unprotected sex to fulfill their body desires. It the responsibility of the community leaders to ensure that all the children are taken to school and also to provide proper guidance and counseling to them whenever they are out of school. In case they don’t put this in action, it is found that these children do things they could not have done if controlled as a result of peer pressure, pride, and anxiety.

Death rates among the youth have increased over decades due to children being born and grown up in irresponsible communities which lack a sense of direction. This was evidenced in America in 2003 where 91 people out of 100,000 under the adolescent age died, most of them dying when trying to engage in irresponsible behaviors for the first time. Though deaths at this age are largely preventable, the responsible arms have always neglected their duties (Santiago., et al. 2011).

Communities have also participated in encouraging youth violence in one way or another, especially for leaders’ self-satisfaction and under political influences. The United States has experienced most of the adolescent deaths through firearms due to several shootings whenever violence occurs as obtained from data provided by the Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) of a study conducted between 1993 and 2005. Most of the premature deaths which happen in such scenarios are found to be of male adolescents who are normally hired by powerful people with authorities over various jurisdictions for their benefits. They are given plenty of drugs and substance hence it was concluded that most of the things they do, they are always out of their senses and they later regret of the evil.

The Peers and Peer Pressure

As the saying says; ‘show me your friends and I will tell you who you are,' it is beyond no doubt that the peer group or the kind of people one associates with portrays their character even before asking them. Adolescent develops delinquency and anti-social behaviors from the influence of their peer group. They tend to listen to their friends more than they do to the experienced adults in the community. Peer pressure is developed when an innocent adolescent is requested, persuaded and manipulated to engage in anti-social behaviors with the guarantee that nothing harmful will happen to the health of life (Henry et al., 2012).

This mostly affects the girls who seem to lose close emotional connection with their parents or other family members. Once they win one's heart, it becomes an habit, to some extent very addictive and getting oneself from the situation becomes difficult. Teens are the most affected people since they are incapable of making good decisions and they mostly mix immaturity and peer which is very dangerous in their lives. A morally upright child can easily be convinced by their class friends from the families of irresponsible parents to start these uncouth behaviors which may involve drug abuse, sexual behaviors, theft among others.

Socio-Economic Class

The social, economic class can be viewed in two dimensions whereby the emphasis will focus on the gap between the rich and the poor in the society. Children from the poor community lack the chance to be taken to school to acquire knowledge, and in case they are lucky enough, they are just taken to the nearby learning institutions where they go on the daily basis and report back home. These children are therefore prone to the bad behaviors which happen in the community since they become part and parcel of the society from the moment of birth, through the adolescent stage to adult level. The social status of their parents is very low hence being directly proportional to the economic life they live.

On the other hand, those living under high socioeconomic class take their children to boarding schools where they are fully monitored and taken great care of. They never get time to interact with the immoral souls in the community. Contrary, because they are always given a lot of pocket money by their rich parents, they end having a lot of excess money which they use to buy drugs and other substances when they are out for holidays. In other words, all the adolescents, though under different social classes must take care of themselves. They should not involve themselves with delinquency and anti-social issues which at the end of the day will ruin their lives.

Conclusion and Reflection

As per the findings, it is evident that adolescent delinquency is something that can easily be controlled and at the same time if not prematurely controlled it becomes the largest to control and take the youth back to normal. All the factors that contribute to these antisocial behaviors act interrelated, and thus it is wise to say that one occurs after the effort of the other. Community aspects come into existence as a result of various individual, family and peer factors as well as the socioeconomic. The adolescent in most cases do not engage themselves in the dirty game knowingly, it is sometimes as a result of anxiety, proud and maybe being reared and brought up by a careless parent.

Individual factors can be as a result of the amalgam of all the other factors discussed above. For example, loss of a parent, divorce or being rejected by one’s family leads to individual depression where they can get involved in fatal activities such as committing suicide, drunkenness or irresponsible unprotect sexual behaviors to relieve stress and gain pleasure and feel fit in the community. On the other hand, when they find themselves being neglected in the community because they come from families of low socioeconomic classes they tend to influence each other under the affection of peer pressure and try to live lives above their status.

The issue of adolescent delinquency and antisocial behaviors among the youth is currently a world concern as it is found in every part of the globe. It threatens the existence of future generations since the expected parents of tomorrow are found to be living aimless lives without direction. The factors studied in this context will have great impacts on the youth if well implemented.

Every parent, guardian, teacher or community member should take full responsibility of taking care of the adolescent people around them. Guidance and counseling for the youth should be highly encouraged, and the governments should also contribute in financing several programs to help preserve the future of the generation to come. Media and the non-governmental for saving the future of the adolescent as well as discouraging delinquency and antisocial behavior organizations are also needed in making this a success. No one should be left out in the campaign among the juvenile

. References

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Henry, K. L., Knight, K. E., & Thornberry, T. P. (2012). School disengagement as a predictor of dropout, delinquency, and problem substance use during adolescence and early adulthood. Journal of youth and adolescence, 41(2), 156-166.

Keijsers, L., Branje, S., Hawk, S. T., Schwartz, S. J., Frijns, T., Koot, H. M., & Meeus, W. (2012). Forbidden friends as forbidden fruit: Parental supervision of friendships, contact with deviant peers, and adolescent delinquency. Child development, 83(2), 651-666.

Light, J. M, Dishion, T. J, Wolff, J. M., & Russell, S. T. (2012). Parent and peer pathways to adolescent delinquency: Variations by ethnicity and neighborhood context. Journal of youth and adolescence, 41(8), 1078-1094.

Santiago, C. D., & Simons, R. L. (2011). Race, code of the street, and violent delinquency: A multilevel investigation of neighborhood street culture and individual norms of violence. Criminology, 48(2), 569-605.

Whitney, S. D, Renner, L. M., & Fine, S. E. (2010). Emotion knowledge, social competence, and behavior problems in childhood and adolescence: A meta‐analytic review. Social Development, 19(1), 1-29.