introduction research paper juvenile delinquency

Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice (2001)

Chapter: introduction, introduction.

Juvenile crime is one of the nation's serious problems. Concern about it is widely shared by federal, state, and local government officials and by the public. In recent years, this concern has grown with the dramatic rise in juvenile violence that began in the mid-1980s and peaked in the early 1990s. Although juvenile crime rates appear to have fallen since the mid-1990s, this decrease has not alleviated the concern. Many states began taking a tougher legislative stance toward juveniles in the late 1970s and early 1980s, a period during which juvenile crime rates were stable or falling slightly, and federal reformers were urging prevention and less punitive measures. Some of the dissonance between the federal agenda and what was happening in the states at that time may have been caused by significant changes in legal procedures that made juvenile court processes more similar—though not identical—to those in criminal (adult) court. The main response to the most recent spike in violent juvenile crime has been enactment of laws that further blur distinctions between juvenile courts and adult courts. States continued to toughen their juvenile crime laws in recent years, making sentencing more punitive, expanding allowable transfers to criminal (adult) court, or doing away with some of the confidentiality safeguards of juvenile court. Many such changes were enacted after the juvenile violent crime rate had already begun to fall. The rehabilitative model embodied in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, focusing on the needs of the young offender, has lost ever more ground over the past 20 years to punitive models that focus mainly on the offense committed. These puni-

tive policies have had a disproportionate impact on some minority groups, particularly black youngsters, an important issue that is explored in depth in Chapter 6 .

Crime policies in the United States have been moving in the direction of treating juveniles as adults, even though many young people continue to grow up in settings that “fail to provide the resources, the supports, and the opportunities essential to a healthy development and reasonable preparation for productive adulthood” (National Research Council, 1993a:2)—settings that put young people at high risk for delinquency. In 1997, 40 percent of all those living below the poverty level in the United States were under the age of 18 (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999). Structural changes in society, including fewer two-parent homes and more maternal employment, have contributed to a lack of resources for the supervision of children's and adolescents' free time.

Government policy on juvenile delinquency must often struggle with the appropriate balance of concern over the healthy development of children and adolescents who violate the law and a public desire to punish criminals. This tension between rehabilitation and punishment when dealing with children and adolescents who commit crimes results in an ambivalent orientation toward young offenders. Criminal acts must be suppressed, condemned, and punished. Nevertheless, children and adolescents who commit criminal acts must be educated and supported in a growth process that should be the objective of government policy for all young people, including young offenders.

A number of cognitive and social features of childhood and adolescence influence the content of juvenile crime policy. Historically, children under the age of seven have been considered below the age of reason, and therefore unable to formulate the criminal intent necessary to be held accountable for criminal offenses. In practice, children younger than age 10 are rarely involved in the juvenile justice system. Arrests of those younger than 10 years old account for less than 2 percent of all juvenile arrests. By the age of 16 or 17, most adolescents are deemed to have sufficient cognitive capacity and life experience to be held accountable for intended wrongful acts. How to deal appropriately with those who commit crimes between the ages of 10 and 17 is the issue faced in juvenile crime policy. Adolescence is a period of dating, driving, and expanding social networks—all choices that can produce positive or negative consequences for the adolescent and the community. Public policies in the areas of education, medical care, alcoholic beverage control, and juvenile crime reflect beliefs that adolescents have not acquired the abilities or capacities necessary for adult status. Creating the appropriate public policy for a period of semiautonomy is no small task (Zimring, 1982). To

further complicate the matter, crime rates peak in mid- to late adolescence, making policy toward young offenders of special importance.

To best answer the questions of how to deal with young offenders requires knowledge of factors in the individual, family, social settings, and community that influence the development of delinquent behavior; of the types of offenses committed by young people; and of the types of interventions that can most efficiently and effectively prevent offending in the first place or prevent its recurrence. This study reviews literature in all of these areas to provide an objective view of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system in the United States.

CHILD AND ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT: NOT JUST LITTLE ADULTS

What is often missing from discussions of juvenile crime today is recognition that children and adolescents are not just little adults, nor is the world in which they live the world of adults. Physical, emotional, and cognitive development continue throughout adolescence. Although young people can approach decisions in a manner similar to adults under some circumstances, many decisions that children and adolescents make are under precisely the conditions that are hardest for adults—unfamiliar tasks, choices with uncertain outcomes, and ambiguous situations (see, for example, Beyth-Marom and Fischhoff, 1997; Cohn et al., 1995). Further complicating the matter for children and adolescents is that they often face deciding whether or not to engage in a risky behavior, such as taking drugs, shoplifting, or getting into a fight, in situations involving emotions, stress, peer pressure, and little time for reflection.

Young people are liable to overestimate their own understanding of a situation, underestimate the probability of negative outcomes, and make judgments based on incorrect or incomplete information (Quadrel et al., 1993). Although adults are also prone to the same misperceptions, children's and adolescents' lack of experience increases their vulnerability. Quadrel et al. (1993) found that high-risk adolescents (with legal and substance abuse problems, recruited from group homes) were more likely than middle-class youngsters to have incorrect information about risks, while being extremely confident in their information.

Emotions can affect decision making for both adolescents and adults. When people are experiencing positive emotions, such as excitement, happiness, love (as adolescents often do when with groups of their peers), they tend to underestimate the possibility of negative consequences to their actions. When experiencing negative emotions, such as anger, jealousy, sadness, people tend to focus on the near term and lose sight of

the big picture. This is particularly relevant for adolescents, who have been found to experience wider and more rapid mood swings than adults (Larson et al., 1980; Larson and Lampman-Petraitis, 1989; Larson and Richards, 1994).

Studies of young people's understanding of legal processing and the consequences of various legal choices, such as forfeiting the right to remain silent or to have an attorney, show differences between those younger and older than about 15 years (Grisso, 1997). Those under age 15 often misunderstand the concept of a right, in general, and of Miranda rights, in particular. They foresee fewer alternative courses of action in legal proceedings and tend to concentrate on short-term rather than long-term consequences (Grisso, 1980; 1981). For example, younger youth often misconstrue the right to remain silent, believing it means they should be quiet until they are told to talk. Nor do they completely understand the right to have an attorney present, without charge, before they talk (Abramovitch et al., 1995; Grisso, 1981). These misunderstandings raise concerns about children's and young adolescents' competence to stand trial in adult court. Children and adolescents from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds and those with low IQs fare worse in understanding the legal process and their rights than do other children and adolescents of comparable ages (Grisso, 1997). Furthermore, experience with the justice system does not ensure that young people fully understand the process, their rights, or the implications of the decisions they make. Both Grisso (1981) and Lawrence (1983) have found that adolescent delinquents had much poorer understanding of their rights than did adult defendants.

Emerging research using magnetic resonance imaging of the brain demonstrates the cognitive and emotional differences between adolescents and adults. Children and adolescents process emotionally charged information in the part of the brain responsible for instinct and gut reactions. Adults process such information in the “rational” frontal section of the brain (Baird et al., 1999). Children and adolescents may be physiologically less capable than adults of reasoning logically in the face of particularly strong emotions. In a recent study, Thompson et al. (2000) found that the brain continues to develop and change through at least midadolescence, with the most active parts of the brain changing during development. These new insights on brain development may have implications for holding children and adolescents criminally responsible in the same way as adults and raise concerns about initiatives to transfer younger and younger defendants to adult courts.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE 1

Looking at the policies of other countries provides some perspective on criminal justice in the United States. An international study of 15 countries—Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England and Wales, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, and Switzerland—notes that all have special provisions for young criminals in their justice systems, although some (such as Denmark, Russia, and Sweden) have no special courts for juveniles. Table 1-1 depicts some of the differences among countries, showing the range in variability for the minimum age of criminal responsibility, the age at which full responsibility as an adult can be assumed, the type of court that handles young people committing crimes, whether such young people can be tried in courts that also try adults, the maximum length of sentencing for a juvenile, and policies regarding incarcerating juveniles with adults.

The United States was not alone in seeing a dramatic increase in violent crime by juveniles in the 1980s and early 1990s. Many European countries and Canada experienced increases in their rates of violent crime, particularly among juveniles (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Pfeiffer, 1998). It is difficult to compare rates across countries, because legal definitions of crime vary from country to country. For example, in Germany, assault is counted as a violent crime only if a weapon is used during the commission of the crime, whereas in England and Wales, the degree of injury to the victim determines whether or not an assault counts as a violent crime. Crime is also measured differently in each country. For example, the United States commonly relies on numbers of arrests to measure crime. In Germany, Austria, and Italy, among other countries, crime is measured by the number of cases solved by police (even if the offender has been apprehended) (Pfeiffer, 1998). Nevertheless, trends in juvenile violent crime appeared similar in many developed countries in the 1980s and early 1990s, 2 although the rates were different.

The United States has a high violent crime rate—particularly for homicide—in comparison to other countries, although property crime rates, particularly burglary, are higher than U.S. rates in Canada, England and Wales, and The Netherlands (Hagan and Foster, 2000; Mayhew and White, 1997). In 1994, the violent crime arrest rate (includes homicide, aggravated assault, robbery, and rape) for 13- to 17-year-olds in the United

TABLE 1-1 International Comparisons of Juvenile Justice Systems

States was nearly 800 per 100,000 (Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1995). In England and Wales, about 600 per 100,000 14- to 16-year-olds were convicted or cautioned by the police for violent crimes (homicide, assault, robbery, and rape) in 1994. In Germany, 650 per 100,000 14- to 17-year-olds and in The Netherlands 450 per 100,000 12- to 17-year-olds were suspects of violent crime in 1994 (Pfeiffer, 1998).

Comparing how different countries deal with juvenile offenders is equally challenging. Countries differ in the ages of young people considered legal juveniles, in how juvenile courts are organized, and in the types of institution used to sanction juvenile offenders. As Table 1-1 shows, the minimum age for being considered criminally responsible varies from 7 years (in Switzerland and the Australian state of Tasmania) to 16 (in Belgium and Russia). The age of full criminal responsibility (i.e., the age at which an offender is automatically handled as an adult) is 18 in most of the countries studied by Weitekamp et al. (1999), but is as low as 16 in some Australian states and is 20 in Japan. In the United States, both minimum and maximum ages of juvenile court jurisdiction vary by state, with most states having no minimum age (although in practice, children younger than 10 are seldom seen in juvenile courts). The maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction is younger in many U.S. states than in the other countries studied, with 3 states having a maximum age of 15, 10 of 16, and the remaining states having a maximum age of 17.

At the same time that states and the federal government in the United States have been moving toward treating juvenile offenders more like adult criminals, many other countries retain a strong rehabilitative stance. The 1988 Youth Court Law of Austria, for example, describes juvenile offending as a normal step in development for which restorative justice, not punishment, is the appropriate response. The Belgium Youth Court Protection Act specifies that the only measures that can be imposed on a juvenile are for his or her care, protection, and education. In New Zealand, since 1989, Family Group Conferences have been used to replace or supplement youth courts for most of the serious criminal cases. In the early 1980s, England and Wales moved toward community-based sanctions for young offenders and away from institutional placements. This trend was reversed in the 1990s, however, when England and Wales reacted to the upswing in juvenile violence in a manner similar to the United States, focusing on the offense, rather than the offender. The U.K. Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 made it easier to place offenders younger than 15 years in juvenile correctional facilities and extended the maximum length of allowable sentences. The U.K. Crime and Disorder Act of 1998 moved the English juvenile justice system even further toward a punitive, offense-based model.

Neither Sweden nor Denmark uses a separate juvenile court, but youthful immaturity is considered a mitigating factor in deciding their criminal responsibility. In Denmark, maximum punishments well below those available for adults are specified in law for juveniles 15 and older; juveniles under the age of 15 may not be punished, but may be referred to a social welfare agency. In Sweden, imprisonment may only be imposed on juveniles under exceptional circumstances, and even then, the sentences imposed are shorter than for adults.

The United States has a very high overall rate of incarceration. At 645 per 100,000, the U.S. incarceration rate is second only to that of Russia at 685 per 100,000 (Walmsley, 1999). Although adequate juvenile incarceration figures do not exist in the United States, the incarceration rate for homicides committed by juveniles is illustrative of the difference in incarceration rates. In 1992, 12.5 people per 100,000 were incarcerated in the United States for homicides committed as juveniles. Comparable numbers in other countries are 2.3 per 100,000 in The Netherlands, 1.6 per 100,000 in Italy, and 1.3 per 100,000 in Germany (Pfeiffer, 1998). Some of the differences in juvenile homicide incarceration rates are likely to be due to differences in homicide commission rates. In none of the 15 countries surveyed by Weitekamp et al. (1999) can a juvenile who commits a crime be executed, whereas this practice is allowed in the United States.

CHARGE TO THE PANEL

The Panel on Juvenile Crime: Prevention, Treatment, and Control was asked to identify and analyze the full range of research studies and datasets that bear on the nature of juvenile crime, highlighting key issues and data sources that can provide evidence of prevalence and seriousness; race, gender, and class bias; and impacts of deterrence, punishment, and prevention strategies. The panel was further asked to analyze the factors that contribute to delinquent behavior, including a review of the knowledge on child and adolescent development and its implications for prevention and control; to assess the current practices of the juvenile justice system, including the implementation of constitutional safeguards; to examine adjudication, detention and waiver practices; to explore the role of community and institutional settings; to assess the quality of data sources on the clients of both public and private juvenile justice facilities; and to assess the impact of the deinstitutionalization mandates of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 on delinquency and community safety.

To meet this charge, the study panel and staff gathered information in a number of ways. Relevant research studies were identified through

targeted searches of UnCover, Medline, Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), and the National Criminal Justice Research Service (NCJRS). The panel met six times between June 1998 and October 1999 to discuss data availability and research findings, identify critical issues, analyze the data and issues, seek additional information on specific concerns, formulate conclusions and recommendations, and develop this report. Four of these meetings were preceded by workshops at which experts presented information on selected topics and engaged in discussions with panel members. Workshops were held on education and delinquency, juvenile justice system issues, developmental issues relevant to delinquency, and racial disparity in the juvenile justice system. (See Appendix E for workshop agendas.) In addition to the workshops, Howard Snyder, research director of the National Center for Juvenile Justice, spent part of one meeting discussing relevant datasets with the panel members. The panel commissioned three papers: “International Comparison of Juvenile Justice Systems ” by Elmar Weitekamp, Hans-Juergen Kerner, and Gernot Trueg; “Police Encounters with Juvenile Suspects” by Robert Worden and Stephanie Myers; and “The Indeterminancy of Forecasts of Crime Rates and Juvenile Offenses ” by Kenneth Land and Patricia McCall. Several members of the panel made site visits to juvenile detention and correctional facilities in Texas and New York. Study panel members and staff also consulted informally with various experts between meetings.

The charge to the panel was extremely broad, covering many topics that merit books unto themselves, and indeed some of the areas have been the subject of more than one recent book. The panel chose to provide a broad overview of juvenile crime and the juvenile justice system, touching on all the topics in its charge, but going into various levels of depth depending on the amount and quality of data available. In organizing its plan for the study, the panel focused on answering several questions:

What have been the major trends in juvenile crime over the past 20 to 30 years, and what can be predicted about future trends?

What is the role of developmental factors in delinquent behavior and how do families, peers, communities, and social influences contribute to or inhibit that behavior?

What responses are in place to deal with juvenile crime today, are they developmentally appropriate, and do they work?

This report reviews the data and research available to answer these questions, suggests areas that require additional research, and makes recommendations about policies for dealing with child and adolescent offenders.

DEFINITIONS USED IN THIS REPORT

The terms juvenile and delinquency (or delinquent ) have specific legal meanings in state and federal law. In this report, however, the panel uses the term juvenile 3 in its general sense, referring to anyone under the age of 18, unless otherwise specified. The terms young person, youngster, youth, and child and adolescent are used synonymously with juvenile. For many of the analyses of crime trends in Chapter 2 , juvenile refers to those between the ages of 10 and 17, because those under the age of 10 are seldom arrested. We use the term adolescent to refer specifically to young people between the ages of 13 and 17.

The term delinquency 4 in this report refers to acts by a juvenile that would be considered a crime if committed by an adult, as well as to actions that are illegal only because of the age of the offender. The report uses the term criminal delinquency to refer specifically to the former and status delinquency to refer specifically to the latter. Criminal delinquency offenses include, for example, homicide, robbery, assault, burglary, and theft. The term juvenile crime is used synonymously with criminal delinquency. Status delinquency offenses include truancy, running away from home, incorrigibility (i.e., habitually disobeying reasonable and lawful commands of a parent, guardian, or custodian; also referred to in various statutes as unruly, uncontrollable, or ungovernable behavior), and liquor law violations. In some states, status delinquents are referred to the child welfare or social service systems, while in others status delinquents are dealt with in the juvenile justice system.

PLAN OF THE REPORT

Following this introduction, Chapter 2 discusses the datasets commonly used to measure juvenile crime rates, examining the relative strengths and weaknesses of each. The chapter then discusses the trends in juvenile crime rates over the past several decades and how trends differ depending on the dataset employed. Differences in crime rates and

types of offense by sex and race are noted. The chapter ends with a discussion of forecasting juvenile crime rates.

Chapter 3 examines factors related to the development of antisocial behavior and delinquency. Several other recent reports (Loeber et al., 1998; Rutter et al., 1998) have extensively reviewed the research on many of these factors, particularly as they relate to the development of serious, violent offending. In this report we have attempted to supplement these other reports rather than duplicate their literature reviews. In addition, this report does not confine its discussion to serious, violent offending.

Chapters 4 and 5 cover responses to the problem of youth crime. Chapter 4 focuses on preventive interventions aimed at individuals, peer groups, and families, interventions delivered in schools, and community-based interventions. Chapter 5 describes the juvenile justice system process in the United States and discusses treatment and intervention programs delivered through the juvenile justice system.

Chapter 6 examines the issue of racial disparity in the juvenile justice system, discussing explanations that have been put forth to explain that disparity and the research support for those explanations.

The panel's conclusions and recommendations for research and policy can be found at the end of each chapter.

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem.

This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescents—trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistance—the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with age—and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates.

Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions:

• Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives.
• Intervention within the juvenile justice system.
• Role of the police.
• Processing and detention of youth offenders.
• Transferring youths to the adult judicial system.
• Residential placement of juveniles.

The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

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• v.47(4); Oct-Dec 2022

Juvenile’s Delinquent Behavior, Risk Factors, and Quantitative Assessment Approach: A Systematic Review

Madhu kumari gupta.

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

Subrajeet Mohapatra

Prakash kumar mahanta.

1 Department of Clinical Psychology, Ranchi Institute of Neuro-Psychiatry and Allied Science, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

Background:

Not only in India but also worldwide, criminal activity has dramatically increasing day by day among youth, and it must be addressed properly to maintain a healthy society. This review is focused on risk factors and quantitative approach to determine delinquent behaviors of juveniles.

Materials and Methods:

A total of 15 research articles were identified through Google search as per inclusion and exclusion criteria, which were based on machine learning (ML) and statistical models to assess the delinquent behavior and risk factors of juveniles.

The result found ML is a new route for detecting delinquent behavioral patterns. However, statistical methods have used commonly as the quantitative approach for assessing delinquent behaviors and risk factors among juveniles.

Conclusions:

In the current scenario, ML is a new approach of computer-assisted techniques have potentiality to predict values of behavioral, psychological/mental, and associated risk factors for early diagnosis in teenagers in short of times, to prevent unwanted, maladaptive behaviors, and to provide appropriate intervention and build a safe peaceful society.

I NTRODUCTION

Juvenile delinquency is a habit of committing criminal offenses by an adolescent or young person who has not attained 18 years of age and can be held liable for his/her criminal acts. Clinically, it is described as persistent manners of antisocial behavior or conduct by a child/adolescent repeatedly denies following social rules and commits violent aggressive acts against the law and socially unacceptable. The word delinquency is derived from the Latin word “delinquere” which described as “de” means “away” and “linquere” as “to leaveor to abandon.” Minors who are involved in any kind of offense such as violence, gambling, sexual offenses, rape, bullying, stealing, burglary, murder, and other kinds of anti-social behaviors are known as juvenile delinquents. Santrock (2002) defined “an adolescent who breaks the law or engages in any criminal behavior which is considered as illegal is called juvenile delinquent.”[ 1 ] In India, Juvenile Justice (J. J.-Care and protection of Children) Act of 2000 stated that “an individual whether a boy/girl, who is under 18 years of age and has committed an offense, referred or convicted by the juvenile court have considered a juvenile delinquent.”

P REVALENCE R ATE : J UVENILE D ELINQUENCY IN I NDIA

According to the National Crime Records Bureau (India, 2019), statistical data of crimes in India show that overall, 38,685 juveniles were placed under arrest in 32,235 cases, among 35,214 juveniles were taken into custody under cases of IPC and 3471 juveniles were arrested under cases of special and local laws (SLL) during 2019. About 75.2% of the total convicted juveniles (29,084 out of 38,685) were apprehended under both IPC and SLL belonging to the age group 16–18 years. In 2019, 32,235 juvenile cases involving and recorded, indicating a slight increment of 2.0% over 2018 (31,591 cases). The rate of crime also indicates a slight increase from 7.1 (2018) to 7.2 (2019).[ 2 ] The total registered cases against juvenile delinquents are calculated as crime incidence rate per one Lakh population as shown in Figure 1 .

The graphical view of registered cases against Juveniles in conflict with law under Indian penal code and special and local laws crimes during 2014–2019 of all the State (s) and union territories of India Sources: Crime in India National (2014-2019), National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), Ministry of Home Affairs, 2019

R ISK -F ACTORS A FFECTING D ELINQUENT B EHAVIOR

Studies identify that multiple risk factors are responsible for delinquent behavior categorized as individual, parental, family, community, society, schools/educational, financial, mental as well as psychological factors of the individual and the family shown in Table 1 . Adolescents involve themselves in various anti-social activities to fulfill their basic needs. Basically, “delinquency” is just a recreational activity for earning money. These risk factors differ from person to person during the early childhood period and very crucial because children, who are involved in any kind of deviant activity at an early stage, have a higher chance to adopt delinquent tendencies chronically.[ 33 ]

Developmental phases, risk-factors and developing delinquent behaviours of the child

Juvenile delinquency is caused by a wide range of factors, such as conflicts in the family, lack of proper family control, residential environmental effects, and movie influence, along with other factors are responsible for delinquent behavior.[ 3 ] Family and environmental factors, namely restrictive behaviors, improper supervision, negligence, criminal activities of parents, improper motivation by peers, fear of peer rejection, poverty, illiteracy, poor educational performance at school, lack of moral education may turn the individual personality into delinquents. Moreover, in the environment, deteriorated neighborhood, direct exposure to violence/fighting (or exposure to violence through media), violence-based movies are considered major risk factors.[ 4 ] In India, a higher level of permissive parenting in low-income families had so many family members and due to economic conditions, the adolescents had pressure to search various income sources to sustain the family, and it has affected parental behavior toward adolescents.[ 5 ] The children who belong to the lower middle-socio-economical class and are rejected by society showed more aggressive behavior.[ 6 ]

Juvenile gang members exhibit significantly higher rates of mental health issues such as conduct disorders, attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorders, antisocial personality disorder, posttraumatic-stress-disorders, and anxiety disorders.[ 7 ] As well as the intellectual level of young offenders is significantly different from nonoffenders. Emotional problems on adolescents are related to delinquent behavior and impulsivity directly associated with antisocial behavior among adolescents.[ 8 ] Poor self-control of adolescents involved them in substance use, affected harmfully, and increased involvements in anti-social activities.[ 9 ] Nonviolent people, who not involved in any gang, are less likely to utilize mental-health services, having lower levels of psychiatric morbidity, namely antisocial personality disorders, psychosis, and anxiety disorders, when compared with the group of violent offenders.[ 10 ]

M ACHINE L EARNING : A N EW Q UANTITATIVE E VALUATION A PPROACH

Machine learning (ML) is belonging to the multidisciplinary field that includes programming, math, and statistics, and as a new and dynamic field that necessitates more study. It is a branch of computer science that emerged through pattern recognition and computational learning theory of artificial intelligence. ML is exploring researches and development of algorithms that can learn and genera tea prediction besides a given set of data through the computer. It is a scope for the study that gives computers the capability to learn without being principally programmed.[ 11 ] Tom M. Mitchell explained ML as “a computer-based program to learn from action of “E” concerning any task of ‘T’s, and some performance evaluates “P,” if its performance on “T,” as assessed by “P,” improves with action of E.”[ 12 ] The goal of ML is to mimic human learning in computers.[ 13 ] Humans learn from their experiences and ML methods learn from data. The user provides a portion of a dataset designated to train by the algorithm. The algorithm creates a model based on the relationships among variables in the dataset, and the remaining dataset is used to validate the ML model. In simple words, ML approach is for risk indicator is meant to magnify the potential of current knowledge.[ 15 ] ML sits at the common frontier of many academic fields, including statistics, mathematics, computer science, and engineering.[ 14 , 17 ] ML models principally categorized into three categories, namely supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement based on their task which they are attempting to accomplish. Supervised learning is relying on a training set where some characteristics of data are known, typically labels or classes, and target to find out the universal rule that maps inputs to outputs. Unsupervised learning has no design to give to the learning algorithm, balance itself to find out the patterns through inputs. In reinforcement, interaction with a dynamic environment happens during which a particular target such as driving a vehicle is performed without a driver principally involved in any activities, namely comparison. In numerous studies, pattern classification approaches based on ML algorithms are used to forecast human beings into various categories by maximizing the distance among data groups. ML generally refers to all actions that train a computer algorithm to determine a complicated pattern of data that is conceivable used for forecast category of membership into a new theme (e.g., individual vs. controls).[ 32 ]

R ATIONAL OF THE S TUDY

In the last decade, various researchers have been attracted to the use of quantitative computer-based techniques for analyzing various psychological and clinical aspects, which have greatly contributed to the area of modern psychology. In this analysis, most of the works are devoted to the use of various quantitative analysis techniques, namely ML and statistical methods which has utilized by the researchers for evaluating various risk and protective factors of juveniles. Henceforth, studies on the application of the ML model for risk-assessment of delinquent behavior on juveniles are limited as compared to other techniques, namely logistic regression. Hence, this review paper may explore the utilization of ML to get an easy and quick assessment on juveniles and helpful for future studies. It may help to determine the most significant risk factors and establishment of a successful treatment program that prevents juveniles from delinquent activities and stops them from recidivism.

In this review, all these studies carried out which has used various quantitative techniques to detected juvenile delinquency with specially emphasis on ML and statistical approaches. The review is organized into four sections follows as: Section-I gives an overview of juvenile delinquency, prevalence rates in India, and various behavioral risk factors during the developmental period. It also provides general information about ML as a new approach and their application. Section-II included information about the methodology of the present review. Section-III explores the results and discusses which explore the ML and statistical methods for detecting juvenile behaviors and Section-IV concludes the extant research of the present review and the implications for future work.

M ETHODOLOGY

This review paper aim is to find the various quantitative techniques (computer-assisted techniques) ML and statistical approaches which have been used for assessing/predicting delinquent behaviors, traits, and risk factors among juveniles.

Sources of information

For this review article, a total of 15 research articles were identified and selected through Google-scholar, Web of Science, Academia, PubMed, and Research-Gate, using the keywords, namely juvenile-delinquency, ML, Risk-factors, and delinquent-behavior. All relevant studies were selected for review of the quantitative approaches for identifying delinquent behavior and risk factors of adolescents and the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) flow diagram for articles search process as shown in Figure 2 .[ 34 ]

Preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses flow diagram for search outcomes of quantitative assessment of juvenile delinquent behaviors

Inclusion criteria

Research studies published since 2011–2019, case studies, empirical, quantitative, qualitative, and cross-sectional studies published in English were included, which used ML and statistical models to analyze behaviors, risk and associated factors among juveniles.

Exclusion criteria

Protocol, dissertations, prototype studies, and studies which published in other languages were excluded.

Studies on machine learning and statistical methods among juvenile delinquency

In this review, we performed a rigorous search of the literature to provide a narrative description of the various quantitative computer-based approaches which are applicable to assess and identify the delinquent behaviors and risk factors on juveniles. Initially, the search identified 150 articles through various databases, search outcomes show in the PRISMA flow diagram [ Figure 2 ]. One hundred and thirty-five articles were removed by screening through the title, text, removal of duplicate articles and based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, we identified 15 research articles in full text and these selected articles comprising through expert opinions. The findings of these articles tabulated the diverse approaches on the current state of knowledge about assessment of early diagnosis of delinquent behaviors and risk factors and tried to provide a summary which based on computer-based quantitative analysis [ Table 2 ].

Summary table of relevant studies which used quantitative approach to detect delinquent behaviors and risk factors among juvenile behaviors

GLM: Generalized linear model, ML: Machine learning, PEH: Probabilistic estimation hypothesis, CAPM: Categorization of anxiety predictor model, SES: Socioeconomic status, SEM: Structural equation model

D ISCUSSION

In this systematic review, we performed a rigorous search of the literature to provide a narrative picture of various methods used to identify juveniles’ behaviors. We identified 15 articles, with the objective to analyze the application of ML and other quantitative approaches to assess various delinquent behaviors and risk factors of juveniles. The studies revealed ML is a new quantitative method to identify the risk factors and delinquent behavior henceforth; there very few studies are conducted. In this study, we tried to provide a summary of selected articles on the current state of knowledge about quantitative analysis for assessment of delinquent behaviors of juveniles and there only few articles have used ML as quantitative analysis. The City Social Welfare Development Office of Butuan, Philippines, used a dataset to create predictive models for analyzing the minors at risk and children in conflict with poor financial status. And found children with age range 12–17 years are victims of maltreatment, and adolescents between the ages of 15–17 years commit severe crimes.[ 16 ] Kim et al .[ 18 ] used traditional regression, ML method and certified the predictive validity of the models in numerous ways, along with traditional hold-out validation k-fold cross-validation, and bootstrapping to examine the present practice and policy for assessment, treatment, and management of delinquents who have a history of sexual conviction in multiple jurisdictions from New York, Florida, Oregon, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Results revealed that important risk factors among juveniles had some criminal history, sexual offending experiences, and delinquent peers. Some dynamic factors viz. performance in school, peer connection, sorrowful feelings, impulsiveness, mental health, and substance abuse are important anticipating factors among sexual offenders for recidivism.

Rokven et al .[ 19 ] used multinomial logistic regression technique to compare four types of delinquent groups: online delinquents, offline delinquents, nondelinquents, and delinquents who belong to both online and offline categories and found juveniles who having both online and offline criminal records are more likely to commit crimes. Delinquency is indirectly linked with sleep deprivation, with poor self-control acting as a catalyst proved by regression models with latent factors.[ 20 ] Violent video games directly associated with anti-social behavior, even though several correlates, such as psychopathologies has present in youth analyzed by negative binomial regression (extended version of Poisson regression).[ 22 ]

Fernández et al . analyzed through multivariate logistic regression and found, school dropouts’ teenagers had a higher level of irresponsibility, substance, and illicit drug abuse compare then nondropouts.[ 23 ] In addition, lack of parental supervision plays a significant role in the prediction of deviant behaviors on school dropouts. School dropout teenagers have multi-dimensional problem that requires proper parental supervision and proactive school policies to reducing drug and alcohol abuse.[ 23 ] Fifty-two percent of juvenile offenders had issues with academic performance, 34% had family history of psychiatric disorders, 60% of juveniles involved in property crime and 54% of offenders involved in drugs and alcohol use-related offenses had some deficiency in academic achievement evaluated by multiple regression techniques.[ 24 ] Wu (2015) created a multidimensional scaling model and found students used a complex cognitive-mechanism measured and compared their position to friends and others.[ 25 ]

Sexually assaulted history has strongly associated and one of the most powerful variables associated with the intensity of psychoactive substances using by juveniles.[ 26 ] Parks[ 28 ] has used binary logistic regression and multivariate models revealed that no major variations in violent juveniles belong to cohabiting families and other families. However, teenagers of cohabiting families have marginally higher risk to involving in nonviolent forms of crime.[ 28 ] Economic conditions of the family has strongly linked to the influences of parents, siblings, and peers at risk and delinquency. Economic stress, having an active sibling aggression, harmful, and more destructive events affected seriously on adolescent delinquent behaviors who belongs to economically poor families.[ 29 ] Coercive parents are directly associated with violent delinquency of adolescents on both ways as explicitly and indirectly and transformed shame on adolescents. As opposed to articulated guilt, shame conversion is the major cause for more violence.[ 30 ]

It is very difficult to evaluate all possible outcomes and explain a single quantitative approach as ML to early identification of delinquent behaviors and risk-factors of juveniles for intervene in the affected factors. Our study has several limitations. First, other studies rather than the English language were we not included in the study. Second, counties like India have very less evidence-based studies in the field of early detection of juveniles and computer-based assessment approaches as ML for quantitative analysis. Third, only 15 articles were considered which fulfilled the inclusion criteria.

I MPLICATION

The modern world is fully based on computers and technology for making works easy and faster. ML model is an emerging future technology in the field of health and mental health. It has the potential to predictive ability to detect health/mental health-related problems as well as for early diagnosis of problems behaviors. This review is acknowledging the use of quantitative analysis focused on ML algorithm as a new research area for early identification of delinquent behaviors of children, to prevent the deviant behaviors and related risk-factors and may be beneficial for future studies and contribute to make a peaceful society and worthful young generation for the nation.

C ONCLUSION

This review showed that available literature based on ML and other quantitative methods to identify the risk factors and delinquent behaviors of juveniles. Young peoples are at a higher risk to learn maladaptive/deviant behaviors as violent, aggressive, hyperactive, and easily involved in criminal activities. According to studies, individual factors, family environment, family structure, size/type of the family, parental status (single/separate/divorces) are highly affected adolescent’s behaviors. In addition, social, environmental, and economic conditions are lead to adapt conductive and delinquent behaviors. There highly need to identify delinquent behaviors in the initial stage to prevent with affected risk factors. It is very crucial for early screening and intervention.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgment

Authors acknowledge to Department of Science and Technology- Cognitive Science Research Initiative (DST-CSRI) for sponsored the project in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Birla Institute of Technology, Mesra, India, which explores the technology-based approach in multidisciplinary works. The authors also would like to thank Mr. Abhinash Jenasamanta and Mr. Devesh Upadhyay, Research Scholars, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, BIT, Mesra, Ranchi, for technical and motivational support.

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Risk and protective factors and interventions for reducing juvenile delinquency: a systematic review.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. inclusion criteria, 2.2. exclusion criteria, 2.3. data sources and search strategy, 2.4. risk of bias assessment, 4. discussion, 5. limitations, 6. conclusions, author contributions, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Aazami, A.; Valek, R.; Ponce, A.N.; Zare, H. Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review. Soc. Sci. 2023 , 12 , 474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

Aazami A, Valek R, Ponce AN, Zare H. Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review. Social Sciences . 2023; 12(9):474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

Aazami, Aida, Rebecca Valek, Andrea N. Ponce, and Hossein Zare. 2023. "Risk and Protective Factors and Interventions for Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Systematic Review" Social Sciences 12, no. 9: 474. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci12090474

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Juvenile Delinquency

Theory, Research, and the Juvenile Justice Process

• © 2020
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• Peter C. Kratcoski 0 ,
• Lucille Dunn Kratcoski 1 ,
• Peter Christopher Kratcoski 2

Sociology/Justice Studies, Kent State University, Tallmadge, USA

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Williams, Welser & Kratcoski LLC, Kent, USA

• Provides an overview of major topics related to Juvenile Delinquency for advanced undergraduate and graduate-level students
• Includes quantitative and qualitative research findings, with new interviews and discussions of the experiences of child care professionals and juvenile justice practitioners
• Provides an interpretation of theory to practice in the criminal justice system
• Explores recent discussion of children as victims, such as non-fault children who are victims of abuse, neglect, and at-risk situations such as violence and bullying
• Incorporates international perspectives on juvenile justice and delinquency, in addition to addressing changes in the characteristics of delinquents, changes in laws, and the influence of social media and electronic communications devices on juvenile delinquency

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How Young Offenders’ Perceive Their Life Courses and the Juvenile Justice System: A Systematic Review of Recent Qualitative Research

Examining the Presenting Characteristics, Short-Term Effects, and Long-Term Outcomes Associated with System-Involved Youths

It’s F**ing Chaos: COVID-19’s Impact on Juvenile Delinquency and Juvenile Justice

• juvenile delinquency
• juvenile justice
• at-risk children
• at-risk youth
• status offenders
• juvenile court
• family court
• juvenile corrections
• developmental and life-course criminology
• age-crime curve

Table of contents (16 chapters)

Front matter, the transition of child to adult.

• Peter C. Kratcoski, Lucille Dunn Kratcoski, Peter Christopher Kratcoski

Past and Current Bio-Social Perspectives on Delinquency Causation

Social-psychological theories of delinquency, social organization perspectives on delinquency causation, perspectives on interpersonal relationships in the family, perspectives on gangs and peer group influences pertaining to delinquency causation, perspectives on delinquency and violence in the schools, laws and court cases pertaining to children: offenders and victims, perspectives on children as victims of abuse and neglect, the police role in delinquency prevention and control, processing the juvenile offender: diversion, informal handling, and special dockets, the juvenile court process, probation and community-based programs, perspectives on juveniles incarcerated in secure facilities, parole and community supervision, counseling and treatment of juvenile offenders, back matter, authors and affiliations.

Peter C. Kratcoski

Lucille Dunn Kratcoski

Williams, Welser & Kratcoski LLC, Kent, USA

Peter Christopher Kratcoski

About the authors

Peter Charles Kratcoski earned a PhD in sociology from the Pennsylvania State university, a MA in sociology from the University of Notre Dame and a BA in sociology from King’s College. He taught at St. Thomas College and Pennsylvania State University before assuming the position of assistant professor of sociology at Kent State University. He retired as professor  of  sociology/criminal justice studies and Chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice Studies at Kent State University. He is currently a professor emeritus and adjunct professor at Kent State. He has published many books, book chapters and journal articles in juvenile delinquency, juvenile justice, juvenile victimization and crime prevention as well as completing numerous research  projects   relating to policing, crime prevention, juvenile delinquency prevention and victimization. His most recent publications include author of Correctional Counseling and Treatment (6 th edition) 2017, co-editor of Corruption, Fraud, Organized Crime, and the Shadow Economy, 2016 and co-editor of Perspectives on Elderly Crime and Victimization, 2018.

Lucille Dunn Kratcoski was awarded a  Bachelor of Arts degree  from Marywood College and a Master degree in music from Pennsylvania State University. She has numerous years teaching experience at the elementary, high school and university levels as well as providing private instruction. She co-authored Juvenile Delinquency and a number of book chapters and journal articles on the subject of juvenile delinquency and juvenile justice. In addition to her private practice, she serves as a  Kratcoski Research Associate.

Bibliographic Information

Book Title : Juvenile Delinquency

Book Subtitle : Theory, Research, and the Juvenile Justice Process

Authors : Peter C. Kratcoski, Lucille Dunn Kratcoski, Peter Christopher Kratcoski

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31452-1

Publisher : Springer Cham

eBook Packages : Law and Criminology , Law and Criminology (R0)

Copyright Information : Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020

Hardcover ISBN : 978-3-030-31451-4 Published: 16 December 2019

Softcover ISBN : 978-3-030-31454-5 Published: 06 January 2021

eBook ISBN : 978-3-030-31452-1 Published: 03 December 2019

Edition Number : 6

Number of Pages : XXVI, 442

Number of Illustrations : 6 b/w illustrations

Additional Information : Originally published by Pearson Education, Inc., Old Tappan, New Jersey, 2003

Topics : Youth Offending and Juvenile Justice , Criminological Theory

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