Juvenile Delinquincy

It is no question that several, different experts can administer many theories of what the causes of juvenile delinquency are. Some of these causes can include an individual's financial status, drug abuse, criminal friends or groups, openness to violence, easy access to weapons and violent influences from the media. Undoubtedly, all of these factors can greatly influence a child and the behavior they might encounter with, however I feel that one of the main causes of juvenile delinquency is the lack of strong families; it seems as though many parents have lost control of their children and they are left run wild in the streets. Licenses are needed to own several things in America, such as guns, animals, or to even drive a car, but no license is needed to have a child. I totally understand the drastic means that the government would have to go through in order to license every person who wanted to have children, but perhaps pre-parental training would suffice, although I am also aware that everyone would not participate due to their own personal reasons.

Being a parent is by far way more complex than driving a car or owning a weapon. Being a parent is a duty that an individual must partake in twenty four hours a day and seven days a week without any exceptions or excuses. New parents should become familiar with parenting skills as soon as they know that they are expecting, although some mistakes might seem harmless at first, they may cause drastic affects on the child. I was once a resident of the city of Bridgeport, so a lot of the research I have provided is based from the city. The city of Bridgeport is a developing city. It has some really good parts, but it's also has some really bad. At the beginning of the semester, Professor Holt, noted that a city that areas close to development tends to be the poorer areas. That is what I would like to think about some of the areas of Bridgeport. Some of its worst areas are near the areas of construction, and those areas are also where much of low-income housing. For people with very low incomes, these parts are the most that that they can afford.

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Above is a picture of the city of Bridgeport, as you can see its city that has a lot of factories, and just outside these factories are homes, most of which where financially challenged people live. The government will continue building up the city of Bridgeport, while also making these people who live in these homes to move out and find other places to live. That is normal for people living in areas such as these.

There seems to be an epidemic of families in crisis. Much of the crisis has to do with the changes in our social environment. Over the past two decades or more families morals and society has changed in very evident way, especially in undeveloped communities. Rarely will you find a mom waiting for you at the door as you get of the school bus with her freshly made brownies and dad working all day just in time to come home to his nice hot meal waiting for him on the kitchen table. Now you will find families with the "latch key" child. Instead the child will come home to an empty house. Mom is at work and dad is at work or not in the household at all. With parents away and children alone, children now spend more time with their peer groups. After School Alliance, an organization that creates after school programs, states that 14.3 children are left unsupervised or unattended during after school hours. Drugs and weapons are more assessable in risky neighborhoods and even more assessable to unsupervised children. A complaint in the city of Bridgeport states, "The greatest harm that the city of Bridgeport has suffered is the victimization of its citizens, practically the children who injured or killed because of the alleged conduct of handgun manufactures. (1999)" This complaint was filed because of citizens were outraged at gun manufactures for not making guns with safety locks and other precautions, because not doing so would save these companies money, but instead an increase of lives were taken instead. Even content on television has changed over the years. The programs shown on television get more illicit and explicit everyday. Certain subject are not only explored, but explored in detail, which can be risky because sometimes the television is somewhat of a "babysitter" to many children. Not only television, but now computers and video games are easy outlets that display these unsatisfactory behaviors.

Families have also changed. There is an undeniable increase of divorce in America. Almost fifty percent of all marriages in America will end in divorce. Husbands and wives are not staying together for as long as they used to before. In the past a common route for couple in distress was to seek counseling and really try to work things out, now a more recent trend is to try a little bit then divorce. Divorce, although sometimes extremely necessary, can dramatically damage a child if not gone about the right way. Sometime a mother will skip marriage as a whole, she is sometimes involved with multiple partners and may not even be aware of who the father of her child is. Many times the mother will have several children by different fathers which can also lead to an unstable household. In most cases of divorce the mother keeps the children. The single working mom, although doing her best to provide for her child, leaves the child as the victim who is lacking interaction and supervision in the child's life. Sometimes the child is left with a sense that the parent's issues were their fault or even a sense of not being wanted. On the contrast of divorce, some families are combined with other families with new morals and traditions which can also sometimes cause a sticky situation, which can be confusing to all parties. Parental control has changes over the years, in which there are three types. Years ago families went by an authoritarian style which dwells on rules and is very severe with the punishment, with no room for argument or compromise. The next style is the indulgent style, where the parent spoils the child and has no responsibility or expectations of the child. The last is the indifferent style, the parent is caught up with his/her own situation and the child is ignored. Steinberg (2001) states that "authoritative parenting works because it does three things: (1) the nurturance and parent involvement creates an environment more receptive to parental influence; (2) a balance of support and structure facilitates the development of self-regulatory skills in the child; and (3) the verbal give and take characteristic of parent-child exchanges fosters cognitive and social competence in the child" Experts argue that authoritative parenting works best in most families.

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