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YOUTH VIOLENCE.   Term Paper ID:28062 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines theories & studies of violent crimes & juvenile delinquency; juvenile justice system; treatment.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines theories & studies of violent crimes & juvenile delinquency; juvenile justice system; treatment. Paper Introduction: Introduction The issue of youth violence is one very much in the news since the Columbine High School shootings of almost exactly a year ago. But while this killing spree is perhaps the most striking example of people under the age of 18 intentionally committing violent acts against other people, Columbine is in fact only one in a series of cases of juvenile violence, even simply one in a series of school shootings. And these school shootings can be seen as merely the natural development of other kinds of less lethal juvenile violence extending back as far as history is recorded. The escalation of violence in the crimes committed by people under age 18 has received a great deal of attention in the psychological literature of the past decade, and so this literature review of youth vi Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. There have been somespecific findings of differences between youthful offenders and non-offenders, such as Andrew's finding that while offenders (like psychopaths)have better than average short-term memory, they tend to have problems withlong-term memory, and deficit in long-term memory skills is more pronouncedthe more violent the offender (Andrew, 1982, p. Just as there is no clear indication in the literature of what may bethe biological basis (if any) for some youthful offenders to become moreviolent than others, there seems to be little agreement on what areeffective intervention or treatment strategies that may be used tointerrupt a criminal career before it does become violent. Chicago: University of Chicago.Walsh, A. For example, changes in theeconomy that lead to fewer job opportunities for youth and risingunemployment in general make gainful employment increasingly difficult foryoung people to obtain. Definition of Subject Matter and Background The issue of youth violence is a part of the larger social category ofjuvenile crime. Law and Human Behavior 2 (3): 229-47.James, O. Some studies do suggest a biological element to violent offenders, andthis suggestion seems likely to be true, given that all social factors(poverty, broken families, child abuse, severe illness as a child, drug useet al) in some children are correlated with violence and in others are not(Rapp and Wodarski, 1997, p. This push into violence may well be exacerbated in the United Statesby the easy accessibility of guns of a highly lethal nature. Youngsters placed in nonresidential community-basedtreatment programs do not reside at the facility. Under Anglo-American law, a crime is an illegal act committed by aperson who has criminal intent. Official records indicate that much juvenile crime is a group or gangactivity. In most instances community treatment involves placing the child onprobation. This lack of parentalsupervision is thought to be an influence on juvenile crime rates. 17; Annals of the American Society for Adolescent Psychiatry. Families have also experienced changes within the last 25 years. No specific treatment has been proven the most effective form.Effectiveness is typically measured by recidivism rates-that is, by thepercentage of children treated who subsequently commit additional criminalacts. Unofficial reports,however, suggest that a higher percentage of juveniles are involved inminor criminal behavior; grossly underreported common offenses includevandalism, shoplifting, underage drinking, and using marijuana. The delinquent gang is a small cohesive groupdeveloped to carry out criminal acts, such as petty thievery and mugging.Although violence may be used, the primary goal is material gain. The immature generally were not consideredmorally responsible for their behavior and enlightened cultures throughoutrecorded history have attempted to reform rather than simply punish youth.In the case of high-profile, highly violent acts by minors, suchconsiderations seem to have less and less of an effect as people, horrifiedby what they see on the evening news seek revenge rather than healing(Brennan, 1999, p. In contrast to the common characterization of gang-generated crime, however, self-report studies often reveal that youth crimeis a personal, independent effort not directly related to group activity.The crimes of excessive violence that this paper is in part focussing ontend to be examples of the latter form of violence and not gang related,which has a number of implications for possible intervention strategies(Kellerman, 1999, p. Otherforms of residential treatment include rural programs such as forestrycamps and work farms. Morefamilies consist of one-parent households or two working parents;consequently, children are likely to have less supervision at home than wascommon in the traditional family structure. Most theories of juvenile delinquency have focused on children fromdisadvantaged families, ignoring the fact that children from affluent homesalso commit crimes. (1994, Winter). 58). Thesocial gang is a relatively permanent group of youths who generally existin accord with society. Thus a number of large-scale social changes are seen to provide thebest explanation for the increasing frequency of highly violent youths.Fewer economic opportunities, with the resulting infantilizing of youths,less intact homes, more abusive homes (and it should of course be notedthat rates of abuse rise as families become stressed by poverty, lack ofchances for upward mobility and lack of strong social networks) all tend toprecipitate young people into violence (James, 1995, p. (1996, June). When the child is not believed to be harmful to others, he orshe is placed under the supervision of an officer of the juvenile court andmust abide by the specific rules that are worked out between the officerand the child. The resulting discontent may in turn lead moreyouths into criminal behavior. Savage spawn. (1997). 6 ). Institutionalization is the most severe form of treatment for juvenileoffenders. This paper examines whether researchhas shown distinct differences between highly violent youths, youths whocommit illegal acts that are either less violent or not violent at all, andthose who do not commit any violent acts. 36). And are the youths who commit themost violent acts simply the same type of youths as all other juvenileoffenders but with access to better grade of weapons? They may also be different in someetiological way. This is one of the most common foci (and findings) of recent studies,which tend to show that economic inequality is a direct and immediate causeof violent behavior at least in young men; the correlation is not nearly soclear for females (Kellerman, 1999, p. The escalation of violence in the crimes committed by people under age18 has received a great deal of attention in the psychological literatureof the past decade, and so this literature review of youth violence focusesin some large measure on the concern expressed in scholarship forunderstanding (and therefore being able to divert) the factors that bringabout children who find their only recourse lies with a gun in a schoolroomdoor. The recidivism rates for all forms of treatment, however, are aboutthe same. A person who becomes socially alienated may bemore inclined to commit a criminal act. Journal of Applied Social Sciences 22 (1): 3-14. Genetic and environmental explanations of juvenile violence in advantaged and disadvantaged environments. Thus, an absence of subsequentreported delinquent acts by a treated child may mean nothing more than thatthe child was not caught (Ash and Derdeyn, 1997, p. 231). J. Residential treatment generally takes place in a group home where thejuvenile is provided with psychological and vocational counseling. That a large percentage of delinquent acts are never discoveredfurther complicates this measurement. New York: Ballantine Books.Marohn, R. A long-standing presumption held that,although a person of almost any age can commit a criminal act, childrenunder 14 years old were unlikely to have criminal intent. Instead they live at homeand receive treatment from mental health clinics or similar services. While group violence is sanctioned, individualviolence is discouraged. Introduction The issue of youth violence is one very much in the news since theColumbine High School shootings of almost exactly a year ago. London: Free Association Books Limited.Kellerman, J. Theories focusing on the role ofsociety in juvenile delinquency suggest that children commit crimes inresponse to their failure to rise above their socioeconomic status, or as arepudiation of middle-class values. Juvenile violence in a winner-loser culture: Socio- economic and familial origins of the rise in violence against the person. Conclusion Although the issue of why some youths commit highly violent crimes andothers either commit less violent offenses or none at all has been of majorconcern over the past decade to psychological researchers, no clearfindings have been made on how to distinguish which young people are likelyto be violent (as opposed to those who may break minor laws) and noconsensus has developed on how to treat such violent children. Since ancienttimes enlightened legal systems have distinguished between juveniledelinquents and adult criminals. (1982, Sept.) Memory and violent crime among delinquents. (1999). (1995). Members of violent gangs sometimes have unstable personalities.Disputes center on territory or gang warfare and are assaultive, ofteninvolving deadly weapons. This is simply a legal terms denoting various offensescommitted by children or youths under the age of 18. The juvenile justice system (for those youthful offenders not remandedinto adult courts tries to treat and rehabilitate youngsters who becomeinvolved in delinquency through community treatment, residential treatment,nonresidential community treatment, and institutionalization. During the most recent five-year periodstudied, juvenile arrests decreased slightly each year. & Derdeyn, A. Juvenile violence: The high risk factors, current interventions, and implications for social work factors. The institution is responsible forthe child's counseling, education, recreation, room and board, and otherdaily activities. Juvenile gangs are typically classified as violent, delinquent,or social. But what about certain individualscauses this interaction still seems to be anybody's guess, as is the bestcourse for treatment. (1999, December). But such findings,while tantalizing, do not seem to add up to anything like a completeexplanation for why some youths turn violent and moreover cannot even asisolated points of description be correlated with any obvious internaljustification for or incentive towards violence. 127). 15 ). (1997). While gang members often commitcrimes (and sometimes lethal ones) and certainly deviate from the standardsof mainstream society, they do follow the standards of their own society,and there is therefore the possibility that youths who follow a group-defined system of norms are less likely to commit highly violent acts -with little difference in whether those norms are defined by natal familyor gang (Earls, 1998, p. The child is incarcerated in a secure facility and deniedfreedom to come and go in the community. ReferencesAndrew, J. Changes in the American social structure may indirectly affectjuvenile crime rates and some studies have linked the increase in youthviolence to such social changes (and indeed there is almost a tautologicalelement to this, for if young mass murderers begin to appear in a changingsociety where before there had been none, it is almost necessary toconclude that the two are in some way linked). The public appears much more aware of juvenile crime today than in thepast; this is due in part to more thorough reporting techniques and greateremphasis on publicizing delinquent acts in the media. It is also due to theincreasingly violent nature of a small percentage of crimes. One thing thatthe research does not seem to have addressed in depth is to what extent theaccessibility of certain kinds of weapons matters. 13). And these school shootingscan be seen as merely the natural development of other kinds of less lethaljuvenile violence extending back as far as history is recorded. Violence and today's youth. A number of studies in the current literature support this thesis;indeed it would be hard to find a piece of psychological literature thatdoes not support the idea that individuals commit violent acts because theyhave somehow turned away from the norms of their families and other coresocial reference groups. 424). Theories centering on the individual suggest that children engage incriminal behavior because they were not sufficiently penalized for previousdelinquent acts or that they have learned criminal behavior throughinteraction with others. Despite thelack of progress, this topic will no doubt continue to be one of greatinterest as long as such incidents of youthful violence continue. While most illegalacts committed as juveniles are handled within the juvenile court system,violent acts committed by youths usually place them within the adultcriminal judicial system, subjecting the offenders to prison sentences andpossibly even execution. Otheridentifiable causes of delinquent acts (up to violence) include frustrationor failure in school, the increased availability of drugs and alcohol, andthe growing incidence of child abuse and child neglect. 47). Future of Children 4 (3): 4-23.Grisso, T. However, many researchers remain interested not simply in the mostviolent types of youth violence (which of course remains in the minority interms of frequency of actual crimes committed, even if it looms very largein our imaginations) and so this literature review also looks at theattempt by researchers to understand what prompts children (these seeminglymost innocent members of out society) to react with violence while otheryoung people can turn and walk away. (There areanalogues to this in the arena of adult crimes as well.) Official U.S.crime reports in the 198 s showed that about one-fifth of all personsarrested for crimes are under 18 years of age. Thus we come to the thesis of this paper: Juveniles who commitespecially violent crimes (which we shall define here for simplicity's sakeas the intentional killing of more than one person, although obviouslythere are other forms of terrible interpersonal violence such as tortureand rape) are motivated by at least somewhat different factors than areyouths who commit less violence crimes. 371). 189). In Feinstein, S.C. Literature Review It should be noted as a point of general background that many theoriesconcerning the causes of juvenile crime focus either on the individualalone or on society alone as the major contributing influence. Most youthswho commit violent acts, even extremely violent acts, have participated inat least some of these relatively innocuous activities, suggesting thatthere is at least some psychological overlap in the two groups (Grisso,1996, p. & Esman, A.H. Federal Probation 63 (2): 58-6 .Earls, F. Many juvenilecourts have now discarded this so-called infancy defense and have foundthat delinquent acts can be committed by children of any age. In some instances community treatment also takes the form ofrestitution, in which the child reimburses the victim either through directpayment or through some form of work or public service. (199 ). Society's retributive response to juvenile violence: A developmental perspective. Violence and unrestrained behavior in adolescents. All theseconditions tend to increase the probability of a child committing acriminal act, although a direct causal relationship has not yet beenestablished. Forensic child and adolescent psychiatry: A review of the past ten years. However, there does not seem to be a significantdifference in those who deviate from social norms and commit acts of low-level violence and those who commit highly violent acts - with theimportant distinction of gang members. Aggressive Behavior 18 (3): 187-199.Wodarski, J. It does notnecessarily follow from this that the best way to treat them is as adults,for while they may not be like other children they are still children(Brennan, 1999, p. Whether it is primarily genetics and biochemistry orprimarily upbringing that brings them to the point of extreme violence,once they have arrived at that point they are different from other youthfuloffenders and must be treated (and understood) differently. The literature so far reviewed has come to one basic at least implicitconclusion: Something about the individual perpetrator has interacted withrecent changing social (including family structure) conditions to produce ahigh number of deeply violent youths. But whilethis killing spree is perhaps the most striking example of people under theage of 18 intentionally committing violent acts against other people,Columbine is in fact only one in a series of cases of juvenile violence,even simply one in a series of school shootings. (1992). 19). Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 36 (11): 1493-15 2.Brennan, P. Criminal Justice and Behavior 9 (3): 365-71.Ash, P. (eds.) Adolescent psychiatry: Developmental and clinical studies, Vol. But what the exact nature of such a biological flaw might be iselusive at best to track down (Walsh, 1992, p. In the 197 s, juvenilearrests increased in almost every serious crime category, and femalejuvenile crime more than doubled. Biosocial risk factors and juvenile violence. The latter may commit crimes because of the lack ofadequate parental control, delays in achieving adult status, and hedonistictendencies (Marohn, 199 , p. Are youths more violentnow, or do they simply have better guns? If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.