Chapter Two

Delinquents In and Out of the Juvenile Justice System

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

1.      To be aware that the term “delinquent” has several definitions which vary in different types of research.

2.      To be able to describe official records, the National Crime Survey of victims, and self report studies as sources of information about delinquency.

3.      To know the typical patterns of American adolescents’ experiences with police and courts, and differences in the pattern of contacts of minor, violent, and chronic offenders.

4.      To be aware of patterns of delinquency for special groups of offenders, specifically status offenders, drug users, gang members, and violent offenders.

5.      To know which youths are most likely to be involved in various kinds of delinquency, and to be arrested, sent to court, and committed to institutions or other residential programs.

6.      Based on research results, to be able to draw sound conclusions about which youths are most delinquent.

CHAPTER OUTLINE:

·        The legal definition of delinquent behavior is not set but open to question and change.

·        The definition of juvenile delinquent varies considerably from person to person.

Sources of Information

·        There are three major sources of information on juvenile delinquents and their behavior: official statistics; victimization surveys; and self-report studies.

Seriousness of Delinquent Behavior

·        Marvin Wolfgang and Thorsten Sellin developed seriousness scores so that offenses could easily be compared on how much loss, damage, or personal injury resulted from various delinquent acts.

·        Exhibit 2-1 is an example of severity scores for different offenses.

Delinquents in the Juvenile Justice System

·        The Uniform Crime Reports is one data source used to help us obtain an understanding about the extent of juvenile delinquency.

·        The Uniform Crime Reports gives us information on the types of juvenile cases handled by police.

·        Another data source is Juvenile Court Statistics.  This provides us information about the types of juvenile cases handled by the courts as well as the disposition of these cases.  The majority of cases handled by the courts with jurisdiction over juveniles are property offenses followed by person offenses, public order offenses, and drug law violations.

·        In reference to status offenses, in 1996 the juvenile courts handled an estimated 162,000 cases.

·        Whereas racial differences were most pronounced for delinquency cases, the sex differences are more pronounced for status offense cases.

·        Juveniles held in long-term state-operated institutions were adjudicated for a property offense followed by a violent offense, public-order offense, drug offense, and status offense.

·        Private facilities primarily specialize in a particular type of treatment or type of offender.

·        The unequal treatment of minorities in the juvenile justice system has been brought to national attention.  There have been increased efforts to study these discrepancies and to address the disproportionate number of minorities confined in such facilities.

·        Birth cohort research is designed to study a group of people who were born during the same year.  One of the earliest such studies was conduced by Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellinon a group of boys in Philadelphia.

·        For some time, criminologists have recognized that the majority of offenders “peak” in their delinquent activities some time after age 16, and they do not become adult offenders.

·        The Orange County, California, study revealed that 8 percent of their sample were repeat offenders; these juveniles were chronic recidivists and moved deeper into the system.

Delinquents Described by Victims

·        The National Crime Survey of victims has provided information that is useful in explaining the discrepancy between official arrest statistics, which show African-American youths to be more seriously delinquent than others, and self-report surveys, which show few racial differences.

Delinquents Describe Themselves

·        Self-report studies provide valuable descriptive information about delinquents and their behavior; self-reported information can be collected through written questionnaires or through face-to-face interviews.

·        In 1976, the National Survey Project was developed; the survey obtained a large sample of youths to represent adolescents nationwide; these youths self-report their delinquency for five consecutive years.

·        In the new youth survey, 9,000 youth were surveyed in 1996; analysis of this new survey provides information about whether delinquent acts occur in combination with each other, whether delinquency in late adolescence is usually preceded by earlier involvement, and the involvement of racial and gender subgroups in breaking the law.

·        There is quite a bit of controversy over the characteristics of status offenders.  Some have argued that status offenders are a totally different group from other delinquents; others have argued that one status offense, truancy, can be the beginning of subsequent delinquent behavior.

·        Drug abuse by adolescents is considered a problem because it is itself illegal, it can pose a health risk, and it may be linked to other types of criminal activity.

·        To assess substance and alcohol use trends among youths, the Monitoring the Future research has sampled twelfth grade students since 1975 and eighth grade students since 1991.

·        Due to the increasing number of gangs and gang-related crime in recent years, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention has conducted a series of national surveys to determine various trends and patterns over time.  The first National Youth Gang Survey was conducted in 1995; there have been two subsequent annual gang surveys.

·        These gang surveys provide various information such as onset of gangs in various areas (e.g., large cities, suburbs, and small cities), regional comparisons on active gangs, and racial and gender makeup of various gangs.

·        In recent years, there has been an increase focus on serious and violent juvenile offenders.  Loeber and Farrington argued that some youth commit serious offenses but not violent offenses.  Thus, it is essential to identify and distinguish serious, violent, and chronic juvenile offenders.

CLASSROOM DISCUSSION:

1.      In planning delinquency prevention and treatment programs, how could you use information from official records, victimization surveys, and self-report studies.

2.      If you were interested in discovering trends in delinquency in your community during the next 10 years, what type of information would you want?  Explain why this information would be most helpful.

3.      Basing your answer on research findings, identify the groups of delinquents who appear to need special programs to control their lawbreaking behavior.