What is juvenile delinquency ?

Juvenile delinquency,refers primarily to social behaviour of juveniles that are defined and evaluated as deviant or anti social.To be precise legal definition of a "juvenile
delinquents" or "young offenders" are children between 12 and 17 years of age who were found to have violated criminal legislation and are therefore subject to punishments determined by juvenile court. Children under the age of 12 who commit anti social activities would be dealt under child protection legislation act.to be more defined , delinquency stretched beyond adult crimes specified in the Criminal Code to include sexual immorality or any similar form of crime , as well as cases of neglected, abused or uncontrollable children. The Act established the state as a sympathetic guardian which treated the juveniles as misguided children requiring special care and supervision.

The first group we talk about are from impoverished families :-Youth offenders brought up in impoverished families where they experience neglect,rejection and physical and emotional abuse and have poor educational backgrounds, few employment skills and minimal job prospect fall prey to delinquent behaviour. Once forced onto the streets by parents or due to poverty, these youths view their legitimate opportunities unapproachable leaving them detached from conventional society to become immersed in a lifestyle of drugs, alcohol and serious criminal behaviour.this is often seen with poor group of society.

• The second group is from the middle class in the society:- Children very often want to test the limits set by their parents .they consistently shownegative or problematic behaviour which may upset their family ,academic ,social andpersonal life .these kind of children cause great concern to parents, teachers and socity.
• The prevention of delinquent behaviour requires identification of individuals and their environments before delinquent activity and behavior takes place .we need to remove such risk factors or strengthen resistance to the risk factors that are already present. The most logical place to begin with, is the family and then the school if both co-operate each other we can check the delinquency in children The problem is that most parents of defiant, out of control children have tried very hard to regain control but have gotlittle or no success. And it's sometime seen that the harder we try, the more the child"acts-out"and rebel and sometimes in frustration they do worser crimes .now the question arises that how to bring about positive changes in our household and the environment we are providing to our child Because how much longer will we tolerate dishonesty and disrespect from our child ?How many more temper tantrums and arguments will we endure from our child ?

• We have already wasted a lot of time and energy trying to make our child change in our own way ? So first we must check and find out the answer to certain questions and try to have a professional approach to improve on our child.They are as such:-
• Is your family currently going through a crisis that may be having a traumatic impact on your child?
• Is your child in trying to over come everyone or display open hostility in the house ?
• Does he have an "attitude" 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?Is he/she defiant or disobedient, often ignoring the rules you have assigned to govern their behavior?
• Is he resentful about something that happened in the past and just can’t seem to get over it?Have you noticed extreme mood swings in your child lasting for prolonged periods of time?
• Are you tired of embarrassed with phone calls from school regarding your child's disruptive and wild behavior in class? or your child having difficulty at school with concentration, ability to complete assignments or adapting to new situations?
• Does your child display violent outbursts or threaten family members with physical violence?and try to hurt himself or someone else?.
• You are worried that your child may end up in juvenile detention someday?or May experiment with drugs or alcohol someday since is is trapped in bad friend circle?
• Is your child leaving home without permission, staying overnight with friends you don't know, or hanging out with undesirable friends?
• Is your child refusing to disclose the source of a mysterious income, or new belongings that are beyond his financial capabilities?
• Does your child often lose his temper argue with adults refuse to comply with rules and requests, deliberately annoy people and blame others for his mistakes and misbehavior?
• Is your child emotional touchy and easily annoyed by other gets angry resentful and spiteful?
• You also need to check upon your child and see had he lied to you often?or had he stolen money to fulfill his bad habits ?Or had he destroyed your property or possessions ?did he /she run away from home ? had he refused to follow discipline or refused to participate with others in the family or friends ? Been verbally & physically aggressive?And had temper tantrums that have no limits and are difficult to control?

Once you seek the answer to these problems it becomes a bit easy to understand your child and help him to come out of this anti social behaviour.It may be tough to do but not impossible never loose heart always put your effort to do your best ,you will succeed one day .

so our first step would be prevention and then follow it up with cures:-

• The prevention requires identifying the individual and it's environments(such as school home and friend circle ) before any step is taken .If your child is overtly defiant to elders or even young ones or his friends and is exhibiting aggressive behavior, then you have headed for a trouble. These are some common symptoms of the onset of Juvenile Delinquency.
• Early Detection of problem behaviors will help you to check juvenile delinquency before it goes too far.if your child is starting to indulge in delinquent activities seek professional help to avoid more serious problems arise.catch them young .
• Juvenile correctional institutions have been setup to help our society to cope with this behaviour, some have developed intensive rehabilitation programs, providing vocational training and psychiatric treatment. The parole system, foster homes, child guidance clinics, and public juvenile protective agencies have contributed to the correction of delinquent and mal adjusted children., delinquency rates are highest in the more economically and technologically advanced countries where frankly speaking parents from the real culprit as they may be divorced parents or in single families where both parents work and do not have time to check on their child's behaviour .( it is preferable if children live with their grand parents when their parents are out to work )