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Triggers of Juvenile Crime and Delinquency

 

            Juvenile crime has always been so serious issue in many countries. In order to understand juvenile crime, it is important to understand who is juvenile. Juvenile is children or teenager in other words anyone who below the age of eighteen. Juvenile crime seems like innocent and harmless but it becomes more complicated and deadly in recent years than people's thought. According to statistics, juvenile crime arrest rate increased in the mid-2000s (ojjdp.gov) and juvenile delinquency is more than adult ones (nber.org). Although these rates decline in recent years, it is a still critical and universal problem for many countries (aic.gov.au). Generally, various article and study on juvenile delinquency may often focus on different reasons. There could be many reasons why juveniles commit crime but generally there are two main reasons which are psychological and family based. .
             First of all, the role of psychology are considered to be important aspect to explain why juvenile commit crime. The first theory to explain children delinquency is psychodynamic theory (Freud, 1890-1930). According to Freud, our unconcious mind determine our behavior. He talked about three distinct components which are id, ego and superego. Id shows primitive desires such as water, food and sex and superego represents moral and social values and ego balances two of them.These three components develop in early childhood (about 5 years). He stated that if there is an imbalance within three of them, the possibility of criminal behavior increase. In other words, weak or strong superego can increase tendency to crime in childhood. The second aspect about juvenile crime is personality traits. Referring to Costa and McCrae (1985), McIntosh (2012) states that Five Factor Model(FFM) explains that why juveniles commit crime. According to Costa and McCrae FFM describes five broad traits which are extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness and opennes to experience.


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