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Getting Started

Getting Started. You might be a juvenile delinquent if…. Before you became an adult, did you ever? Smoke Cigarettes or use any other tobacco product such as snuff or chew Drive a car without a license Purchase alcohol Consume alcohol Use a false ID

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Getting Started

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  1. Getting Started

  2. You might be a juvenile delinquent if… Before you became an adult, did you ever? • Smoke Cigarettes or use any other tobacco product such as snuff or chew • Drive a car without a license • Purchase alcohol • Consume alcohol • Use a false ID • Use any regulated legal drug without a prescription • Have sex…including any sexual behavior • Use or purchase pornography • Skip school • Cheat in school

  3. You might be a juvenile delinquent if… • Run away from home • Take money from a parent without telling them • Eat food on a subway • Use curse or swear words • Open your Christmas present early • Stay out too late • Talk back to or defy your parents • Hit, threaten, or become insubordinate with a teacher • Take a knife, gun or other weapon such as nail clippers to school • Wear disapproved of clothing to school • Drive your parents’ car while it contained alcohol

  4. Why aren’t most kids called delinquents? • All of the above could get you sent to juvenile detention. Why weren’t you sent to juvy? • Social structures, circumstances and luck—not behavior—are the greatest determinants of whether a person “becomes” delinquent

  5. Status Offenses vs. Crimes Kids have more “opportunities” to get into trouble because “status offenses” can get them into trouble. Examples: Status OffenseCrime Skipping School Battery of Teacher Smoking Cigarettes Smoking Weed

  6. General truths about juvenile status offenses: • All kids are potentially juvenile delinquents • “Normal Behavior” is often a status offense if you are in a bad situation, wrong place, or fit some profile • If you define a situation as real, it is real in its consequences. … A so-called bad kid will be arrested for normal behaviors. • Until the latter part of the 20th century, states treated status offenders and juvenile criminals alike • However, we run the risk of creating more problems for status offenders if we treat them like criminals.

  7. General truths about juvenile crime: • Criminal Behavior Peaks around Age 19-20. • Kids are more likely to commit crimes as they age into adolescence. • Most offenders will commit fewer crimes as they transition to adulthood, this is called “Aging Out”—even with no sanctions, most will stop committing crimes • Juveniles commit a disproportionate number of crimes (rate for age group) but not more crimes than adults • In many ways, crime is a problem that hits juveniles hardest—as victims • The majority of juvenile crime events, however, are by a small proportion of kids • We run the risk of creating more problems if treat all juvenile criminals like criminals.

  8. Most kids could be called “delinquents.” Group Work—Expect Juvenile Crime and Status Offenses • We often ask why juveniles commit crimes or break rules—as if we are shocked and surprised when we see that. • But shouldn’t we expect kids to break the rules more than adults? Group discussion: Briefly provide three (3) reasons that it makes sense for juveniles to be more involved in crime and rule violations than older persons. Provide common sense reasons for why parents, teachers, and others should expect kids to get into trouble, and why they should not think that getting into trouble is an indicator that they will live lives of crime. Choose a group spokesperson to present your ideas to the class—you must turn in a paper for your group (or you may turn in your own paper individually).

  9. Most kids could be called “delinquents.” Our job is not to: • Understand what differentiates kids who break rules from those who do not Our job: • Understand processes that lead some kids to break rules far more than others • Understand why delinquency severity differs by groups • Understand why some kids “become” delinquent while others do not

  10. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States • We should expect a lot of juvenile delinquency in the US compared with other places because of our “American ways.” • Linked to Juvenile Delinquency: • Guns • Poverty • Few Family Resources • Urban Neglect • Inadequate Education • US youths face these issues more often than those in other high-income countries.

  11. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Some rough numbers to consider: • Guns: • Firearm deaths of children and teens have dropped from 15 a day in the peak year of 1994 to nearly eight a day in 2004. Since 1979 gun violence has snuffed out the lives of 101,413 children and teens in America. 2007 Gun Deaths of Children and Teens by Age and Manner • California Gun Deaths: 2002: 406 2003: 429 2004: 468 2007: 431 Source:http://www.childrensdefense.org/ • A gun in the home increases the risk of homicide of a household member by 3 times and the risk of suicide by 5 times compared to homes where no gun is present. Source: Kellerman AL, Rivara FP, Somes G, et al. "Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership." NEJM. 1992; 327(7):467-474682)

  12. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States

  13. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Some rough numbers to consider: • Poverty (Less than $22,350/year for a family of four): • 21% of all children live below the poverty line (18% in California)…Compare with 9% of senior citizens • Affordable and quality child care is out of reach, and for many working families, it is barely affordable. • 11.5% of children younger than 18 have no health insurance (13.3% CA)… Compare with almost all senior citizens who do www.rwjf.org/files/newsroom/ckfresearchreportfinal.pdf

  14. Poverty (Less than $20,000/year for a family of four):

  15. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Some rough numbers to consider: • Few Family Resources: • Divorce affects about half of all marriages • Children in single-parent households are more poor and more delinquent, and half of all children will live part of their childhood with one parent • There has been a slow, steady decline in overall teen birth rates in the United States since the 1950s, (-33% since 1991 alone) but we still have the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates among western industrialized nations—currently 41.5/1,000 females 15 – 19 (38.4 in California). • Around a million confirmed victims of maltreatment (including physical abuse, neglect, medical neglect, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and other abuses) each year. • Three-quarters of the perpetrators of child maltreatment were parents, and an additional tenth were other relatives.

  16. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Urban Neglect: • Cities are more expensive to maintain per square foot • Cities often house poor people, powerful corporations with tax breaks, and tax-exempt entities that suppress the tax base such as museums and churches • The 1980s saw a divestment from urban areas, we were recovering in the 1990s, but are now divesting again because of recession and adherence to low-tax government (such as closing community centers, libraries, reduced police services) • Opportunities for criminal involvement are greater in “run down” areas, as is ability of criminals to “hang out or live for free” • Economic deprivation, increased homicide, more wrecked lives from poverty and/or dependence, homelessness lead to less direction, more despair, more frustration that becomes anger and greater ambivalence toward norms

  17. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Some rough numbers to consider: • Inadequate Education: • Full-day child care easily costs $5,000 to $15,000/year (prohibitive for many) • Education is the “success filter” in American society, but disadvantaged (poor or minority) children attend significantly worse schools • American K-12 educational achievement lags many industrialized countries • Lower funded schools “drag us down” • 74.9 % of high school freshmen will graduate in the US (71.2% in California)

  18. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States Some would argue that Americans wage a war on its children. We do not lack wealth, but our children are worse off than those in most other developed countries. • Where America Stands, August 2004 • Among 25 industrialized countries, the United States ranks: • First in military technology • First in military exports • First in Gross Domestic Product • First in the number of millionaires and billionaires • First in health technology • First in defense spending • 12th in living standards among the poorest one-fifth of children • 13th in the gap between rich and poor • 14th in efforts to lift children out of poverty • 16th in low-birthweight rates • 18th in the percent of children in poverty • 23rd in infant mortality • Last in protecting our children against gun violence

  19. Factors Contributing to Delinquency in the United States • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. children under age 15 are: • 9 times more likely to die in a firearm accident • 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun • 12 times more likely to die from gunfire • 16 times more likely to be murdered with a gun • than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined.

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