Causes of Juvenile Delinquency. A Literature Review

Research Paper (postgraduate) from the year 2015 in the subject Law - Criminal process, Criminology, Law Enforcement, grade: A, Northcentral University, course: Scholarly Literature Review, language: English, abstract: The causes of juvenile delinquency have being a field that many scholars have built their research on. In addition, causes leading to violent behavior especially among the youth has being widely studied aiming at intervention at an early stage (Schreck, Fisher, & Miller, 2012). In the vast field of psychology, human violence is a key element consequently; psychologists evaluate how the environment interacts with the individual to result in a violent act (Jessica, Osmond, & Ballick, 2014). Juvenile violence is a key issue in the corridors of justice on a global scale. However, juvenile violence focuses on the punishment rather than development of mechanisms that may be instrumental in prevention and intervention at early stage in life (Winterdyk, 2014). There are two outstanding themes in this literature review. First theme is that various life events and immediate environment including home, school, and neighborhood is essential in shaping ones trajectory as ones transit from childhood through adolescence to adulthood. The second theme is that identifying such life events is the determining factor of delinquent behavior. In summary, the pathway to crime for a child is greatly dependent on the social bonds that exist in the society.