I have read this research study about delinquency. According to this article, there are two types of delinquencies. They are classified into two categories, overt and covert delinquency. Overt delinquency refers to violent offences such as attacking someone with or without a weapon, threatening, murder, and rape. Covert delinquency refers to non-aggressive acts such as shoplifting; pick pocketing, arson, vandalism and selling drugs. Overt aggressive and more serious offences are more common in early delinquents. They are characterized by problems more from their childhood. There has been a study that shown the link between father and mother parenting to adolescent’s delinquency may differ for several reasons. The quantity of time the parents spend with their children is an important factor in their lives and also there are indications that parental involvement is also based on qualitatively different how a child will grow up later on. Covert non-aggressive delinquency on the other hand is found more often in non-persistent adolescent delinquents who have relatively normal backgrounds. In this research they have mentioned about the gender, that males are more involved in delinquent behaviors than female are. The reason for this is because males may be more vulnerable to risk factors for delinquency such as inadequate parenting than females. As mentioned before, it is important on the quantity and qualitatively of time the parents spend time with their children from the beginning of their childhood, it all depends on them. Also, it has been said that the longer antisocial fathers live with their families, the higher the risk for their children’s antisocial behavior and also a possibility that children have the tendency to model the behavior of the parent with the same sex. It is important for parents to talk to their children and have a good relationship with them in order to prevent delinquency later on because it all begins at an early age.
I absolutely agree with what was said in this post, but I would like to add just a tad bit more information to what was already said. Now I know the parental focus on the upbringing of children is paramount, but I don’t this is the only reason why children fall victim to outside influences. Parents can only to do so much to steer their children in the right direction, but if their respective schools don’t further cement the values that children’s parents represent then these same children have a possibility of committing crimes. Schools don’t discipline children enough or as much as they used to. My family is from the West Indies and discipline was a part of an every day routine for myself and my siblings. My parents made sure that I didn’t head down the wrong path, but the several schools I attended also consistently displayed the consequences to actions that I may have thought about doing at the time. If schools these days continued to discipline children and focused on helping kids build for the future instead of simply “passing” them through, the rate of children committed would definitely deplete. I’m not discounting the fact that many parents are horrible at disciplining their children, but schools have to do a better job of disciplining as well. I do agree that if children are neglected in their household that there is an increased possibility they will look for other sources of “entertainment” to satisfy their constant need of love and affection, but I don’t agree with this having a direct correlation to many of the crimes that are committed in this present day. Once children know the distinction between right and wrong, they are liable for any wrong-doings that they commit. Overall, this was a pretty good article which provided me with information that I was unaware of before reading it.