A Walk Down Criminal Lane

            

          I remember a few years ago when I sat on my couch and watched the evening news. I listened to many stories dealing with our president, sports, and political issues. A big sports story took over the news that evening. The Boston Bruins had won the Stanley Cup. Short clips of the final game between the Bruins and the Canucks were shown almost every five minutes, as well as some videos of Bruins fans celebrating along the streets of the Boston Garden. The Stanley Cup Champions did not catch my attention. What did catch my attention was a story about another murder that occurred in the state of Florida. A two-year-old boy was found brutality murdered in his home. A few weeks later after hearing about this crime, big red letters appeared on my television screen that read “Breaking News”. Surprisingly enough, the breaking news had to deal with the murder of the two-year-old boy. The Jacksonville police had found the suspect related to the case, and it was a 12-year-old boy.

       In the United States, crime has been on an upward trend for several years. One of the causes of the increasing crime rate in recent years is juvenile delinquency. In most states, a juvenile is any person under the age of 18. Juvenile delinquency is a violation of the law committed by a juvenile. Since 2011, crimes committed by juveniles are still continuously happening because there were 202 arrests for Violent Crime Index offenses forevery 100,000 youth between 10 and 17 years of age. Clearly, this is not a new phenomenon. It is an issue that affects all of us.

The effects of this issue are very impactful to many individuals. Most detrimental, however, is to the juvenile himself. Instead of spending his juvenile years with his classmates in an educational setting, he may end up spending the majority of his time behind bars. In prison, the juvenile may be subjected to individuals and circumstances that no juvenile should be exposed to: illicit drugs, sex, and other atrocities are part of prison culture. Educational opportunities and support systems may be limited or nonexistent. If a juvenile begins his life of multiple crimes at a young age, he may end up spending the majority of his life behind bars. It only takes three felonies to receive a life sentence.

 In addition to the prison culture, a juvenile’s life after prison can be very unpredictable. The juvenile may not be welcomed back by his family. With limited education while behind bars, the juvenile may have to struggle to get a GED diploma and employment. College is only a dream that starts at a young age. The only work that a juvenile with a criminal record can hope to get is low paying unskilled jobs. As the juvenile encounters some of his former classmates, he will see the missed opportunities that his life of crimes has caused. Perhaps depression will set in and he may choose to pacify these feelings with alcohol and drugs. This vicious cycle will continue to follow him down criminal lane.

Not only does this issue affect the juvenile, but it also impacts the entire family as well. As the family attempts to help their juvenile through the legal proceedings, they will incur financial burden for lawyers and numerous legal proceedings. Chances are that the family may be short of cash already and this will only add to their stress. Conflicts will develop between the parents and other siblings. For example, one parent may blame the other parent for the juvenile's behavior or a sibling may get involved with gangs, alcohol or drugs in order to cope with the stress. A negative family environment will only get worse by a juvenile’s negative behavior that causes him to get into trouble with the law.

            The emotional repercussions of the juvenile's behavior will impact the entire family. The shame and embarrassment that the juvenile has caused the family unit will not go unnoticed. Depending on the severity of the crime, the media may be involved as well. We have all seen the local news where the news reporter with cameras rolling knocks on the door of a family for comments. The family with all their hardship will be exposed on the evening news. All of these issues will only add more emotional distress on a family unit that has been already broken.           

          An important cause of juvenile delinquency is a juvenile’s family environment. It is important to examine how a juvenile was raised throughout his or her childhood. If a juvenile’s parent or sibling is a part of criminal activity, more than likely the juvenile will participate in criminal activity as well. If the family or a parent fails to teach a juvenile how to treat others, respect one another, or to stop bad behaviors, the juvenile will not have the proper disciple to steer away from criminal activity. According to Anika Doggett, who attends Elon University, The lack of emphasis on the role of fathering in childhood conduct problems is especially unfortunate given that there are several reasons why fathers can be expected to be particularly significant. Living in a single-parent home is usually difficult on a child. Typically, the mother will have full custody of the children because their father had abandoned them or does not have visitation rights. Sometimes, it is important for a father to be there for his child because he can help with discipline and to steer his child in the right direction away from criminal activities. Within a single-parent household, not monitoring a child is common. A single-parent may have multiple children, which makes it difficult to monitor all the children. As Ms. Doggett explains, a lack of monitoring is reflected in the parent often not knowing where the child is, whom the child is with, what the child is doing or when the child will be home. It is important for parents to know who their children are with and what they are doing at all times.

            Not only is the family environment a cause for juvenile delinquency, but gang involvement at a young age is also a contributor to this problem. Gangs have had an active criminal role in our nation for many years. Social media influences gang behavior and young juveniles will have the idea to create their own gang. I have witnessed this situation with my own eyes a few years ago. One of my closest friends in high school had some trouble fitting in with people in school. He figured that being involved in a gang would increase his popularity, but in fact it did not. My friend got in trouble many times and is currently spending eight years in prison because of the foolish crimes he committed. For example, he robbed two convenient stores and in one of the robberies he shot the manager because she was not putting money in the bag fast enough. Furthermore, it is important to view statistics dealing with the gang population and its impact on the crime rate. As stated by the FBI, gangs are responsible for an average of 48 percent of violent crime in most jurisdictions, and up to 90 percent in others. There are about 24,500 gangs all together in the United States. Local communities across the nation consist of 900,000 gang members. These statistics portray only the amount of gangs and gang members in the United States. Within these gangs, 40% are juveniles and 60% are adults, orabout 400,000 teenage gang members and 600,000 adult gang members. If the gang population keeps growing, juveniles will have more opportunities to participate in criminal activities. Michael Schumacher and Gwen Kurtz, the authors of the book The 8% Solution : Preventing Serious, Repeat Juvenile Crime explained, gang membership has been shown to be related to higher levels of delinquent and criminal behavior , particularly serious and violent offending.

            Juvenile delinquency became such a problem because of family influences and the increasing numbers of the gang population. If a juvenile is exposed to poor treatment by his or her family or hangs out with friends that participate in gang affiliated activities, the juvenile will start involving their selves in criminal life at a young age. Juvenile delinquency needs to be solved because children and teenagers do not need to be exposed to criminal activity. They all deserve to live a life where crime does not interfere with the freedom that they have. If juvenile delinquency is ignored, there will be consequences that we as a nation will have to face. Individuals within a community will have to live in fear and question their own safety, as well as their families. Poverty may continue to grow throughout the United States as well. Furthermore, the economy will continue to suffer because the government will have to supply money to all correctional facilities to house these delinquents in juvenile hall. This problem needs to be stopped and solved before it becomes worse than what it already is. 

            What can be done to curb this ever increasing trend in our society today? The answer to this question is simple: We – yes, all of us – need to take an active role in helping to solve this issue. A society encompasses all of its components: children, parents, teachers, preachers, police, lawyers, and government. Most importantly, parents need to take back responsibility for the upbringing of their children. From an early age, they need to teach their children the difference between right and wrong, yes and no, and the consequences associated with negative behaviors. In other words, parents need to uphold and follow through with parenting responsibilities. For too long now, parents have “shied away” from their responsibilities and have let the teachers, preachers and the police teach discipline to the children in our society. It is, therefore, all of our responsibility to work together to help solve our juvenile delinquency crisis.

            The best solution that will have the most positive impact is for all elementary, middle and high schools nation-wide to provide additional after school programs that are intriguing and interesting. If schools were to provide a wide variety of activities within these after school programs, there will be more participation from children and teens. More of our young people will get involved with these interesting programs and, therefore, will have less leisure time to hang out with bad influences. The result will be a decrease in the extent of criminal activity committed by our young citizens. Heather Ellis, the author of “Editor's Introduction: Juvenile Delinquency, Modernity, and the State” said, traditional historical analysis often vindicated the state as the "destroyer" of juvenile crime and represented delinquency as a readily identifiable set of behaviors or a concrete social problem. Heather Ellis basically described juvenile delinquency as being a social problem that involves negative behaviors, but with these after school programs, they will reflect positive influences and behaviors on children and teen participants. Not only will the after school programs have a positive influence, but they will also have activities such as sports, art and music, which will be most enjoyable to the participants involved with the programs. If a child or teenager is going through a difficult time at home, after school programs will help them relieve negative thoughts or feelings that they may face at home. The counselors that are supervising the activities can be a resource for the children and teens to use if they need to talk or report a problem that they are facing in their household. The counselors can be mentors for these young citizens.

          Some would argue that it would be too costly for schools to provide more after school programs. The cost may be an issue, but if schools can provide a lot of money towards a football team, baseball team, or soccer team, there should be money provided also for an after school program that will have a positive impact on children, teenagers, and society. Some parents will be against this idea because it may cost them too much for their child to participate in a program that is only for a few hours after a regular school day five days a week. It is important for these parents to realize that if their children join an after school program, they will be less likely to get involved in criminal activities. Lastly, there may also be concerns about how a child will return home since it will be after school hours. The school will be able to provide a bus that will take them home or there is also the car pool method.

     Since we are all part of society and we all live in the United States of America, it is our duty to help ensure that our young citizens are taught the right principles and values. Yes, there are other ways to help this issue such as: restricting children and teens from playing violent video games or watching gruesome and violent movies on the television, but after school programs is the best solution. The juvenile delinquency issue will be solved if after school programs become a part of every middle school and high school throughout the nation. Now is the time to start making a positive difference in children and teens lives across the United States.

Video

"Choices & Consequences: Juvenile Delinquency Prevention (Clip)" by InTheMixPBS, was published in Youtube on August 8, 2012. This video is a documentary that talks about consequences that can happen to teenagers who commit serious offenses in New York. Three men were on this documentary to talk about the crimes they have committed when they were teenagers. Judge Sheryl Parker also spoke about what kinds of crime she sees the most with juvenile offenders. I chose this video because I learned about how the laws in New York are enforced on juveniles. Since, this documentary included people who have committed crimes as teenagers and spoke about their criminal experiences, I learned more about the different causes of juvenile delinquency. Lastly, it was interesting to hear about what Judge Sheryl Parker encounters on a daily basis in a courtroom.