Juvenile Crime One of the biggest problems which the United States is faced with isjuvenile crime. The reason experts feel juvenile’s commit crimes is because ofrisk factors when they were younger but experts still have not found the mainreason why juvenile’s commit crimes. Some risk factors associated with juvenilecrime are poverty, repeated exposure to violence, drugs, easy access to firearms,unstable family life and family violence, delinquent peer groups, and mediaviolence. Especially the demise of family life, the effect of the media on thejuveniles today, and the increase of firearms available today have played a bigrole in the increase of juveniles crimes. The most common risk factor is the demise of the family life and theincrease in family violence.
Between 1976 and 1992 the number of juvenilesliving in poverty grew 42% and this caused an increase in crimes by juveniles. Many of these juvenile criminals have been abused or neglected and they alsogrew up in a single-parent household. Research has found that 53% of thesechildren are more likely to be arrested, and 38% more likely to commit a violentcrime as an adult, then their counterparts who did not suffer such abuse. Thesymptoms of child abuse are high levels of aggression and antisocial behaviorand these children are twice as likely to become juvenile offenders.
Alsoimproper parental care has been linked to delinquency such as mothers who drinkalcohol or take drugs during pregnancy cause their babies to grow up withlearning disorders, a problem which leads them to be juvenile criminals. Another risk factor is the effect of the media on the juveniles of today. Before the time a child has reached seventh grade, the average child haswitnessed 8,000 murders and 100,000 acts of violence on the television. Thereis no doubt that heavy exposure to televised violence is one of the causes ofaggressive behavior, crime and violence in society. Television violence affectsyoungsters of all ages, of both genders, at all economic levels, and all levelsof intelligence. Long-term childhood exposure to television is a casual factorbehind one half of the homicides committed by juveniles in the United States.
The increased availability of guns has played a big part in escalatingthe number of crimes committed by juveniles. In Los Angeles juveniledelinquency cases involving weapon violation grew by 86% from 1988 to 1992,which was more then any other type of juvenile offense. According to aUniversity of Michigan study found that 270,000 guns accompany secondary schoolstudents to class daily. This is startling because it shows how many morejuveniles are carrying guns and the juvenile use of guns in homicides hasincreased from 65 to 80 percent from 1987 to 1991. The possession of firearms plays a big cause in the delinquency ofchildren and is playing a bigger role in the crimes which juveniles commit. Another cause of the increase of juvenile crimes has been the effect of childrenseeing multiple murders and other acts of violence on the television.
Finallythe demise of the family life and the increase in family violence has been thebiggest factor in the increase of juvenile crime.
