Getting Started

1. Getting Started

2. You might be a juvenile delinquent if… Before you became an adult, did you ever… • Smoke cigarettes? • 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 pornography?

3. You might be a juvenile delinquent if… • Purchase pornography? • Skip school? • Cheat in school? • Run away from home? • Take money from a parent without telling them? • Eat food on a subway? • Use curse or swear words? • Stay out too late? • Talk back to or defy your parents? • Hit, threaten, or become subordinate 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. Why aren’t most kids called delinquents? • General truths about juvenile status offenses: • “Normal Behavior” is often a status offense if you are in a bad situation, wrong place, or fit some profile • All kids are potentially juvenile delinquents • Until the latter part of the 20th century, states treated status offenders and juvenile criminals alike • We run the risk of creating more problems for status offenders if we treat them like criminals.

6. Why aren’t most kids called delinquents? • General truths about juvenile crime: • Criminal Behavior Peaks around Age 19-20. • 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 • Most will commit fewer crimes as they age, this is called “Aging Out”—even with no sanctions, most will stop committing crimes • 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 criminals like criminals.

7. Why aren’t most kids called delinquents? Group Work—Expecting High Juvenile Crime • We often ask why juveniles commit crimes or break rules, as if we are shocked and surprised when we see it. • However, shouldn’t we expect juveniles to commit crimes or break rules? Group discussion: Briefly provide three reasons that juveniles ought to be more involved in crime and rule violations than older persons? Choose a group spokesperson to present your ideas to the class—nothing needs to be turned in.

8. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency • We should expect a lot of juvenile delinquency in the US for structural reasons as well. • Linked to Juvenile Delinquency: • Guns • Poverty • Family Problems • Urban Decay • Inadequate Education • The US has a high concentration of these things for its youth.

9. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency Some rough numbers to consider: • Guns: Firearms killed 3,365 children age 19 and under in 1999—that's nearly 9 children every day. Of these, 1,990 were murdered, 1,078 committed suicide, and 214 were victims of accidental shootings.

10. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency Some rough numbers to consider: • Poverty (Less than $19,000/year for a family of four): • 17% of all children live below the poverty line (22% in Alabama)…Compare with 11% of senior citizens • Affordable and quality child care is out of reach, and for many working families, it is barely affordable. • 1 in 7 children younger than 18 have no health insurance.

11. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency Some rough numbers to consider: • Family Problems: • 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, we still have the highest teen pregnancy and birth rates among western industrialized nations—currently 27/1,000 births per female 15 – 17 (36 in Alabama). • 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.

12. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency Some rough numbers to consider: • Urban Decay: • The 1980s saw a divestment from urban areas, we were recovering in the 1990s, but are now divesting again • Opportunities for criminal involvement are greater in “run down” areas. • Economic deprivation, increased homicide, more wrecked lives from poverty and/or dependence, homelessness lead to less direction, more despair, and greater ambivalence toward norms

13. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency Some rough numbers to consider: • Inadequate Education: • Full-day child care easily costs $4,000 to $10,000/year (prohibitive for many) • Education is the “success filter” in American society • Poor and/or minority children attend significantly worse schools • American K-12 educational achievement lags many industrialized countries • 10% High school drop-out rate for current students (11% Alabama)

14. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency 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, May, 2001 • Among 25 industrialized countries, the United States ranks: • First in military technology • First in Gross Domestic Product • First in the number of millionaires and billionaires • First in health technology • First in military exports • First in defense spending • 10th in eighth-grade science scores • 11th in the proportion of children living in poverty • 16th in living standards among the poorest one-fifth of children • 16th in efforts to lift children out of poverty • 17th in rates of low birth weight births • 18th in the income gap between rich and poor children • 21st in eighth-grade math scores • 22nd in infant mortality • Last in protecting our children against gun violence

15. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. children under age 15 are: • 12 times more likely to die from gunfire • 16 times more likely to be murdered by a gun • 11 times more likely to commit suicide with a gun • Nine times more likely to die in a firearm accident • than children in 25 other industrialized countries combined. Source:  The State of America's Children Yearbook 2001.

16. US Factors Contributing to Delinquency • The State of America's Children Yearbook 2001 25 Key Facts About American Children • 1 in 2 will live in a single parent family at some point in childhood. • 1 in 3 is born to unmarried parents. • 1 in 3 will be poor at some point in their childhood. • 1 in 3 is behind a year or more in school. • 1 in 4 lives with only one parent. • 2 in 5 never complete a single year of college. • 1 in 5 was born poor. • 1 in 5 is born to a mother who did not graduate from high school. • 1 in 5 has a foreign-born mother. • 3 in 5 preschoolers have their mother in the labor force. • 1 in 6 is poor now. • 1 in 6 is born to a mother who did not receive prenatal care in the first three months of pregnancy. • 1 in 7 has no health insurance. • 1 in 7 has a worker in their family but still is poor. • 1 in 8 lives in a family receiving food stamps. • 1 in 8 never graduates from high school. • 1 in 8 is born to a teenage mother. • 1 in 12 has a disability. • 1 in 13 was born with low birthweight. • 1 in 15 lives at less than half the poverty level. • 1 in 24 lives with neither parent. • 1 in 26 is born to a mother who received late or no prenatal care. • 1 in 60 sees their parents divorce in any year. • 1 in 139 will die before their first birthday. • 1 in 1,056 will be killed by guns before age 20.