Ddd Essay, Research Paper

Juvenile delinquents

By: KT

Deloach 1 Juvenile Criminals This newest phenomenon in the world of crime

is perhaps the most dangerous challenge facing society and law enforcement

ever. They are younger, more brutal, and completely unafraid of the law.

Violent teenage criminals are increasingly vicious. Young people, often from

broken homes or so-called dysfunctional families, who commit murder, rape,

robbery, kidnapping, and other violent acts. These emotionally damaged

young people, often are the products of sexual or physical abuse. They live in

an aimless and violent present and have no sense of the past and no hope for

the future. These young criminals commit unspeakably brutal crimes against

other people, often to gratify whatever urges or desires drive them at the

moment and their utter lack of remorse is shocking (Worsham 1997). Studies

reveal that the major cause of violent crime is not poverty but family

breakdown; specifically, the absence of a father in the household. Today,

one-fourth of all the children in the United States are living in fatherless homes

which adds up to 19 million children without fathers. Compared to children in

two parent family homes, these children will be twice as likely to drop out of

school, twice as likely to have children out of wedlock, and they stand more

than three times the chance of ending up in poverty, and almost ten times

more likely to commit violent crime and ending up in jail (Easton 1995). The

Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, reported that the rise in

violent crime over the past 30 years runs directly parallel to the rise in

fatherless families. In every state in our country, according to the Heritage

foundation, the rate for juvenile crime is closely linked to the percentage of

children raised in single-parent families. While it has long been thought that

poverty is the primary cause of crime, the facts simply do not support this

view. Teenage criminal behavior has its roots in habitual deprivation of

parental love and affection going back to early infancy, according to the

Heritage Foundation. A father’s attention to his son has enormous positive

effects on a boy’s emotional and social development. Deloach 2 But a boy

abandoned by his father is deprived of a deep sense of personal security. In a

well-functioning family the very presence of the father embodies authority and

this paternal authority is critical to the prevention of psychopathology and

delinquency . “The overwhelming common factor that can be isolated in

determining whether young people will be criminal in their behavior is moral

poverty,” Parker says (Parker 1996). Psychologists can predict by the age of

6 who’ll be the super-predators. According to experts, child abuse and

parents addicted to alcohol ruins these children?s lives. Each generation of

crime-prone boys has been about three times as dangerous as the one before

it. Psychologists believe the downhill slide into utter moral bankruptcy is

about to speed up because each generation of youth criminals is growing up

in more extreme conditions of “moral poverty” than the one before it. Moral

poverty is defined as “growing up surrounded by deviant, delinquent, and

criminal adults in abusive, violence-ridden, fatherless, godless, and jobless

settings. The “super-predator” is a breed of criminal so dangerous that even

the older inmates working their way through life sentences complain that their

youthful counterparts are out of control. Super predators are raised in homes

void of loving, capable, responsible adults who teach you right from wrong. It

is the poverty of being without parents, guardians, relatives, friends, teachers,

coaches, clergy and others who habituate you to feel joy at others’ joy, pain

at others’ pain, happiness when you do right, remorse when you do wrong. It

is the poverty of growing up in the virtual absence of people who teach these

lessons by their own everyday example, and who insist that you follow suit

and behave accordingly (Zoglin 1996). ?The need to rebuild and resurrect the

civil society (families, churches, community groups) of high-crime,

drug-plagued urban neighborhoods is not an intellectual or research

hypothesis that requires testing. It’s a moral and social imperative that

requires doing – and doing now (Duin 1996).? A super predator is actually a

young psychopath or psychotic, almost completely without Deloach 3

ambition, and are often of below average intelligence. They do not recognize,

intellectually or otherwise, any rules of society. While psychopaths and the

super-predator both share the inability to feel emotion, the psychopath can

feign it to achieve a result. The super predator seems completely incapable of

even that. More interestingly, the super predator is remarkably candid. They

will more often than not admit not only to their crimes, but also as to the why.

They feel as if nothing wrong was done and would do it again if placed in the

same situation. When asked what was triggering the explosion of violence

among today’s young street criminals, a group of life-term New Jersey

prisoners did not voice the conventional explanations such as economic

poverty or joblessness. Instead, these hardened men cited the absence of

people – family, adults, teachers, preachers, coaches who would care enough

about young males to nurture and discipline them (Zoglin 1996). Even more

shocking than the sheer volume of violent juvenile crime is the brutality of the

crime committed for trivial motives: a pair of sneakers, a jacket, a real or

imagined insult, and a momentary cheap thrill. For example: a 59-year-old

man out on a morning stroll in Lake Tahoe was fatally shot four times by

teenagers “looking for someone to scare.” The police say the four teenagers,

just 15 and 16 years old, were “thrill shooting.” Another example can be the

case of a 12-year-old and two other youths were charged with kidnapping a

57-year-old man and taking a joy ride in his Toyota. As the man pleaded for

his life, the juveniles shot him to death (Duin 1996). Deloach 4 `Works Cited

1. Duin, Julia ?Alarm over crime puts focus on our nation’s moral crisis?., The

Washington Times, 11-17-1996, pp 31. 2. Easton, Nina J ?The Crime

Doctor Is In; But Not Everyone Likes Professor. JohnDiIulio’s Message,?

There Is No Big Fix; Home Edition., Los Angeles Times, 05-02-1995, pp

E-1. 3. Parker, Shafer, Violence With a Youthful Face.., Vol. 23, Alberta

Report /Western Report, 06-17-1996, pp 27. 4. Richard Zoglin Reported

By Sam Allis/Boston And Ratu Kamlani, ?New York, Crime: Now For the

Bad News: A Teenage Time Bomb ?, TIME, 01-15-1996, pp 52+. 5.

Worsham, James-Blakely, Stephen-al, et, Crime and Drugs., Vol. 85,

Nation’s Business, 02-01-1997, pp 24.

Bibliography

Deloach 4 `Works Cited 1. Duin, Julia ?Alarm over crime puts focus on our

nation’s moral crisis?., The Washington Times, 11-17-1996, pp 31. 2.

Easton, Nina J ?The Crime Doctor Is In; But Not Everyone Likes Professor.

JohnDiIulio’s Message,? There Is No Big Fix; Home Edition., Los Angeles

Times, 05-02-1995, pp E-1. 3. Parker, Shafer, Violence With a Youthful

Face.., Vol. 23, Alberta Report /Western Report, 06-17-1996, pp 27. 4.

Richard Zoglin Reported By Sam Allis/Boston And Ratu Kamlani, ?New

York, Crime: Now For the Bad News: A Teenage Time Bomb ?, TIME,

01-15-1996, pp 52+. 5. Worsham, James-Blakely, Stephen-al, et, Crime

and Drugs., Vol. 85, Nation’s Business, 02-01-1997, pp 24.