Group 2

THE PRIMARY AND

COTRIBUTORY CAUSAL
FACTORS OF DELINQUENCY
THE PRIMARY AND COTRIBUTORY CAUSAL
FACTORS OF DELINQUENCY

 ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS TO DELINQUENCY

Over the years, criminologists have put forth a wide variety of
motives for what causes crime. People who deal with young
people cite the following root conditions: poverty, family
factors, the environment, media influence, and declining social
morality. These will be taken up in order:
 Families, peers, schools, and socioeconomic status are all
social factors that are examined in many of the causal
theories. Demographics and the relationships one has in
society are also examined in some of the explanatory
theories. Families are important to consider when we
explain juvenile delinquency. The family unit is crucial to a
child's development and healthy upbringing. In addition,
much of what a child learns is through their family or
guardians.
A criminal parent can teach their child adverse lessons about
life when their child views or witnesses their parent's
delinquent behavior. Peers can also teach an adolescent or
child criminal behavior just as the family member can. Family
members and peers can also cause delinquent patterns of
behavior by labeling their child as delinquent. This is
somewhat of the "if the shoe fits, wear it" saying. If a child
feels as though they are viewed as delinquent, then they will
act as such and find a sense of self-esteem by doing so.
Even though the family and peers (as well as the
school) can influence a juvenile to participate in
crime, the decision still rests on their shoulders. Some
theorists argue that participation in crime is a
rational choice and that the rewards and
consequences are carefully calculated out by the
individual. The choice to commit a crime can by
influenced by many factors, including the ones that I
outlined here.
However, if a juvenile has many ties or bonds to
members in society, they are less likely to make the
choice to commit a crime for fear of ridicule,
embarrassment, or scorn from those they associate with.
The demographic characteristics of a person's living
environment can also be a contributing factor to criminal
patterns of behavior. Adverse living conditions and a
crime-prone neighborhood can lead to criminal activity.
There are also various structural theories that can put
juvenile delinquency in a context of better understanding.
In order to simplify the environmental sources of
delinquency, the following are considered:
1. FAMILY BACKGROUND
Family Factors - One of the most reliable indicators of
juvenile crime is the proportion of fatherless children.
The primary role of fathers in our society is to provide
economic stability, act as role models, and alleviate the
stress of mothers. Marriage has historically been the
great civilizer of male populations, channeling
predatory instincts into provider/protector impulses.
 Economically, marriage has always been the best way to multiply
capital, with the assumption being that girls from poorer families
better themselves by marrying upward. Then, of course, there are all
those values of love, honor, cherish, and obey encapsulated in the
marriage tradition. Probably the most important thing that families
impart to children is the emphasis upon individual accountability and
responsibility in the forms of honesty, commitment, loyalty, respect
and work ethic.
 Most of the broken home literature, for example, shows only weak or
trivial effects, like skipping school or home delinquency. Another
area, the desistance literature, shows only that children from two-
parent families age-out of crime earlier.
In fact, there is more evidence supportive of the
hypothesis that a stepparent in the home increases
delinquency, or that abuse and neglect in fully-intact
families lead to a cycle of violence. To complicate
matters, there are significant gender, race, and SES
interaction effects. Females from broken homes commit
certain offenses while males from broken homes
commit other kinds of offenses. Few conclusions can be
reached about African American males, but tentative
evidence suggests stepparenting can be of benefit to
them.
SES differences actually show that the broken home is
less important in producing delinquency among lower-
class youth than youth from higher social classes. Most
research results are mixed, and no clear causal family
factors have emerged to explain the correlation between
fatherlessness and crime, but it is certainly unfair to
blame single mothers, their parenting skills, or their
economic condition for what are obviously more
complex social problems.
2. The Home - The family or the home is one of the most
influential environmental factors that would lead a
 person to either a law abiding or a criminal. It is said that the
home is considered as the “cradle of human personality” for in
it the child forms fundamental attitudes and habits that endure
throughout his life.
 The kind of conscience the child develops depends largely
upon the kind of parents he has. The parents are the most
influential persons in the family when they give love,
attention, guidance, security, standards and all other things that
the child needs, the children are the mirror of the home for
they reflect what the home look like.
Thus a child who was provided with love, attention,
guidance, security, standards and all other things he
needs comes to regard people as friendly,
understanding, dependable, loyal, and worthy of his
respect and admiration. On the other hand, if he
experienced cold, despairing, rejecting, neglectful,
and cruel environment in the home, most likely he
will learn to distrust, disobey, dislike and even to hate
people (Tradio, 1983).
 Given a home, the child tends to become law abiding if the
following conditions are met:
1. The Child is loved and wanted and knows it.
2. He was helped to grow up by not having too much or too
little done for him.
3. He is part of the family; he has fun with the family he
belongs.
4. His early mistakes and badness are understood as a normal
part of growing and he is corrected without being hurt, shamed
or confused.
5. His growing skills are enjoyed and
respected.
6. He feels his parents care as much about as
they do to his sisters and brothers.
7. The family sticks together with
understanding and cooperation.
8. He is moderately and consistency
disciplined.
The family is the primary institution that molds a child to either a law-
abiding person or a delinquent. The effects of pathological social
relations in the home are to a great extent influence anti- social
behaviors. This means that the home can be a potent force of either
good or evil.
THE BROADER SOCIAL PROCESS
1. The Environment - Unless we are willing to believe that testosterone
(a male stimulation-seeking hormone) causes crime, the only feasible
explanations left are environmental ones. The heredity-environment
debate in explaining juvenile crime is shaped by divided opinions about
what factors are really important: genetic tendencies, birth
complications, and brain chemicals, on one side; and being a victim of
abuse, witnessing domestic battering, and learned behaviors, on the
other side.
The idea that all behavior is learned behavior is associated with
environmental explanations. Sure, everyone has a potential for violence,
but we learn how to do it (in all its different forms) from observing
others do it. In fact, most of us are suckers for observing violence,
glamorizing it to the point where we like more and different forms of it
everyday, in the news, on TV shows, in action movies. So when you're
talking about reducing the need to see violence on TV, you're really
talking biology or psychology. The study of environmental factors, on
the other hand, is concerned primarily with social considerations. While
violence may be part of everyone's behavioral repertoire, the
temptations (triggers, cues) to do it are embedded (lodged, locked,
firmly put in place) with social networks (relationships and situations)
that more or less make this kind of behavior seem acceptable at the
moment.
The unfortunate truth is that, in many places, there are a growing
number of irresistible temptations and opportunities for juveniles to use
violence. Brute, coercive force has become an acceptable substitute,
even a preferred substitute, for ways to resolve conflicts and satisfy
needs. Think of it as the schoolyard bully who says "Meet me in the
parking lot at 4:30". Under circumstances like these, the peer pressure
and reward systems are so arranged that fighting seems like the only
way out.
Now think for a moment about the crucial importance of peer groups:
whether there are people who would respect you for standing up to
fight, or whether there are people important to you that would definitely
not approve of your fighting. What environmental learning theorists are
saying is that there are fewer and fewer friends available to help you see
the error of your ways in deciding to fight.
Most of the recent research in this area revolves around
"neighborhood" factors, such as the presence of gangs, illicit drug
networks, high levels of transiency, lack of informal supports, etc.
Gang-infested neighborhoods, in particular, have no effective
means of providing informal supports that would help in resisting
the temptations to commit crime. Such neighborhoods would
more likely have an informal encouragement policy, with five or
more places where you could buy a gun and drugs available to
give you the courage to use the gun. Firearms- and drugrelated
homicides have increased over 150% in recent years, and the
clearest drug-violence connection is for selling drugs because
illicit drug distribution networks are extremely violent.
In such neighborhoods, families, school authorities, and even
community organizations are often incapable of providing any
protection for children. There are no peer-level social supports to
reinforce the conventional lifestyles that these agencies want their
children to emulate. The reality of street life, its illicit economy, and
quick and easy pathways to success and prestige through violence
and crime all offer rewards that offset the risks associated with these
activities. And, even if a child experiences the risks of street life
firsthand, like by getting shot or stabbed, this only reinforces the
child's desire for more exposure to the learning of street life, to do
better next time by listening more closely to delinquent peers and
not to the advice of legitimate authorities.
Victimization and perpetration go hand in hand.
This is what is meant when criminologists say that
the best predictor of future delinquency is past
behavior, or age of onset. The strongest (primacy)
effect is when violence is modeled, encouraged,
and rewarded for the first time. It determines the
type of friends one chooses, which in turn,
determines what behaviors will be subsequently
modeled, established, and reinforced.
Bad Neighborhood - refers to areas or places in which dwelling or
housing conditions are dilapidated, unsanitary, and unhealthy which are
detrimental to the moral, health, and safety of the populace. It is
commonly characterized by overcrowding with disintegrated and
unorganized inhabitants and other close relatives. Most inhabitants in a
bad neighborhood are experiencing economic difficulties, alcoholism,
substance abuse, gambling and many other problems in life. This
connotes that bad neighborhood is the habitat of bad elements of society
by reason of anonymity because the situation is so conducive for the
commission of crimes. Bad elements prefer to dwell in such community
not only because of the sense of anonymity among its members but also
because they are not welcome in decent places.
The School - Part of a broader social process for
behavior influence is the school. It is said that the
school is an extension of the home having the strategic
position to control crime and delinquency. It exercises
authority over every child as a constituent. The teachers
are considered second parents having the responsibility
to mold the child to become productive members of the
community by devoting energies to study the child
behavior using all available scientific means and
devices in an attempt to provide each the kind and
amount of education they need.
The school takes the responsibility of preventing
the feeling of insecurity and rejection of the child,
which can contribute directly to maladjustment and
to criminality by setting up objectives of
developing the child into a wellintegrated and
useful law-abiding citizen. The school has also the
role of working closely with the parents and
neighborhood, and other community agencies and
organizations to direct the child in the most
effective and constructive way.
However, the school could be an influence to delinquency and
criminality when teachers are being disliked for they are too
cross, crabby, grouchy, never smile, naggers, sarcastic,
temperamental, unreasonable, intolerant, ill mannered, too
strict, and unfair. Conditions like these makes the students
experience frustration, inadequacy, insecurity, and confusion,
which are most of the time the “kindergarten of crime”. In
short, next to parents the teachers stand as foremost in their
influence to human behavior.
The Church - Religion is a positive force for good in the
community and an influence against crime and delinquency.
The church influences people’s behavior with the emphasis on
morals and life’s highest spiritual values, the worth and dignity
of the individual, and respect for person’s lives and properties,
and generate the full power to oppose crime and delinquency.
Just like the family and the school, the church is also
responsible to cooperate with institutions and the community
in dealing with problems of children, delinquents and
criminals as regardless to the treatment and correction of
criminal behaviors.
Poverty - Although it is considered passé to say poverty causes crime,
the fact is that nearly 22 percent of children under the age of eighteen
live in poverty. Poverty, in absolute terms, is more common for children
than for any other group in society. Ageism, they say, is the last frontier
in the quest for economic equality. Adolescents from lower
socioeconomic status (SES) families regularly commit more violence
than youth from higher SES levels. Social isolation and economic stress
are two main products of poverty, which has long been associated with a
number of D-words like disorganization, dilapidation, deterioration, and
despair. Pervasive poverty undermines the relevance of school and
traditional routes of upward mobility. The way police patrol poverty
areas like an occupying army only reinforces the idea that society is the
enemy whom they should hate. Poverty breeds conditions that are
conducive to crime.
The Police - is one of the most powerful occupation groups in
the modern society. The prime mover of the criminal justice
system and the number one institution in the community with
the broad goals maintaining peace and order, the protection of
life and property, and the enforcement of the laws. The police
is the authority having a better position to draw up special
programs against crime because it is the very reason why the
police exist. That is to protect the society against lawless
elements since they are the best equipped to detect and identify
criminals. The police is the agency most interested about crime
and criminals and having the most clearly defined legal power
authority to take action against them.
Government and Other Components of the CJS - The
government and the other components of the criminal justice
system are the organized authority that enforces the laws of the
land and the most powerful in the control of people. Respect for
the government is influenced by the respect of the people
running the government.
When the people see that public officers and employees are the
first ones to violate the laws, people will refuse to obey them,
they set the first ones to follow and create an atmosphere
conductive to crime and disrespect for the law. In this regard,
the government itself indirectly abets the commission of crimes.
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) - The group of
concerned individuals responsible for helping the government in
the pursuit of community development being partners of
providing the common good and welfare of the people, these
non-government organizations are good helpers in providing the
required services, thus preventing criminality and maintain order.

The Mass Media - The media is the best institution for

information dissemination thereby giving the public necessary
need to know, and do help shape everyday views about crime and
its control.
Media Influence - Popular explanations of juvenile crime
often rest on ideas about the corrupting influence of television,
movies, music videos, video games, rap/hip hop music, or the
latest scapegoat du jour, computer games like Doom or Quake.
The fact is that TV is much more pervasive, and has become
the de facto babysitter in many homes, with little or no
parental monitoring. Where there is strong parental supervision
in other areas, including the teaching of moral values and
norms, the effect of prolonged exposure to violence on TV is
probably quite minimal.
When TV becomes the sole source of moral norms
and values, this causes problems. Our nation's
children watch an astonishing 19,000 hours of TV
by the time they finish high school, much more
time than all their classroom hours put together
since first grade. By eighteen, they will have seen
200,000 acts of violence, including 40,000
murders. Every hour of prime time television
carries 6-8 acts of violence. Most surveys show
that around 80% of American parents think there is
too much violence on television.
Most of the scientific research in this area revolves around tests of
two hypotheses: the catharsis effect, and the brutalization effect;
but I am giving this area of research more credit than it deserves
because it is not that neatly organized into two hypotheses.
Catharsis means that society gets it out of their system by watching
violence on TV, and brutalization means we become so
desensitized it doesn't bother us anymore, but there are also
"imitation" hypotheses, "sleeper" effects, and lagged-time
correlations. The results of research in this area are too mixed to
give any adequate guidance, and it may well be that social science
is incapable of providing us with any good causal analysis in this
area. Only anecdotal evidence of a few cases of direct influence
exist.
Since the early 1990s, a number of films, music videos, and
rap music lyrics have come out depicting gang life, drugs, sex,
and violence. Watching or listening to these items gives you
the feeling that the filmmakers or musicians really know what
they're talking about and tell it like it is, but there have been
unfortunate criminogenic effects. In 1992, for example, 144
law enforcement officers were killed in the line of duty. That
year, four juveniles wounded Las Vegas police officers and the
rap song, Cop Killer, was implicated. At trial, the killers
admitted that listening to the song gave them a sense of duty
and purpose
During apprehension, the killers sung the lyrics at
the police station. Another case involved a Texas
trooper killed in cold blood while approaching the
driver of a vehicle with a defective headlight. The
driver attempted a temporary insanity defense
based on the claim he felt hypnotized by songs on
a 2 Pac album, that the anti-police lyrics "took
control, devouring [him] like an animal,
compelling his subconscious mind to kill the
approaching trooper". Two of the nation's leading
psychiatrists were called as expert witnesses in
support of this failed defense.
Social Morality - It has become prevalent, especially among
the slacker generations, GenX and Gen13, to join the old
WWII generation in self-righteous, totally gratuitous Sixties-
bashing, as if all our social problems, especially our declining
social morality, started with the free-for-all, "any thing goes"
hippie movement of the 1960s. This time period is often
blamed for giving birth to rising hedonism, the questioning of
authority, unbridled pursuit of pleasure, the abandonment of
family responsibility, demand for illicit drugs, and a number of
other social ills. Sometimes, even the AIDS epidemic is
blamed on the 1960s, although such accusers are off by about
two decades.
To sixties-bashers, today's juvenile "super predators"
are nothing but a long line of troubled youngsters who
have grown up in more extreme conditions of declining
social morality than the generation before them. Their
thinking is that each generation since the sixties has
tried hard to outdo one another in expressing the
attitude that "nothing really matters", culminating in the
present teenage regard for angst and irony so common
in contemporary culture.
Related Factors
There are other factors that are linked to youth offending. There is the
gender factor, particularly in patriarchal societies. Violence is
overwhelmingly a male problem. The roots for this appear to be
primarily social rather than biological, highlighting the inadequacies of
current socialization of male children, and the promotion of insensitive
and overbearing male behavioral models and attitudes in many societies.
It was also reported that the inadequate monitoring and supervision of
children by parents and other adults could be crucial in realizing a
potential for violence. Studies show that poor parental supervision or
monitoring, erratic or harsh parental discipline, parental disharmony,
parental rejection of the child, and low parental involvement in the
child’s activities are allimportant predictors of offending.
CASUAL FACTORS TO JUVENILE PROBLEM
BEHAVIOR
List of Predictors

The list below is particularly useful in identifying the

components of the strategies of prevention and early
intervention. But the list is not a universal one that
applies to all countries. In any particular country or
society, methods of preventing or treating antisocial
behavior should be based on empirically validated
theories about causes.
Individual factors:
 Pregnancy and delivery complications
 Low resting heart rate
 Internalizing disorders
 Hyperactivity, concentration problems, restlessness,
and risk taking
 Aggressiveness
 Beliefs and attitudes favorable to deviant or antisocial
behavior
Family factors
 Parental criminality
 Child maltreatment Poor family management
practices
 Low levels of parental involvement
 Poor family bonding and family conflict
 Parental attitudes favorable to substance abuse and
violence
 Parent-child separation
 School factors
 Academic failure
 Low bonding to school
 Truancy and dropping out of school
 Frequent school transitions

 Peer-related factors
 Delinquent siblings
 Delinquent peers
 Gang membership
Community and neighborhood factors
 Poverty
 Community disorganization
 Availability of drugs and firearms
 Neighborhood adults involved in crime
 Exposure to violence and racial prejudice
Thank You (-.-)
Members:
Dumaguing Bobby- Team Leader
Poliso Mike
Banatao Franklin
Casirayan Rvin
Dumalegan Chubikim
Lagasi Jansen
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