Three Categories Of Juvenile Crime

Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, or youth crime, is participation in illegal behavior by minors (juveniles) (individuals younger than the statutory age of majority). Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers, and courts. A juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18 and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if they were an adult. Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, it is possible for persons under 18 to be charged and tried as adults .

In recent years, the average age for first arrest has dropped significantly, and younger boys and girls are committing crimes. Between 60-80%

Types of juvenile delinquency

Juvenile delinquency, or offending, can be separated into three categories: delinquency, crimes committed by minors which are dealt with by the juvenile courts and justice system; criminal behavior, crimes dealt with by the criminal justice system, and status offenses, offenses which are only classified as such because one is a minor, such as truancy, also dealt with by the juvenile courts.

According to the developmental research of Moffitt (2006), there are two different types of offenders that emerge in adolescence. One is the repeat offender, referred to as the life-course-persistent offender, who begins offending or showing antisocial/aggressive behavior in adolescence (or even childhood) and continues into adulthood; and the age specific offender, referred to as the adolescence-limited offender, for whom juvenile offending or delinquency begins and ends during their period of adolescence. Because most teenagers tend to show some form of antisocial, aggressive or delinquent behavior during adolescence, it important to account for these behaviors in childhood, in order to determine whether they will be life-course-persistent offenders, or adolescents-limited offenders. Although adolescent-limited offenders tend to drop all criminal activity once they enter adulthood, and show less pathology than life-course-persistent offenders, they still show more mental health, substance abuse, and finance problems, both in adolescence and adulthood,

When considering these statistics, which state that Black and Latino teens are more likely to commit juvenile offenses it is important to keep the following in mind: poverty, or low socio-economic status are large predictors of low parental monitoring, harsh parenting, and association with deviant peer groups, all of which are in turn associated with juvenile offending. The majority of adolescents who live in poverty are racial minorities. Also, minorities who offend, even as adolescents, are more likely to be arrested and punished more harshly by the law if caught. Particularly concerning a non-violent crime and when compared to white adolescents. While poor minorities are more likely to commit violent crimes, one third of affluent teens report committing violent crimes.

Ethnic minority status (that is, experience as non- White) has been included as a risk factor of psychosocial maladaptation in several studies (e.g., Gutman et al. 2003; Sameroff et al. 1993; Dallaire et al. 2008), and represents a relative social disadvantage placed on these individuals. Though the relation between delinquency and race is complex and may be explained by other contextual risk variables (Holmes et al. 2009), the total arrest rate for black juveniles aged 10–17 is more than twice that as of white juveniles (National Center for Juvenile Justice 2008)(p. 1474