Psychological Correlates of Behaviour in Seriously Delinquent Juveniles

Extract

Juvenile delinquency is generally considered to be one of present-day society's most serious problems. Indeed, more than half of all serious crimes in the United States are committed by youths under 18 years of age (3). Despite its magnitude and prevalence, juvenile delinquency is still inadequately defined, much less understood, partly because of its having only lately been recognized as a distinct practical problem and thus a fit matter for investigation. Over the past four decades, however, there has been an increasingly active study of the problem, focusing on the delinquent youths themselves and, more recently, on the environment in which they have developed. Methodological approaches to the question of definition and causality of delinquency have been diverse, but can be considered as being of two general types: the deductive-theoretical, in which a stated hypothesis is critically examined in the light of clinical experience as illustrated by clinical material; and, the inductive-empirical approach, in which a body of data, e.g., the environmental factors found in delinquents, is analysed, and conesions are drawn, based on the results of that aysis.