NCJ Number
89365
Journal
Revue de science et de droit penal compare Issue: 4 Dated: (October-December 1980) Pages: 897-907
Date Published
1981
Length
13 pages
Annotation
The basic tenets of juvenile justice, child protection, and treatment and reeducation of delinquent and deviant youths dates from the industrial era of Western civilization; contemporary conditions in both technologically developed and developing countries are vastly different and require new approaches to criminality in general and juvenile delinquency in particular.
Abstract
Many developed Western countries have clung to the concept of juvenile deviance as one which comprises both criminal and noncriminal maladaptive behaviors that are characteristic of adjustment difficulties in the transition to adulthood. Psychological treatment, protection, and individual guidance are believed to be the approaches by which delinquency can be reversed. The fallacy of these policies has been recognized by developing countries and expressed in United Nations congresses on juvenile delinquency since the 1950's. It has become evident that juvenile crime is tied to far broader national and international phenomena of social change and that criminality cannot be eradicated by treatment of individual adjustment problems. The presumed age threshold between juvenile and adult realms of experience is no longer in evidence in contemporary society due to the influence of the mass media and urbanization. Juvenile crime should be viewed as part of the overall crime problem of society and solutions to it should be sought in sociopolitical policies rather than only in clinical psychological and sociological measures. Among the features of contemporary criminality to be confronted by new policies are increasing violence, dissolution of family structures, urban environments as criminogenic loci, and the apparent failure of the young to assume adult roles and values and come to terms with authority and responsibility within their communities. Developing countries may well be in a position to evolve innovative criminological policies as they cope with rapid change in their social structures. A total of 19 references are given.