Factors Influencing Juvenile Delinquencies Among Juvenile
[A CASE STUDY OF BORSTAL TRAINING INSTITUTE GANMO, KWARA STATE.]

Criminality actually allows troubled people to survive by producing positive psychic results; it helps them to feel free and independent; it gives them the possibility of excitement and the chance to use their skills and imagination, it provides them with the promise of positive gain; it allows them to blame others for their predicament (for example, the police), and it gives them a chance to rationalize their sense of failure (if I hadn’t gotten into trouble, I could have been a success).
    Freud’s psychoanalytic explosions are indicative that childhood experiences may be frustrating and can lead to aggression turned into criminal acts. Sorrel (1977) supports this view, when he opined that children who commit homicide against other children are “overtly hostile”, “explosive”, “volatile” and “depressed” from their early years of development.
    Although Gibbons (1979) does not see a relationship existing between psycho-pathetic/socio-pathetic personality and juvenile delinquency. Cleckley (1992) asserts that psychopathy is caused by “having psychopathic parents, parental rejection, a lack of love during childhood, and inconsistent discipline”. He further asserts that:
Children who lack the opportunity to form an attachment to a mother figure in the first three years of life, who suffer sudden separation from the mother figure, or who see changes in the mother figure are most likely to develop psycho-pathetic personality.
    The study by Glueck and Glueck (1950) identified the personality tracks of anti-social youths to include; defiance, ambivalence, self assertness, destructiveness and impulsiveness and sadism, lack of concern for others, distrust for authority, mental instability, resentment and extroversion.
Preventions of Juvenile Delinquency
    As part of the efforts to prevent juvenile delinquency, juvenile courts and reform homes have been established by governments. It has been found that the juvenile court is protective of the juvenile offender. Thus, children who commit crime are not to be treated harshly, as if the crime was committed by an adult. Iwarimie – Jaja (1999:43) confirms that:
Under the irrefutable “presumption philosophy, the juvenile court has to seek the protection and rehabilitation of the delinquent child by determining his/her needs through committal in a juvenile institution. To ensure the protection of the interests of the delinquent child, the juvenile court proceedings appear informal because the statutes do not prescribe that certain offences should be dealt with in specific ways. Therefore, serious offences are not handled as prescribed by the criminal law; the juvenile court uses vague language which is not acceptable in criminal proceedings in order to determine the type of help to be rendered to the child, to ensure the protection of the juvenile, the juvenile court describe offences or acts of “immoral or indecent conduct, as act of growing up in idleness an incorrigible behaviour or simply that a child habitually used vile, indecent or obscene language.
    However, a child becomes subject to state authority, because of his conduct that is illegal only because he is underage and, falls under the category of offences referred to as status offences. Such status offences include; truancy from school, sexual misconduct, use of profanity, running away, use of tobacco, disobeying parent’s use of alcohol, having delinquent friends, disobeying school officials, immoral conduct and curfew violations (Siegel and Senna, 1991:14).
    Status offenders are juveniles who are in need of supervision. Many of them are assumed to have been non-criminal, so they are shielded from legal stigma. However, those of them who are criminal are regarded legally as juvenile delinquents. They are known to be troubled youths with special needs and problems. These youths are usually known to commit felonies and misdemeanor.
    However, in spite of these measures, the problem of juvenile delinquency persists. Owing to this, this study will recommend appropriate measures to control of juvenile delinquency and the treatment of delinquent juveniles.
Summary of the Review of Related Literature