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Patterns And Causes Of Juvenile Delinquency As Expressed By Secondary School Students
[A CASE STUDY OF IBARAPA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, OYO STATE]
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Some of the reasons or causes of adolescents’ juvenile delinquency as identified by Eke (2004) and Okorodudu (2010) unmet needs of youths by the family, neighbourhood or traditional community institutions (such as the schools, police, recreational and religious institutions) and government. Factors, in the home environments, like poverty, ill-treatment, alcoholic parents, broken family life, may drive the juvenile to the streets to commit delinquencies. Family attitudes, like overprotection, rejection, lack of love, lack of response from parents, lack of suitable ideal and lack of discipline may also drive a child to criminal activities (Jayamala, 2008). Researches indicate that the family environment is an important variable in the development of delinquency.
Gorman-Smith, and Tolan (1998) discovered that parental conflicts and parental aggressiveness predicted involvement in property crime. Wright and Wright (1995) study shows that single-parent families produce more delinquent children than two-parent families. Many researchers agree that the foundation of adolescent delinquency is rooted in the kind of home the adolescent is brought up (Utti, 1996; Odebunmi, 2007; Otuadah, 2008). The basis for good behaviour orientation and good adolescents’ attitude development is founded on positive parenting. Okpako (2004) stated that the parents should be blamed and be made to take responsibility for the misfortunes that befall the adolescents.
Obinyan (2004) opined that the two oldest most widely accepted conclusions in criminology are first, that involvement in crime diminishes with age and second, that males are more likely than females to offend at every age. Youngsters between the ages of 8 and 14 begin to confide less in parents and more in peers and to be more influenced by those peers for assistance in making decisions about what behaviour to adopt (Paikoff & Brooks-Gun, 1991). There is a huge variation in age factor of adolescent from one society to another. Arrests data show that the intensity of criminal behaviour slackens after the teens and it continues to decline with age. Much research indicate that males are more likely to participate in crime compared to females (Chisney-Lind, 1997; Snyder & Sickmund, 2006) and that individual offending rates tend to peak in late adolescence then drop off in early adulthood (Blumstein & National Research Council 1986).
Juvenile delinquency is a complex problem that exacts a substantial and continuing toll on the society (Mulvey, 1997). Brown (1998) opined that juvenile delinquency is one of the many serious social problems some children confront on a regular basis and that there physical, psychological and financial cost to society. The consequences of delinquency will forever change the lives of the offenders and their victims. Brown (1998) posited that the concern about juvenile crime is widely shared by the federal, state and local government officials and by the public. Hence, radical steps have to be taken in order to curb this problem.
The manifestation of delinquency among secondary school students has remained an age long problem in the Nigerian secondary school system. In a study carried out by Ajake, Etuk and Omori (2010), it was shown that there is a high rate of school complains about student’s delinquency. The extent to which parents and other adults in the family make provision for the holistic growth of their adolescent, with the view of curbing societal ills has generated a lot of concern in the contemporary Nigeria as a whole. Increased attention is being given to the ability of individual and family to successfully remedy the negative impact of delinquency. It is against this background that this study deems it fit to investigate the patterns and causes of juvenile delinquency as expressed by secondary school students in Ibarapa Local Government Area, Oyo State.
Statement of the Problem
In the past four decades and so there has been increasing concern about the behaviours that children exhibit in schools (particularly in the middle and high schools). The school authority has blamed adolescent students for increased disorder and crime without acknowledgement of the multiple risk factors that may have cause juvenile delinquency. Increase in juvenile delinquency, high rate of early school dropouts in both girls and boys, increase in the numbers of street children and high rate of crime, continue to elicit concerns in the community.
The threat of indigent on streets across the cities in Nigeria is a social problem to the general public and the government (Okorodudu, 2010) as delinquent activities are assuming dangerous tendencies which threaten life, property, individuals’ well-being, peace, security, social order and are eventually, reducing the citizens’ quality of life. For example, adolescents engagement in inter-school fight recently in Ibadan, a city in one of the South-Western States in Nigeria could have passed for a mere inter-school rivalry, but for the use of dangerous weapons such as knives, cutlasses and charms; it was reported that severe injuries were sustained not only by the fighting students but by passers-by in that neighbourhood (Aremu, 2012).
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]ABSTRACTThe challenges of adolescents are enormous simply because of diverse growth and development that characterized this stage, this lead many adolescents into delinquent behaviours. This study thus investigated the patterns and causes of delinquent behaviours as expressed by secondary school students in Ibarapa Local Government Area, Oyo State. The study also examined the influence of variables such as gender, age and residential area on respondents’ expressions. Descriptive survey de ... Continue reading---
APPENDIX A - [ Total Page(s): 2 ]SECTION C: Causes of Juvenile DelinquencyDirection: Kindly put a tick ( ) in the column that you consider as most applicable to you. There is no right or wrong responses. Please respond to all items as honestly as possible using the rating scales: SA - Strongly Agree; A - Agree; D – Disagree and SD - Strongly Disagree. ... Continue reading---
LIST OF TABLES - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]LIST OF TABLES Title 1. Demographic characteristics of respondents 2. Mean and rank order of patterns of juvenile delinquency among students 3. Mean and rank order of causes of juvenile delinquency 4. Mean, SD and t-test results comparing respondents’ expression on patterns of juvenile delinquency based on gender 5. Mean, SD and t-test results comparing respondents’ expression o ... Continue reading---
TABLE OF CONTENTS - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]TABLE OF CONTENTSContent Title page Certification Dedication Acknowledgements Table of Contents List of Tables Abstract CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTIONBackground to the Study Statement of the Problem Research Questions Research Hypotheses Purpose of the Study Significance of the Study Operational Definition of Terms Scope of the Study CHAPTER TWO: REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATUREConcept of Adolescence Concept of Juvenile Delinquency Theories of Juvenile Delinquency Age and Juvenile Delinquen ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER TWO - [ Total Page(s): 10 ]The juvenile delinquency is expression of unsatisfied desires and urges. For a delinquent, his deviant act is a normal response to his inner desire. Like a non delinquent a delinquent is also conditioned by various attending and prevailing circumstances around him. A juvenile delinquent is a person who has been so adjudicated by a judicial court though he may be no different from other children who are not delinquent. Delinquency is an act, conduct or interaction which is socially undesirable (T ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER THREE - [ Total Page(s): 2 ]Psychometric Properties of the Instrument The psychometric analysis of the instrument was based on the validity and reliability measure. The properties are presented thus;Validity: Adewumi (1998) noted that a measuring instrument is described as valid when it measures truly and accurately the quality it is meant to measure. Validity is one of the most crucial psychometric properties of measurement and it is concerned with whether a test or scale really measures what it purports to measure. ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER FOUR - [ Total Page(s): 7 ]Research Question 2: What are the causes of juvenile delinquency among secondary school students in Ibarapa Local Government Area?Table 3 depicts the mean and rank order of respondents’ responses on causes of juvenile delinquency. The table shows that the respondents agreed to all the identified items as causes of juvenile delinquencies as the response scores are above average mean score of 2.5. However, items 1, 4, 12, 5 and 3 were ranked 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th with mean scores of 3. ... Continue reading---
CHAPTER FIVE - [ Total Page(s): 3 ]RecommendationsThe following recommendations were made based on the findings of the study:1. Parents and the society should provide for the needs of adolescents (most especially the basic needs) so that they can be prevented from engaging in delinquent behaviours that may negatively influence their future.2. The school authorities should monitor students’ activities and encourage them on the needs to associate with peers that help them improve in their academic pursuits and mo ... Continue reading---
REFRENCES - [ Total Page(s): 4 ]Smetana, J. G., Campione,-Barr, N. & Metzger, A. (2006). Adolescent development in interpersonal and societal contexts. Annual Review of Psychology, 57, 255-284.Snyder, H, N. & Sickmund, M. (2006). Juvenile offenders and victims. 2006 national report. Washington DC, US department of Justice, Office of Justice programmes office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Steinberg, L. & Monahan, K. C. (2007). Age differences in resistance to peer influence. Development Psychology 43(6): 1531- ... Continue reading---
