book

Defining Juvenile Delinquency

21 Pages 698 Words 1557 Views

Before to start talking about the definition of a juvenile delinquency, there are two specific words important in the context of juvenile delinquency, juvenile which is any person between the ages of 7 to 18. During the 16th and 17th century, American society describes that young children are helpless and they depend of someone else. However, if the child was grown enough, he or she was physically able to work in the house or outside in the field and some or more actions were assigned. Also, based on religious backgrounds, there were some strict rules for children and the rules were considered as part of family’s responsibilities. The United States law is based on the British common law in which a 7 years old child cannot be convicted for a crime in criminal courts because they lacked of mens rea or criminal intent. Children at this age, they are old enough to know what is wrong and what is right and the consequences of their acts. However, children over the age of 7 was not considered as adult until they reached their puberty or do some “adult” responsibilities. The status of a child were more clearly defined during the 20th Century in where American society identify a new the life stage in which a young person was no anymore a child but was not yet an adult. They called as adolescence which means the period of a child’s life between childhood and adulthood. However, this new concept brought up some controversy for the behavior of a 7 old child and new laws were enacted and passed to deal with this problem. According to Thompson and Bynum (2010), “juvenile referred to any person under the legal age of majority-the chronological age at which a person is no longer considered a minor and commences adulthood” (p. 7). Consequently, the relation between juvenile and delinquency came after the creation of the laws. Society describes as juvenile as a legal concept and adolescence as a social concept. Since, juveniles br

Read Full Essay