CHILD ABUSE & JUVENILE DELINQUENCY.   Term Paper ID:26309 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines relationship between abuse & juvenile crime. Theories, definitions, non-abuse factors, statistics, changing social views.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines relationship between abuse & juvenile crime. Theories, definitions, non-abuse factors, statistics, changing social views. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between the abused child and delinquency. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which the relationship between these two phenomena has been identified in the literature of the professional discipline, and then to discuss ways in which conclusions can be drawn about how the vicissitudes of human behavior connected to the phenomenon of the abused child have an impact upon the vicissitudes of human and (significantly) institutional behavior that have been connected to observed phenomena associated with what in an earlier decade might have been called juvenile delinquency and what in the current era is attributed not only to that term but also to youth crime, gang violence, and the like. Equally important will be an examination of the response of the institutions of criminal (and socia Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. They note the "cycle of violence"theory that has emerged since the 196 s that sees cause and effect betweenabuse and delinquency and that has been more or less accepted at face valueby policy makers since that time. But if the family unit itself isenacting a social response to such isolation, then the implication thatthere will be a cycle of violence against subsequent generations ofchildren, as long as the children who are abused become delinquent,remaining outside the "rational" social mainstream, is quite strong. Arelated aspect is the variable ways that child maltreatment is reported bythe very official agencies designed to regulate it. "Child Welfare as a Woman's Issue." Families in Society 73 (February 1992): 67-78.Knight, J.A. Of all the nation's poor today, 38 percent are children (Popenoe 15). . . At least one question to ask, in other words, iswhether parents withhold affection from children who have mental orphysical defects, which may lead to the child's stunted emotional growth,which may lead to delinquency from the child on one hand, or the perceptionof a delinquent child on the other, from a disappointed or emotionallydistant parent who may or may not engage in a variety of abuse. According toDailey, it is the dysfunction of the society, not that of the family, thatthat should be examined. This doesn't mean it's mostly genetic; it means that the environment that shapes the child's personality and social behavior is outside the home (Harris 37). . . Equally importantwill be an examination of the response of the institutions of criminal (andsocial) justice to these phenomena. Another problem, according to Knutson (4 1), is the"remarkable paucity" of longitudinal studies of the same at-risk youths andfamilies. A child who experiences abuse can be said to hoard valuable resources,unless that resource is interpreted as a positive attitude toward society.Further, the experience of the denial of social and material prestige mayhave an effect on the abuser. Writing in 199 , Hutchison (71-2) complains that child abuse anddelinquency alike have different meanings to different groups, whetherpolicy makers, case workers, law-enforcement agencies, or researchers, butthat these definitions have been used interchangeably in the professionalliterature. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing, 1991.Withecomb, Julie L. "Child Abuse and Delinquency: The Empirical and Theoretical Links." Social Work 35 (May 199 ): 244-249.Hulbert, Ann. Her conclusionis against the view that socialization behavior is learned either solely orprimarily from adult role models in the family: According to my theory, the culture acts upon children not through their parents but through the peer group. According to Weber, indeed,rationality is that invisible thing, force, process, and (most important)attitude whereby a society moves away from impulses, superstition, andemotion that probably cannot be controlled by mankind and toward socialstructure and organization that can be controlled by man. What does seem clear isthat violence-prone behavior children, which may be a consequence of abuseand a variety of neurophysical consequences at its core, is a fairlyreliable predictor of violence-prone behavior in the same children asadolescents and adults. The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship betweenthe abused child and delinquency. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 85 of all children exhibiting behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes. From the survey of articles in this research, from the statisticalcorrelations between abuse and delinquency on one hand and the theoreticalsuspicions of how these correlations are arrived at on the other, it seemsthat one could argue that some studies of delinquent behavior attribute toolittle to the influence of child abuse on behavior outcomes for childrenand that others attribute too much. Whether this can be traced to abuse per se, they may misperceivesocial behavior of others or other external social stimuli as threatening,they may respond to such stimuli in a violent way. The effectof increasing legal enforcement of child welfare laws, then, was to makeboth women and children increasingly vulnerable and child care more costly.The analysis was that women were being penalized for failures of child careeven as they were inundated with a culture that encouraged increasedawareness of child vulnerability. First of all, many different "rational conclusions" (Weber,1946, p. These points are forcefully made bySchwartz, Tendon, and Hsih (64 ff). "Intrinsic and Environmental Characteristics of Juvenile Murderers." Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 27 (1988): 582-587.Margolin, Leslie. Both child abuse and delinquencyrepresent what could be called an aspect of irrationality in a societyotherwise defined, by Weber, as rationalized. Another predictor of delinquency in minors appears to be thephenomenon of the fatherless household, which was a feature of 3 % of allbirths in 1991 and which has been projected to account for as much as 4 %by the year 2 (Popenoe 14). "The Century of the Child." Wilson Quarterly 23 (Winter 1999): 14-29.Hutchison, E. For example, Knutsonsays, there is the difficulty that in-family abuse may be tracked by family-service agencies while extrafamily abuse may be logged only in law-enforcement records. The evidence I've assembled . Eventhough logical connections between one phenomenon and the other can bemade, reliable connections in the professional research are more difficultto accomplish. A study of convicted murderers in Texas found that "9 percentof them either did not play as children or played abnormally" (Popenoe 2 ).There is also a class and financial component to this, inasmuch as the"most tangible and immediate consequence of fatherlessness for children isthe loss of economic resources" (Popenoe 15). "Parental Power Breeds Violence Against Children." Sociological Focus 12 (October 1979): 311-322.Fortin, A.J. Other statistical findings indicate that children from fatherless homes are: 32 times more likely to run away; nine times more likely to drop out of high school; 14 times more likely to commit rape; 1 times more likely to be substance abusers; and 2 times more likely to end up in prison (Stephens S2).One does not have to blame single mothers who might have been deserted byirresponsible fathers of their children to see that the connection betweendelinquency and child abuse comes in that children in fatherless homesappear to be more vulnerable to abuse on one hand and less connected to anyrole model that might direct socialization strategies in appropriatedirections on the other. Hutchison's own research is more theoretical and ideological;writing in 1992, she (67-68) looks at alienation from dominant socialstructure in a feminist analysis of child-welfare issues, including thepoint that emphasis on child abuse as a social problem in modern historycoincided with the emergence of single-mother households and the rise ofthe number of women and children living in poverty. Along the same lines, Hulbert (17) cites the"turn-of-the-century 'discovery' of childhood," which led to a host ofProgressivist prescriptions for child rearing meant as strategies of socialcontrol for women (the child rearers of the period) and children alike.Schlossman and Wallach's examination of court records and popular printmedia of the Progressive Era shows that so-called deviant females andminorities, particularly delinquent adolescents, were more likely toreceive proportionately greater punishment for deviant (usually sexual)behavior than their male-delinquent adolescent counterparts. They call (653-5) for a redirection of fundsrelated to the problem of juvenile crime, for which there is much evidence,away from correctional an punitive measures and toward more focus onresearch, so that the problems themselves can be more accuratelyunderstood. For the rise and fall of institutional structures, the ups and downs of classes, parties, and rulers implement the general drift of secular rationalization. More generally, as Stephens puts it: "Youngsterswho are physically and sexually abused are more likely to adopt abusivebehavior toward others" (S1). Feeling powerless, in otherwords, in an environment that celebrates power and money, the male in ahousehold may strike out at an easy target; these factors argue specialreasons for the failure of family socialization and child abuse by males. Annual Review of Psychology 46 (1995): 4 1-431.Lewis, D.O., Lovely, R., Yeager, C., and Della Famina, D. The theories of MaxWeber are important in this regard. "Toward a Theory of the Genesis of Violence: A Follow-Up Study of Delinquents." Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry 28 (1989): 431-436.Lewis, D.O., Lovely, R., Yeager, C., and Ferguson, G. This failure oflinkage carries the potential for child abuse. "Psychological Characteristics of Maltreated Children: Putative Risk Factors and Consequences. Statistical studies appear to confirmthat delinquent behavior can be connected, perhaps even traced, to abusivebehavior toward the delinquent at an earlier stage in his or her life. Instead, she says, such behavior is meant toshow contempt for adult rules and affinity with peer groups. Withecomb (434-5) also cites aseries of studies showing that physical abuse that leads to nervous-systemdamage is implicated in the abused child's later resort to violence,although she cautions that the present status of research shows correlationrather than causation. (244ff), who cite problems of consistent definition and methods used toidentify research-subject samples in studies that link early aggressiontoward children to later delinquent aggression by those same children.Knutson objects to the tendency in much abuse-related literature to "theaggregating of physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse into a singlecategory of child maltreatment" (4 1-2, et passim) The reason for this isthat different risk factors may figure into the various categories. There are dissident voices in the professional literature of theconnections made between child abuse and delinquency. Harris specifically rejects the viewthat such behavior is an adolescent's way of "longing for the power andprivilege of adulthood" (35). "Beyond Maternal Blame: Physical Child Abuse as a Phenomenon of Gender." Journal of Family Issues 13 (September 1992): 41 - 423.Moore, Joan W. Butpower ratios within society are the source of the dysfunction. There is also the question of conflict, and it is here that thetheoretical tension of bureaucracy and the rational social structurehighlights child abuse as a social problem. Margolin (413ff) cites Weber's bureaucraticmodel for the overrationalized society in a study of physical abuse ofchildren by male (as opposed to female) heads of household. Just as disaffected males who are notfull participants in the scale of social values would use children as theirtarget, so females increasingly excluded from the scale of social valueswould find children the symbol of their disempowerment as well as theobject of their opportunity to exercise power. In families out of sync withthe benefits of rational society, legitimacy and authority are enacted uponthe abused child by adults who feel threatened by the challenge to the onlyquality of social status that they can achieve. This would potentially (though not categorically)exclude (for example) mother's-boyfriend abuse of children, out of house,in fatherless families. In the background of any discussion of the connection between childabuse and delinquency is sociological theory that can help explain how eachphenomenon can arise in a stable society on one hand, and how onephenomenon can have an impact on a second on the other. Rotenberg (53-5, et passim) goes back even furtherin the culture, tracing societal perceptions of deviant behavior to theProtestant, particularly Calvinist, ethic, which held that social successwas an index of God's favor of the "elect," and social failure (or deviantbehavior) was an index of divine disfavor of the "damned." Delinquency can be seen as a deliberate response to social isolationfirst experienced within the family unit. . "The variations in illegitimate meansavailable for obtaining normal [social] success goals in the immediatemilieu," says Moore (5 ), "will affect the form of delinquency." Anotherview of delinquent gangs can be attributed to a more general view of whatis called "groupness," set forth by Harris, who notes that adolescents,even those who are well-behaved as children and as adults, are more proneto delinquent (law-breaking) behavior. B. (b) 433) "found that 2 % of abused childrenbecame delinquent compared to 5% of the population, and young murderersfrequently reported abuse (Withecomb 433). (a) 582ff; Lewis, et al. Child abuse can thus be interpreted as a responseto the social dysfunction. The plan of the research will be to setforth the context in which the relationship between these two phenomena hasbeen identified in the literature of the professional discipline, and thento discuss ways in which conclusions can be drawn about how thevicissitudes of human behavior connected to the phenomenon of the abusedchild have an impact upon the vicissitudes of human and (significantly)institutional behavior that have been connected to observed phenomenaassociated with what in an earlier decade might have been called juveniledelinquency and what in the current era is attributed not only to that termbut also to youth crime, gang violence, and the like. For Dailey, power is the chief component of abuse in a family.Dailey theorizes that parents who feel the need to show how much authoritythey have will act out these needs in a violent way on children, who haveno meaningful social status in contemporary society. They reject that theory, not because itmay not be true but rather based on what they see as a host of seriousflaws in study designs conducted over the years, as well as seriousdisagreements between and among researchers themselves about how abuse anddelinquency should be defined. "Protective Services: Coercive Social Control or Mutual Liberation." Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare 3 (September 1975): 82-93.Gerth, H.H., and Mills C.W. Children's groups have their own cultures, loosely based on the adult culture. To see why, it is necessary to look at the literatureof delinquency, which had its origins in the Progressive Era of the U.S.(Schlossman and Wallach 67ff). "The Protestant Ethic Against the Spirit of Psychiatry: The Other Side of Weber's Thesis?" The British Journal of Sociology 26 (March 1975): 52-65.Schlossman, S., and Wallach, S. 324) have been drawn by many different societies in the world.Secondly, rationalism itself is impersonal and bureaucratic--the enemy ofpersonal freedom and the individual personality. . According to Popenoe (18), such an analysis represents a shift from(for example) a 1973 study that found no causation between fatherlessfamilies and delinquency. To get at the difficulties of agreement and disagreement amongexperts, it may be useful to look at the direction of specific studies.Moore (49-5 ) says that most sociological theory about gang-relatedbehavior among young people "emphasize[s] the gang as a lower-classadaptation to, or rebellion against, the limitations present in theimmediate surroundings." These limitations have their grounding in the lackof access to successful social integration, although Moore cites a varietyof explanations among sociologists themselves for gang affiliation andviolent behavior associated with it. On the other hand, studies suggest that abused children can be"hypervigilant" (Withecomb 435) where protection-seeking behavior isconcerned. In fatherless households, too, women are more likelyto engage in sexual abuse of their own children, principally, according toPopenoe (25), because there is no father there to prevent it. However, Stephens (who also notesstatistics showing a slight decrease in teenage births in the mid-199 s)cites a variety of tendencies toward delinquency that have been noted in ahost of statistical studies. . But eventhe formulation of the question is problematic, or at any rate highlycomplex. A key difficulty with making the connection between child abuse anddelinquency, where both are considered social problems, is that the focusof public policy is primarily on the results of delinquent behavior ratherthan on treating the potentially harmful effects of abuse at the source,i.e., the abuser or potential abuser. Butthe precise shape of the abuse seems as difficult to pin down as thequestion whether it will result in delinquency of the abused object. . The principle of rationalization is the most general element in Weber's philosophy of history. The conclusion is that precocious sexuality infemales was not to be tolerated on one hand, and was to be seen as criminalbehavior on the other. Homeboys: Gangs, Drugs, and Prison in the Barrios of Los Angeles. That is, public moneys, whether onprograms or on research, are devoted principally and programmatically totreatment and/or punishment of the delinquent on one hand, and thediagnosis of the causes of delinquency--e.g., child abuse--on the other.But if child abuse is indeed the cause, where are the funds to study itsorigins, modalities, and the like. . The Structure of Sociological Theory. Nowadays parents are likely to be held culpable for anything that goes wrong with their child, even if they have done their best. Such resentments become a further inducement for those without power, prestige, and wealth to engage in conflict with those who hoard these resources. The absent father, from whose play strategies boys especially mighttake socialization and emotional-management cues, is replaced by theusually working mother, whose play strategies are necessary but implicitlynot sufficient to the development of the child's whole socializationexperience. Popenoe's argument can be interpreted as a callfor the reestablishment of social controls implicit in father-headedhouseholds--essentially a moral argument. When those of low rank have little chance to move up social hierarchies or to enter a new class, party, or status group, then resentment accumulates (Turner, 1991, p. Inthis regard, a much-referred-to series of studies in 1988 and 1989 (Lewis,et al. Popenoe summarizes whathe calls the "collapse of children's well-being in the United States" byreference to statistics that show its consequences: Juvenile violent crime has increased sixfold, from 16, arrests in 196 to 96, in 1992, a period in which the total number of young people in the population remained relatively stable. 197). Popenoe (24-5) cites figures on sexual abuseof children, which predominates in single-mother and step-parenthouseholds, perpetrated chiefly by mothers' boyfriends or stepfathers,i.e., those who lack direct psychological connection to responsibilitytoward the incest taboo; such households in this analysis are to beconsidered fatherless. The picture of bureaucracyas a corruption of social organization is always in the background ofWeber's theory of the connection between rationalism and capitalisticsociety. This does not mean that a mere rational attitude guarantees one kindof perfect social structure. Money and the Quest for the Grail. This was trueeven though as a group males tended to be charged with more serious crimesthat have been associated with delinquent behavior in the modern period andthe earlier period alike. The principalthread of argument is that the culture of violence in general and powerrelationships in particular, overbalanced in favor of men in Americansociety, aggravate the fact that males are not rewarded and are notsocialized to provide or manifest nurturing actions. Works CitedDailey, T.B. Philadelphia: J. In thinking of the change of human attitudes and mentalities that this process occasions, Weber liked to quote Friedrich Schiller's phrase, the 'disenchantment of the world.' The extent and direction of 'rationalization' is thus measured negatively in terms of the degree to which magical elements of thought are displaced, or positively by the extent to which ideas gain in systematic coherence and naturalistic consistency (Gerth and Mills 51). indicates that there is a limit to what parents can do. Knutson cautions (415-16) that in many cases when "maltreated childrenhave been described as difficult and demanding, the source of the report isoften an abuse perpetrator, so the validity of the report is questionable."This can also be interpreted as a difficulty of analysis, to the degree itis hard to determine whether low emotional or verbal skills are a cause oran effect of abuse. . 5th ed. "Youth at Risk: Saving the World's Most Precious Resource." Futurist 31 (March 1997): S1-S7.Turner, J.H. D. A similar point is made by Howing, etal. . When only a few hold power, wealth, and prestige and the rest are denied those rewards, then tensions and resentments exist. Delinquency can be treated as such a response as well, but the reasonsfor this are complex. This is supported byFortin (85), who says that the prevailing "social order and arrangement ofpower relationships" are the principal causes of family dysfunction. "Causes of Violence in Children." Journal of Mental Health 6 (October 1997): 433-442. "How to Succeed in Childhood." Wilson Quarterly 23 (Winter 1999): 3 -37.Howing, Phyllis T., Wodarski, John S., Kurtz, P. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. David, Gaudin, James M. "Child Maltreatment: Can It Be Defined?" Social Service Review, 64 (199 ): 6 -78.---. Another condition is dramatic discontinuity in the distribution of rewards, or the existence of divisions in social hierarchies that give privilege to some and very little to others. "The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Juvenile Delinquency in the Progressive Era." Harvard Educational Review 48 (February 1978): 65-94.Schwartz, Ira M., Rendon, Jose A., and Hsieh, Chang-Ming. Lippincott, 1968.Knutson, John F. Jr., and Herbst, Emily Neligan. Reports of child neglect and abuse have quintupled since 1976, when data were first collected. Turner explains the core ofWeber's view of power in society: [W]hen economic elites, for example, are also social and political elites, and vice versa, then those who are excluded from power, wealth, and prestige become resentful and receptive to conflict alternatives. Knutson (4 1) focuseson the problems of research method. . New York: Oxford U P, 1946.Harris, Judith Rich. It also does not mean that rationalism itselfis perfect. Indeed, Dailey says that violence against children is more or less apiece of social equipment, to the extent that abuse can be seen as havingutility. A final condition encouraging conflict is low rates of social mobility. Philadelphia: Temple U P, 1978.Popenoe, David. This implies the absence ofplay and socialization strategy-development options that would bepresumably present in a nuclear-family structure. The interpretation isthat even as the prevailing social structure was putting a premium on childwelfare and excoriating child abuse, it was withdrawingsocietal/governmental support from the enterprise of nurturing. Physical abuse in the form of maltreatment andneglect, which may entail lack of regular medical care, birth defects,learning disabilities, low verbal skills, and the like, has also beenconnected to delinquent behavior, which can be connected to a failure tointegrate positively with the found conditions of society. Poverty has shifted from the elderly to the young. "Is Child Maltreatment a Leading Cause of Delinquency?" Child Welfare 73 (September 1994): 639-655.Stephens, Gene. "A World Without Fathers." Wilson Quarterly 2 (Spring 1996): 12-29.Rotenberg, M. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.