Factors Affecting the Development of Juvenile Delinquency

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the primary factors, family structure and models, parenting styles, child abuse typologies, peer influences, gang classifications, and environmental factors in juvenile delinquency.

Socialization

The process through which children learn the ways of a particular society or social group so that they can function within it.

Family

The first and most important social unit to affect children; it is the first social world the child encounters.

Low Self-Control

A major factor in delinquency caused primarily by ineffective child-rearing, which makes adolescents more attracted to delinquent behaviors.

Family Size (Delinquency Factor)

A predictive factor where parents of larger families give less attention to children, giving them a greater chance of becoming delinquent.

Child's Birth Order

A structural factor where delinquency is found to be more likely among middle children than first or last children.

Criminal Parents

The strongest predictive factor for delinquency, providing a model of aggressive and antisocial behavior for children to copy.

Family Rejection

A situation where children are deprived of one or both parents through abandonment, hospitalization, divorce, death, or intervention of public agencies.

Protest Phase

The first phase of maternal deprivation described by John Bowlby where a child cries, screams, shows panic, clings when the mother visits, and howls when she leaves.

Despair Phase

The second phase of maternal deprivation described by John Bowlby where, after a few days, the child becomes withdrawn and sucks their thumb.

Detachment Phase

The third phase of maternal deprivation described by John Bowlby where the child loses interest in parents and is unconcerned with their presence.

Conforming Behavior

Behavior bred by a loving, friendly, and just home.

Critical Behavior

Behavior bred by a loving, liberal, and open-minded home.

Deviant Behavior

Behavior bred by a loveless, lonely, and problematic home life.

Corporate Model Family

A family model where the father is chief executive officer, the mother is operating officer, and children have privileges and responsibilities based on seniority.

Team Model Family

A family model where the father is head, the mother is chief of training table/cheerleader, and children compete under performance anxiety where winning is everything.

Military Model Family

A family model where the father is general, the mother is guard duty/nurse corps, children are grunts, and sadism is called character building.

Boarding School Model Family

A family model where the father is rector/head master, the mother is dorm counselor, and parents treat children as dutiful students to be taught and tested.

Theatrical Model Family

A family model where parents and children act out scripted sex stereotype roles like actors on a stage.

Broken Home

A home environment characterized by irresponsible parents and constant quarrel, associated with an increased risk in deviant behavior.

Single Parent Family

A family structure, mostly produced by divorce, where delinquency risks stem partly from strained relationships prior to family breakdown.

Authoritative Parents

Parents who are warm but firm, setting clear standards consistent with child development, using rational discussion, and encouraging self-direction.

Authoritarian Parents

Parents who value absolute obedience and conformity, favoring forceful punitive measures while showing little warmth or responsiveness.

Indulgent Parents

Parents who behave in responsive, accepting, and passive ways regarding discipline, placing few demands and giving high freedom.

Indifferent Parents

Unresponsive parents who minimize time spent with children, know little about their activities, and may be neglectful in extreme cases.

The Alarmist View

The view that the family is in critical condition and getting progressively worse, adhering to the myth of the declining family.

Reassuring View

The view contradicting family decline, holding that the family is vital and that changes are natural consequences of modernization that improve with economic stability.

Child Abuse

Causing or permitting harmful/offensive contact on a child's body, or any communication, transaction, or omission that humiliates, frightens, shames, or fails to nurture the child.

Physical Child Abuse

Deliberately inflicting physical injuries (such as burning, hitting, punching, or beating) on a child, often resulting from inappropriate over-discipline.

Emotional Maltreatment / Psychological Child Abuse

An act where an adult demeans a child's worth or dignity by constant scolding and ridiculing, leading to low self-esteem.

Child Neglect

The failure to provide for a child's basic physical, educational, or emotional needs, including food, clothing, shelter, supervision, or medical care.

Sexual Child Abuse

Any act of maliciously molesting a child sexually, whether the sexual act is consummated or not.

Mentally Disordered Abuser

A child abuser typology defined as a person who has defective mental ability.

Parentally Incompetent Abuser

A child abuser who disciplines their child in the same abusive manner in which they were disciplined.

Situational Abuser

A usually non-abusive parent who abuses a child only when confronted with a specific, stressful situation.

Accidental Abuser

A parent who exercises poor judgment in parenting decisions, directly resulting in child abuse.

Subcultural Abuser

A group of people who share a number of values, norms, and attitudes in common that encourage child abuse.

Self-Identified Abuser

Abusive parents who want to stop or fear making practices known, but feel unable to stop abusing their children.

Institutionally Prescribed Abusers

Abusers operating within institutions grounded in beliefs that prescribe abusive practices toward children.

Peer Group

A group of youths of similar age levels and interests that empowers young people's sense of worth, but can lead to deviance without close parental guidance.

Co-offending

The process wherein delinquent acts tend to be committed in small groups rather than by an individual alone.

Control Theory (Peer Relations)

A peer relationship theory stating that delinquents tend to associate with like-minded peers, and peers have less influence than believed.

Interstitial Group

A phrase coined by gang expert Frederick Thrasher referring to gangs filling the 'cracks' in the fabric of society.

Social Gang

A gang category that focuses mainly on social activities, with little delinquency or drug use.

Party Gang

A gang category mainly involved in drug use and sales, with limited delinquent behavior.

Serious Delinquent Gang

A gang category that engages in serious delinquent activities with limited drug involvement.

Organized Gang

A gang category highly involved in crime, drug use/sales, and organized criminal activities.

Transitional Neighborhood

A gang location characterized by rapid population changes, often associated with intergang conflict and violence.

Stable Slum

A gang location with a long-term, stable population that may develop large and structured gangs.

Mass Media

All kinds of communications (television, movies, radio, books, magazines) to which a child is exposed, which can encourage aggressive behavior through violent content.