Antisocial behaviour and Juvenile delinquency

Genetic factors

▪ Anti-social behaviour tends to run in families.

▪ Genes influence 40-50% of the range of antisocial behaviour within a population and 60-65% of the range of aggressive antisocial acts.

▪ Environmental influences, including family, friends and school, are involved in gene expression.

Neurological factors

Neurobiological deficits, particularly in the parts of the brain that control reactions to stress → explain why some children develop

antisocial characteristics.

Social factors

Early onset antisocial behaviour:

• Starts before or around age 11 → chronic juvenile delinquency.

• Interaction of factors ranging from microsystem to macrosystem influences.

• This web of interacting influences begins to interweave in childhood → early onset of behavior and persistence into adulthood.

Late-onset antisocial behavior:

• It starts after puberty → and is a milder and more temporary type.

• In response to the changes of adolescence.

• Lesser offences than early onset offences.

• Adolescents with an average family history.

Economic circumstances of the family:

• Persistent economic deprivation → can undermine parenting by depriving the family of social capital.

• Poor children → are more likely than others to commit antisocial acts.

• If the family emerges from poverty during childhood → There is no greater likelihood of developing behavioural problems.

Relationship with the peer group:

• Anti-social peer choice → most decisive factor.

• Outreach to others with similar education, school achievement,

adjustment, and prosocial or antisocial tendencies.

• Antisocial adolescents → antisocial friends, and their dysfunctional behaviour increases when they associate.

• Quality parenting during adolescence → discouragement of association with troubled adolescents and reduced likelihood of involvement in delinquent acts.

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