Youth delinquency

Word count: 1500

Youth delinquency is a serious threat to the wellbeing of a community that we need to tackle.

Different societies have introduced diverging methods in order to deter the youth from such acts

of delinquency and have also introduced rehabilitative measures so that the offenders can easily

bee integrated back into the community. It was historically seen as an, “evidence of moral and

social decline” (France, 2008, p. 1). Whenever we consider the nature of youth delinquency,

there are endless theoretical debates that are being pondered with some arguing that it is

grounded on innate psychological tendencies and others suggesting that it is a result of individual

choice and processes of socialization into criminality. The aim of this essay is to make sense of

the acts of youth delinquency in the context of Singapore by taking into consideration both

theoretical initiatives into the origins and implications of youth delinquency as well as practical

cases that give us an insight into the world of youth delinquency.

Youth delinquency can be conceptualized as the illegal acts that are committed by the youth and

these acts can range from the simple acts of taking drugs and showing inappropriate behavior all

the way into committing serious crimes like murder and robbery. In order to make sense of the

nature of youth delinquency, there are three major approaches that could be invoked. The first

theoretical perspective is positivism and it tells us that youth delinquency is not a result of a

consciously motivated individual choice. It further alleges that the origins of delinquency must

be determined on an individual basis and that there is no single solution to youth delinquency in

general. This puts, “an emphasis on neutral observation and measurement” (Smith, 2000, p. 296).

The second theoretical orientation that we have is deviant subcultures. It tells us that it is the

emergence of a chaotic, destructive and unlawful moral system outside of the bounds of a given

community that explains youth delinquency. It states that such a subculture has the ability in

order to confer a new sense of identity on those that are going to join the gangs. Thirdly, we have

the theory of social disorganization. It assumes that it is the lack of a proper order, a suitable

environment and the space and community that we are living in that can lead to youth

delinquency. This approach assumes that it is not characteristics but contingent factors like low

economic status that contribute to youth delinquency and generally assumes that criminality is

something that we learn from processes of socialization.