Gender and Family Free Essays

Nowadays in today’s civilization there are a lot more youths that are committing delinquent crimes. The juvenile justice system’s officials are continuously trying to find resources as to what causes an youth to turn out to be delinquent and fall down hill into a bad lifestyle. It is very expected that adolescents will become juvenile delinquents if there’s not enough structure given to them from their families or their inner feelings or pride of their specific gender. We will write a custom essay sample on Gender and Family or any similar topic only for you Order Now There are so many different variables that are concentrated on the important of adolescents into delinquency like family function, disorders, two parent households and different genders. Inheritance plays a big role mostly because of all the environmental sources. Family can affect delinquency mainly if the economics influence for low-income housing and where the residences reside in a poorly appealing neighborhood where there is high crime. Family makeup affects delinquency because when there’s a big family it has a larger attraction of the low-income is coming in the household. The families behavior also plays a role because if you decide to sell drugs to make a escape from not having enough to cover bills or from reality or family members trying to find a easy way out from the obligation through the bad activities rather than focusing for the kids receiving the proper education to be able to get a good job. Parent(s) needs to take a positive roll for their children’s life, not ignoring the children’s, belittling your kids, belittling your spouse and being very abusive. When having a healthy family by giving your kids responsibilities such as chores and if the chores are not done then there will be consequences for nothing being done from what was told. There are also other boundaries to follow. The children know what there is to expect from you. The children are surrounded by a whole lot of support and love and they all feel secured with approaching to the parents to talk about any issues that’s occurring or admitting to problems they are into. There are differences the way males and females socialize and affect their growth (Siegel Welsh, 2006). The gender difference that’s related to delinquencies includes social status. A status offense is only declared an act to be an offense if it was committed by a juvenile and decided in a juvenile court system (Status offense, 2002). One of the places that others can see both genders being disobedient is at shopping malls, but there are other places as well. This is where the females can be loud, adventurous, rough, trying risky activities and daring. Males are far more having a hostile attitude than females and few of the time spent within the relationships with the opposite sex. Males are creating a bond with the existing criminal male friends. Females are very different from males. The differences are the amount of persecution they have encountered in their childhood lives. Approximately 80% of females that’s in the juvenile justice system have numerous of histories of sexual abuse, physical abuse and verbal abuse comparing to the rate of 20% of the teenage females that are in the general civilization. A lot of these females that are put in the juvenile justice system are the ones that never had any love at home, abused by family and friends, non effective parent role models, lack of communication, no discipline. A lot of these girls then run away from home to find love and affection elsewhere and it ends up being men in the streets. And to survive in the streets prostitution then comes into play. The females that commit juvenile offenses have important calming needs. But the family hasn’t seen the needs and it’s not being noticed and or treated in the juvenile justice system. Few of the females that are in the juvenile justice system have mother and father or close sibling that has been or are incarcerated. Having a bad home environment give the greatest opportunity to engage to violent or bad behavior relationships with family members, friends and possible mates. All of it would’ve been prevented if the children were engaged closer with the parents and receiving all the love and affection. Most of the youth females tend to become pregnant in an early age and sometimes it is done for attention. How to cite Gender and Family, Papers Gender and Family Free Essays Gender and Family By: Sherrica Newburn CJS 230 Gender and Family As juvenile delinquency continues to be a growing problem in America, research and analysis have shown that gender and family can have a huge impact on juvenile delinquency. When it comes to gender, many differences take place during the development and socialization in the male and female causing different juvenile offending patterns. Changes in family structures will also have implications on socialization for both male and females. We will write a custom essay sample on Gender and Family or any similar topic only for you Order Now In this paper, one will learn how the role of family structure and gender can be a contributing factor in juvenile delinquency. Gender differences in development begin as early as infancy. These differences begin with socialization, cognitive and personality. On a social level, males are believed to be more aggressive than females. The cause of this is believed to be because males are taught and encouraged to be tough, while females are taught to be lady like and act on emotions. Cognitive differences also start in early childhood. Females tend to speak earlier and have more communication than males. â€Å"Males excel in tasks that assess the ability to manipulate visual images in working memory, whereas females do better in tasks that require retrieval from long-term memory and the acquisition and use of verbal information â€Å"(Siegel Welsh, 2005). Personality is one of the most obvious differences in gender. Females tend to have low self-esteem and they are more emotional than males. Males tend to have low attention spans while females have better attention spans. Delinquency affects gender because the differences in socialization, cognitive skills, and personality are what make up gender specific behaviors. Most children are used to growing up in the traditional family of a mother, father and siblings. The makeup of families today is no longer consisting of the traditional family structure. Children are being raised in single parent homes with the absence of either their mother or father. In these cases, the single parent has to struggle even harder to make ends meet causing that bond between parent and hild to diminish. Children need guidance from both parents, and when one parent is absent, the guidance will not be there and it can leave a long lasting impact on the child. The affect that family makeup has on delinquency is that if a child’s needs are not being met in the home, the child is more inclined to turn to their peers for some type of fulfillment. Family behaviors such as breakup, conflict, neglect, and deviance can all have an impact on delinquency. Because a child is first socialized at home, any disjunction in an orderly family structure can be expected to have a negative impact on the child† (Siegel Welsh, 2005). When a family structure is broken, it can impact delinquency on a male because males are more affected by the absence of their father than females are. Females tend to be affected by the absence of both parents which can impact female delinquency. Conflict, neglect, and deviance can set a bad example for children. Family behaviors such as parental neglect can provide a bad example for delinquents. Children growing up in homes with no supervision and minimum care are more likely to turn to violent and antisocial behaviors. Parents who show deviant behaviors are more likely to produce children who show deviance. For example, parents who smoke around their children often result in the child believing that it is okay to smoke because they see their parents do it. Even though research shows that female delinquency has increased, females are known to be treated differently by members of the juvenile system than males. Female delinquents are more inclined to commit sex related crimes associated with relationship problems or sexual abuse. This is a benefit to females because members of the juvenile system to focus more on male related crimes than female related crimes. When it comes to females, they can be treated unfairly because members of the justice system expect certain gender specific crimes from female delinquents. Male delinquents are known to commit more serious crimes than females, so the justice system goes off expectations of each gender. In conclusion, family and gender plays a huge role in the juvenile justice system. In our society, juveniles are expected to commit crimes based on gender, and family structure. In order to prevent increasing juvenile delinquency, preventive programs for delinquents and their families should be provided to help children cope with broken family structures. References Seigel, L. J. and Welsh, B. C. (2005). Juvenile Delinquency: The core. (2nd ed. ). Belmont, CA Thomson Wadsworth. Retrieved January 31, 2010 How to cite Gender and Family, Essays