Child Abuse & Delinquency

These statistics readily show that we live in a violent society. The costs in terms of dollars and lives can be devastating from such statistics. It is of little surprise in such a violent society that our children and adolescents commit more crimes than every before. Since 1965, crime rates the juvenile crime rate has more than tripled: between 1980 and 1990, the crime rate for out nation’s youth, ages ten to seventeen, rose 27% (Jensen, 1998).

Yet, the literature on juvenile delinquency and crime suggests that the rising crime rates among juveniles may stem from the increasing incidences of child abuse. Since the 1980s, crime researchers started taking a critical assessment on youth crime. Even

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behavior to children (Reports, 2001, 1). In the first half of the 1990s, the report showed that cases of child abuse or neglect grew 33 percent to 3,244,000 incidents, while at the same time reports of child abuse and neglect slowed considerably in the second half of the decade to 18 percent (Reports, 2001, 1). In light of the enormous costs of child abuse and the delinquent behaviors associated with it that reach into late adulthood, the above report’s findings on the incidence of child abuse among substance abusing families is significant for those hoping to find a way to intervene and prevent child abuse. Studies in the literature support the finding that substance abusers are more likely than non-substance abusers to abuse their children. One study demonstrates that children who are subjected to substance abusing parents are even more at risk for delinquent behaviors than disadvantaged youth “Wegscheider reported that on every variable studies, children of alcoholics fared worse than disadvantaged youth; they were three times more likely to be placed in foster homes, twice as likely to be married under the age of 16, had a much higher incidence of juvenile delinquency and mental illness, and were more likely to attempt sui
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Approximate Word count = 3697
Approximate Pages = 15 (250 words per page)

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