Broadly speaking: Family Instability and Juvenile Delinquency

This article is written by Srijan Sarkar, 4th-year law student at NUJS, Kolkata.

Role of Family in Juvenile Delinquency

According to the Black’s Law Dictionary, “a juvenile delinquent is defined as a minor who has committed a crime or is guilty of antisocial behavior”[1]. Oxford Dictionary defines the same as “a person below the age of criminal responsibility and above a certain minimum age, who is held punishable for breaking the law.”[2]

In common parlance, adolescence is a time period following puberty during which a child grows into a full adult. A child experiences a lot of transitional phases from childhood to adulthood, and hence it becomes a vital stage for any child. Lack of care and attention, lack of parental involvement and guidance sometimes lead to delinquent behavior, which is defined as tendency to commit crime among young children. After a certain age, adolescents learn to view themselves as adults and parents find it difficult to persevere the idea. The shift in authority and decision making often leads to conflict between parents and the child. The quality of this relationship is linked with antisocial behavior, often cases like physical and verbal aggression, violence is common in case the parental bonding is not strong. According to a Study by (Henry Poduthase, 2012) Parental guidance, parental involvement and attachment have effects and contributes most to deviant behavior among the youth.[3]

Family is the very basic unit of human society. Peer and group activity has taken a step back, and due to youth mostly spending time in indoor activities. Often a child is subjected to violent online games which have a plot of killing, violence and hatred. Young minds often are addicted to such games, and the violence is being seen as normal from an early age. With today’s accessibility of internet and unrestricted usage, we see youth are struggling to identify what is normal and what is deviance behavior.

The first social interaction of a child is with the immediate family. Children are mostly influenced by parents and the household and the basic notions of good and bad, and the development of personality is largely structured through the family members. Data shows that broken families, single and separated parents, parents with a lack of trust and compatibility have an adverse effect on children and accounts for such increased deviant behavior.[4]

Peer pressure can also be a factor in juvenile delinquency. Peer group often influence the minor in illegal activities. Adolescents and children are subjected to substance abuse and other antisocial activities at an early age. It negatively impacts children and develops ‘compulsive economic behaviour’[5] and low cognitive ability. Lack of access to education often adds to problems, especially in India, where primary and quality education is only available to a handful.

Juvenile delinquency is a universal phenomenon. In the year 2017, we saw over 40,000 juvenile cases committed in India and many cases are unreported, which makes the growth alarming. The National Capital, Delhi remains the highest percentage of crimes committed by a juvenile at 35.2% (2017) and out of a total 2,677 crimes committed, 320 robberies, 132 were rape cases, 93 cases of molestation, 46 were murder cases, 49 cases of rash driving and 1,381 of theft.[6]

No child is born a criminal. Earlier the rules of determining the factors of juvenile delinquency was by rating or evaluating a household as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ depending on the social values and class.[7] Even though poverty adds to the problem of delinquent behavior but it is not conclusive as children born in a rich well to do families are often found guilty of offences like theft, robbery and rape, murder or substance abuse. The results show that child from well off families appear more in juvenile courts than children from ‘bad’ families.

Sociologists claim that the deviant behavior from ‘upper class’ individual is due to lack of parental care and love.[8] In early formative years, child are not given guidance and support and some are even spoiled by excessive financial support. The following categories can summarize the Family or home from which the delinquent minor belong[9]:

• Other members of the family are immoral, alcoholic or related to some criminal activity
• One of both parents are not actively present due to divorce, separation or death
• Lack of parental control largely due to indifferences, illness and ignorance
• Cultural and traditions differences are prevalent
• Unemployment, poverty and other economic difficulties

A few decades ago, when even divorce and single parenting was common, we saw less number of child crimes as compared to today’s age. This rise has been very prevalent and the reason is that earlier in case of separation, parents used to stay together only ‘for the sake of the children’ and was accommodating to rear the child.[10] Nowadays, with the increase of divorce rate, the theme of broken homes has shaped differently. “With more dual-income families and working mothers, the family training in values and behavior has taken a back seat, and child are often kept with child care workers and daycare center from an early age.”[11]

Parents, school, media and society and several factors help contribute to develop and shape anti-social tendencies of a child. Hence, it is essential for counsellors, governmental agencies to sensitize guardians and parents in parental roles and obligations, especially in formative years of a child growth and development.

[1] Black’s Law Dictionary, Available at https://thelawdictionary.org/

[2] Definition of child crime, Oxford Dictionary, Available at https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/crime

[3] Henry Poduthase, ‘Parent-Adolescent and Juvenile Delinquency in Kerala, India: A Qualitative Study,’ Available at https://collections.lib.utah.edu/dl_files/23/7e/237e36a58c3585b32c4984d896533f145fa92109.pdf

[4] Fosco, Gregory M et al. “Family relationships and parental monitoring during middle school as predictors of early adolescent problem behavior.” Journal of clinical child and adolescent psychology : the official journal for the Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53 vol. 41,2 (2012)

[5] Freeman, Jennifer B, “Cognitive behavioral treatment for young children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.” Biological psychiatry vol. 61,3 (2007)

[6] Crimes in India Statistics (2018), Vol 1, NCRB, Available at https://ncrb.gov.in/sites/default/files/Crime%20in%20India%202018%20-%20Volume%201.pdf

[7] Chung HL, Steinberg L. ‘Relations between neighborhood factors, parenting behaviors, peer deviance, and delinquency among serious juvenile offenders’. Developmental Psychology (2006)

[8] Task Force Report: Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime, Report on Juvenile Justice and Consultant Paper,

[9] Archana Singh, Effect of Single Parent Family on Child Delinquency, International Journal of Science and Research (ISSN Online: 2319-7064) Agarwal, D. (2018).

[10] Heilbrun Krik, Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention, assessment and intervention, Oxford University Press.

[11] Howell James, Prevention and reducing juvenile delinquency: a comprehensive framework, Sage Publication (2009)