From a legal perspective, delinquency consists of behaviors that are prohibited by the family or juvenile code of the state and that subjects minors (that is, persons not legally adults) to the jurisdiction of the juvenile court. These behaviors can be grouped into two general categories: (1) behaviors that would constitute criminal offenses if committed by adults (for example, murder, aggravated assault, larceny, robbery, motor vehicle theft) and (2) behaviors that are only prohibited for minors, which are called status offenses (for example, truancy, running away from home, incorrigibility).
Although the concept of delinquency is familiar to contemporary Americans, it is an historically recent term that did not gain widespread acceptance until the early 1800s. Prior to this time, most people viewed the young as miniature adults. Consequently, when youths were apprehended for violating local laws, they were subject to the same criminal justice process as other adults. This was possible because contemporary ideas about childhood and adolescence did not exist. By the early 1800s, however, more modern conceptions of childhood and adolescence as distinct periods in the individual’s life had developed. Moreover, they were seen as times during which the individual needed to be nurtured, guided, and controlled in order to become a healthy and productive adult. These developing ideas of childhood and adolescence also made possible the development of the concept of delinquency, and the development of a separate juvenile justice process to deal with delinquent behavior (Bernard 1992).
A distinctive feature of the concept of delinquency is that it is committed by individuals who are not adults. Consequently, the juvenile justice process that has developed to deal with delinquent behavior contains a number of features that distinguish it from the adult criminal justice process. These features include a concern with treatment and rehabilitation rather than punishment, a higher degree of procedural informality than is found in adult courts, and a distinctive lexicon.
Contemporary Delinquency
Although the concept of delinquency seems straightforward, delinquency is, in reality, a complex phenomenon. For example, police only respond to some of the actions that are legally defined as delinquent, frequently ignoring some (typically minor) illegal behaviors that are prohibited by law while aggressively pursuing others. Furthermore, there is some variability across and within jurisdictions in the types of delinquent behaviors that are ignored or pursued. In addition, the delinquent activities of some youths (for example, poor and minority youths) tend to be more visible than the activities of others (those from affluent backgrounds), thus increasing the likelihood that certain youths will come to the attention of the police and be labeled delinquents. Being caught and processed by juvenile justice agencies may actually increase the likelihood of subsequent delinquency if juvenile justice processing leads to the development of a delinquent identity, encourages law-abiding persons to avoid those with delinquent labels, and/or leads to a loss of conventional opportunities (Garfinkel 1956; Lemert 1951).
Importantly, defining delinquency as behavior that violates the legal code ignores nuances in juvenile justice practice that lead to an increased likelihood that some youths and not others will comprise what is commonly—and incorrectly—seen as representative of the delinquent population. In reality, delinquency is a common adolescent activity because it comprises an extremely broad range of behaviors from incorrigibility (that is, not obeying one’s parents) to serious criminal actions (for example, homicide). Consequently, almost all minors could be considered delinquents, because most engage in at least one illegal behavior at some time during their juvenile years. For example, a 2001 survey of high school seniors’ drug and alcohol use revealed that 85% had used alcohol and 52% had used marijuana (Pastore and McGuire 2001). Furthermore, the percentage of youths who fail to obey their parents, also illegal in many jurisdictions, is likely to be even higher (Elrod and Ryder, forthcoming).
The Nature and Extent of Delinquent Behavior
To examine the extent of delinquent behavior, it is necessary to understand the primary ways in which delinquency is measured and the picture of delinquency that is presented by these measures. Although a number of measures of delinquency exist, three important sources of data that can be used to understand the nature and extent of delinquency are arrest data, self-report data, and data collected from cohort studies.
The most comprehensive source of arrest data is the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), which separates crimes into Part I (or Crime Index) offenses and Part II crimes. These crimes are further separated into Crime Index violent offenses (murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and Crime Index property offenses (burglary, larceny theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson). According to the UCR, juvenile crime represents a significant problem in the United States. In 2002, there were more than 1.6 million arrests of persons under eighteen years of age. However, the great majority of those arrests (85%) were for nonviolent crimes. In 2002, persons under the age of eighteen accounted for 15% of all arrests for Crime Index violent offenses and 30% of all arrests for Crime Index property offenses (FBI 2003).
With the exception of a marked increase in arrests of persons under eighteen years of age for Crime Index violent offenses between 1988 and 1994, juvenile arrest trends have been quite stable since the early 1970s. Moreover, the upward trend in violent juvenile arrests seen between 1988 and 1994 has reversed and has been going down since that time. Altogether, data on juvenile arrests provide no evidence of a trend toward increased levels of juvenile crime, nor do they reveal a continuing escalation of juvenile violence.
In addition to information about numbers of arrests, the UCR also provides information on the race and gender of persons who are arrested. According to 2002 UCR data, whites accounted for approximately 72% of the arrests of persons under eighteen years of age. Whites accounted for the great majority of arrests for Crime Index property offenses and for slightly more than half of those arrested for Crime Index violent crimes (FBI 2003). With respect to gender, in 2002 females accounted for approximately 29% of all arrests of persons under eighteen years of age. Females accounted for about 18% of persons under eighteen years of age arrested for Crime Index violent offenses and approximately 32% of those under age eighteen arrested for Crime Index property crimes (FBI 2003). Males are more likely to be arrested for Crime Index offenses, particularly violent offenses, than females.
Although an examination of juvenile arrests provides some insight into the extent of delinquency, arrest data are plagued by several significant shortcomings. First, police are more likely to focus attention on some youths and behaviors than others. Thus, arrest data reveal as much about police practices as they do about youths’ behavior. Second, many delinquent acts do not come to the attention of the police (this is often referred to as the ”dark figure” of crime). Third, arrest data tend to overestimate juveniles’ involvement in criminal activity. This occurs because juvenile offending is more likely to involve other persons, often other juveniles, than crimes committed by adults. As a result, juvenile offenses are more likely than adult offenses to involve multiple arrests, even though some of those arrested are not knowing or willing participants in criminal activity (Snyder 2001).
Another important source of data on juvenile crime is self-report studies that ask people to report on their own behavior, such as the survey of high school seniors’ drug and alcohol use noted earlier. A primary advantage of the self-report method is that it can elicit information on offenses not known to the police. Consequently, it allows researchers to better understand the dark figure of juvenile crime. Another advantage is that self-report studies are well suited for examining a variety of factors that are believed to be related to delinquency (for example, income, education, quality of life, work, family life, and peer group affiliations).
Not surprisingly, self-report studies indicate that youths engage in a considerable amount of delinquency that goes undetected by the police. Offenses such as school truancy, alcohol consumption, using a false ID, petty larceny, and vandalism appear to be rather normal adolescent behaviors. More serious forms of delinquency are far less common, although almost 12% of the respondents in a 2000 study indicated that they had hurt someone badly enough to require a doctor’s attention and approximately 10% indicated that they had stolen something worth more than $50 (Pastore and Maguire 2004).
Self-report studies also reveal some important findings regarding the relationship between race, social class, and delinquency. These studies indicate that racial differences in levels of offending are quite similar, although African American youths report slightly more involvement in serious crimes (Elliott and Ageton 1980). Also, there is little difference in the proportion of middleclass and lowerclass youths who engage in delinquency. They do, however, vary in the types of offenses they tend to commit. Middleclass youths have the highest rates of involvement in such offenses as stealing from their family, cheating on tests, cutting classes, disorderly conduct, lying about their age, and drunkenness. Lowerclass youths have higher rates of involvement in more serious offenses such as felony assault and robbery (Elliott and Huizinga 1983).
Self-report studies also have examined the relationship between gender and delinquent behavior. Overall, these studies indicate that females engage in considerably more delinquency than is indicated by arrest data. However, females engage in less delinquency than males, and they tend to be involved in less serious types of delinquency, although differences in delinquent behavior between males and females are much smaller when minor offenses are examined (Chesney-Lind and Shelden 2004).
A very important point to note regarding recent self-report research is that it produces an overall picture of delinquency that is similar to that painted by official data. Although the extent of delinquency depicted in self-report research is considerably greater than is depicted in arrest data, and while racial differences in offending are not as great as that depicted by arrest data, the pattern of delinquency is similar. Moreover, neither arrest data nor self-report data indicate that juvenile crime has become significantly worse over time.
A third source of information on delinquency is data collected from cohort studies. Cohort studies are designed to examine specific groups of youths over a period of time. Several important cohort studies have been published since the 1970s, and these provide a valuable picture of delinquency within the juvenile population. Some of the most important cohort studies were published by Marvin Wolfgang and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania, who examined cohorts of youths born in Philadelphia in 1945 and 1958. They found that youths who had five or more contacts, whom they labeled “chronic recidivists,” made up no more than 7% of the cohort but accounted for more than half of all the offenses attributed to the cohort. Even more striking was the fact that this 7% accounted for more than 60% of the homicides, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults attributed to the cohort. Despite these findings, there was no evidence that youths’ delinquent behavior will necessarily become more serious over time, although when youth do repeat offenses, increases in severity are common (Tracy, Wolfgang, and Figlio 1990; Wolfgang et al. 1972).
Cohort studies that have focused on violent juvenile offenders have also provided some important insights on the size and characteristics of the violent juvenile offender population. Rather than discovering a large number of violent youth, this research indicates that only a small percentage of the juvenile population, usually less than 6%, engages in serious delinquency, and few youths are involved in repetitive acts of violence (Hamparian 1978; Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 1989; Snyder 1988). Moreover, serious juvenile violence is not evenly distributed across communities across the country, but tends to be concentrated in relatively few communities within large urban areas (Snyder and Sickmund 1999).
Overall, the findings noted earlier indicate that small populations of youths engage in primarily status or serious violent offenses, but most youths engage in a variety of mostly minor delinquent behaviors during their adolescent years. Some delinquent behavior is serious, and there are violent and dangerous juvenile offenders, although this is the exception rather than the rule. Indeed, public concerns about an increasing wave of juvenile crime and violence appear to be unfounded. Although some areas have experienced and continue to experience significant problems with juvenile crime, there is no indication that it has, in general, become more serious over time.
