What does the term "delinquent behavior" mean - basically know professional psychologists, social workers, lawyers and police. Nevertheless, we encounter this phenomenon directly or indirectly almost every day, and many of us behaved this way in our teens. What is delinquent behavior, why does it occur, and how does it manifest itself - let's look at this article together.
What is delinquency?
Delinquent behavior is an offense that is not subject to criminal liability: petty hooliganism, petty theft in a supermarket, in the market or in transport, fights without heavy damage, crossing the road in the wrong place, being late for work. Most administrative offenses relate specifically to delinquent acts.
If your child is a student:
- Does not sleep at home;
- consumes alcohol;
- fights, pestering adults on the street;
- leaves school;
- breaks benches and swings, writes on the walls;
- takes away pocket money from the younger ones,
then it belongs to the category of delinquents.
At the same time, deviant and delinquent behavior are distinguished.
Deviant - this is any behavior that deviates from the norm, which is not approved by public opinion. And delinquent behavior is already censured by law. It borders on criminal behavior, and the presence of criminal punishment determines the border. If a teenager is registered with the police, then he is delinquent. And if he gets behind bars, then he becomes already a criminal.
As you can see, delinquent behavior can be the beginning of a criminal life. Often, the difference is only in age, since criminal liability for certain crimes can only be brought after 14 years. Adolescence lasts from 12-13 to 18-19 years, so delinquent behavior almost completely falls into this period. According to the UN, one or another form of such misconduct was noted in more than a third of adolescents.
One of the most common examples of delinquency is vandalism. Young people senselessly destroy monuments, break glass, cut seats. At least several times a year, press reports of desecrated graves and broken tombstones appear in the press - all this falls into the category of delinquent acts.
Why do teens behave this way?
Very often, faced with such phenomena, we ask a rhetorical question: “Well, why do they do this? What are they missing? ”
As psychologists have established, delinquent behavior of adolescents occurs for several main reasons:
- social immaturity;
- curiosity and desire to experience the thrill;
- inability to predict the consequences of their actions;
- hypertrophied desire for independence.
Teenagers are faced with the fact that society requires them to perform certain roles. They are not ready to obey, they have not yet matured socially, while they believe that the world does not give them what they should. So there is a desire to rebel, destroy, not meet social requirements.
What is a typical psychological portrait of a delinquent offender?
It is distinguished by such features:
- self-confidence;
- hostility to the authorities;
- insolence;
- touchiness and hostility;
- weak self-control.
Some of these individuals have low self-esteem and a negative vision of themselves. Others artificially support self-esteem, denying the existence of problems and not linking a positive view of themselves and their bad deeds. Such adolescents do not want to accept responsibility for what they have done, and believe that they were “provoked” by other people and circumstances.
In some cases, tort offenses are committed due to deep neurosis, fear or anxiety.
By what principles does a teen delinquent live?
The moral of street companies is too different from the usual. The younger the participant in such a group, the more active and stronger he assimilates inverted values.
- Keep your mouth shut.
- Be tough and persistent
- Come on change.
- Know how to get the money.
- Be able to outwit.
- Respect the criminals.
The more a teenager "scores" on this scale of values, the higher the likelihood that his delinquent behavior will develop into a criminal over time.
The school has now ceased to be an educational social institution, so all responsibility lies solely with the parents and immediate relatives of adolescents. What values are propagated in the family, with whom does the child communicate outside the home, what programs does he watch, what does he most often talk about? An analysis of all the components will be able to give an answer: what to expect in the future, and is there any reason for concern today.