Biological Theory Of Juvenile Delinquency

There are many theories that are associated with juvenile delinquency. Biological theory considers juvenile delinquent behavior to be predisposed and revolves around the idea that juveniles were born to be criminals. Cesear Lambrosso, who created the biological theory call positivism, states that children who grew up committing crimes inherited biochemical and genetic factors. Lambrosso also believed that people that commit crimes have certain facial features such as, a flattened nose and supernumerary teeth (Aguilera 2012). A criminalist named Sheldon found that different body types made individuals behave differently. For example, he believed that mesomorphs were more likely to commit crimes because they were athletic, as opposed to the physic …show more content…
For example, let’s say that a child living in a poor neighborhood starts to hang out with the wrong crowd. If the person the child is hanging out with is participating in illegal activities the child living in the poor neighborhood will most likely join in on the illegal activities taking place. For another example, let’s say a child lives in a wealthy neighborhood and has none of this illegal activity going on, they are most likely not going to participate in illegal activities. In my personal opinion, I would have to believe the social learning theory the most. These days with social media being the most popular children see thing that they think look cool and start to follow the “trend”. There is not a solid answer for the reason children decide to participate in illegal activities, but the sociological, psychological, and biological theories help understand these juvenile delinquents. Juvenile Delinquency is not only a problem in the United States, but all over the world. In Germany, violence is at a high rate. Children here are responsible for crime at the age of fourteen. Any child under the age of fourteen is required to go to a special school that focuses on therapy to help them instead …show more content…
There are also several programs to help keep delinquency from reoccurring. The best way to treat juvenile delinquency is to catch it early. There are several types of community and school programs that can be used to catch it early, such as, classroom and behavior management programs, several sections of classroom based programs, social competence promotion curriculums, conflict resolution and violence prevention curriculums, bullying prevention, afterschool recreation programs, mentoring programs, school organization programs, and comprehensive community programs. All of the programs have proved to reduce later juvenile delinquency. A program for three to four year old called, The High Scope Perry Preschool Project, focuses on the risk of school failure. This program showed several benefits especially preventing arrests later in life. Another early prevention called, The Elmira Prenatal/ Early Infancy Project, was where nurses were sent to the homes of low socioeconomic women who were unmarried. These visits lasted until the second year after the child’s birth. The time the child turned fifteen there was a report of decreased running away from home, consumption of alcohol, report of arrests, violation of probation, and sexual activity (Flores, Robert). It seems that if you catch the child’s delinquency early then it will stop them from doing it later on in life. This makes sense because then the child will grow up