Learning Objectives
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Chapter 1: WHAT IS DELINQUENCY AND HOW DOES IT DIFFER FROM ADULT CRIME?
After reading this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. Define juvenile delinquency.
2. Describe how juvenile offenders are viewed and treated differently
than adult offenders.
3. Explain what is meant by "the invention of juvenile delinquency."
4. Describe how we came to view and treat juvenile offenders differently
than adult offenders.
Chapter 2: HOW IS DELINQUENCY MEASURED?
This chapter should enable students to:
1. Describe the leading measures
of delinquency.
2. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of the leading measures of delinquency.
3. Understand how these strengths and weaknesses impact estimates of
the extent of delinquency and trends in delinquency.
4. Know why much information on the extent of delinquency or trends
in delinquency is misleading.
Chapter 3: HOW MUCH DELINQUENCY IS THERE AND IS IT INCREASING?
After completing this chapter, the students should be able to:
1 . Describe the extent of
delinquency using arrest data and self-report data.
2. Identify the characteristics of those most likely to be victims of
crime.
3. Describe trends in delinquency using arrest data, self-report data,
and victimization data.
4. Understand and be able to explain why there is no simple answer to
questions of how much delinquency there is or how much it is changing
over time.
5. Offer explanations for the dramatic decline in serious crime since
mid 1990s.
Chapter 4: WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO ENGAGE IN DELINQUENCY?
When the students finish reading this chapter, they should be able to:
1. Explain why studies produce
contradictory findings on the relationship between social class and delinquency.
2. Draw tentative conclusions about the relationship between social class
and delinquency.
3. Describe the complex relationship between race and delinquency.
4. Explain how the relationship between race and serious delinquency
is largely due to race related differences in social class and community
context.
5. Describe the relationship between age and delinquency.
6. Describe the relationship between gender and delinquency.
7. Describe the different types of delinquents.
Chapter 5: WHAT IS A THEORY AND HOW DO WE TEST THEORIES?
Upon completion of Chapter 5, students should be able to:
1. Provide a definition for
a theory.
2. Differentiate the basic parts of a theory, including independent
variable, dependent variable, and conditioning variable.
3. Understand the importance of theories in explaining and responding
to delinquency.
4. Describe the major steps used to test theories.
5. Explain the four conditions for making causal statements.
Chapter 6: STRAIN THEORY: DOES STRAIN OR STRESS CAUSE DELINQUENCY?
Reading this chapter should enable students to:
1 . Explain why juveniles
engage in delinquency according to strain theory.
2. Describe the major types of strain associated with delinquency.
3. Describe the effects of strain on juveniles, especially their emotional
states.
4. Identify and provide examples of the coping strategies employed by
individuals to deal with both strain and the negative emotions produced by
strain.
5. Specify the conditions under which strain is most likely to lead
to delinquency.
Chapter 7: SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY... DO INDIVIDUALS LEARN TO BE DELINQUENT FROM OTHERS?
When finished reading this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. Use social learning theory
to explain why juveniles engage in delinquency.
2. Describe the mechanisms by which individuals learn to engage in delinquency.
3. Discuss how reinforcements a nd punishments encourage and/or discourage
delinquent behaviors.
4. Discriminate between negative and positive reinforcement and negative
and positive punishment.
5. Describe the types of beliefs conducive to delinquency.
6. Identify the conditions under which individuals are most likely to
imitate a model.
Chapter 8: CONTROL THEORY... DO WEAK CONTROLS RESULT IN DELINQUENCY?
After reading this chapter, the students should be able to:
1. Explain how control theory
differs from strain and social learning theories of delinquency.
2. Recognize the areas of overlap between control and social learning
theories.
3. Identify the major types of control.
4. Describe the components of direct control and explain how they relate
to delinquency.
5. Explain what it means to have a stake in conformity and how emotional
attachment and investment in conventional activities provide a stake in
conformity.
6. Describe the internal controls that constrain an individual from
engaging in delinquency.
Chapter
9: LABELING THEORY: DOES THE REACTION TO DELINQUENCY LEAD TO FURTHER DELINQUENCY?
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Describe the central ideas
of labeling theory.
2. Recognize five major questions abut the reaction to delinquency that
are addressed by labeling theorists.
3. Identify and describe the three major types of reaction to delinquency
examined by labeling theorists.
4. Use the leading theories on delinquency to explain why the harsh/rejecting
reaction may lead to further delinquency.
5. Identify factors that may increase the likelihood that a juvenile
will experience a harsh/rejecting reaction to his or her delinquency.
6. Explain why certain factors increase the likelihood that a juvenile
will respond to a harsh/rejecting response with further delinquency.
7. Describe an ideal test of labeling theory.
8. Describe the types of research conducted to test labeling theory.
Chapter
10: HOW DO WE EXPLAIN DIFFERENT PATTERNS OF OFFENDING OVER THE LIFE COURSE?
After reading this chapter, students should be able to:
1. Differentiate the patterns
of offending for adolescent-limited offenders versus life-course persistent
offenders.
2. Know the prevalence of adolescent limited offending in the juvenile
population.
3. Discuss biological and social changes occurring during adolescence
that increase the likelihood for delinquency.
4. Use leading theories of delinquency to explain how social changes
during adolescence increase delinquent offending.
5. Know the prevalence of life-course persistent offenders in the population.
6. Describe traits held by life-course persistent offenders that are
conducive to crime.
7. Explain the causes of poor parenting.
8. Understand why poor parenting reduces controls and increases social
learning of crime.
9. Describe how individual traits and poor parenting lead to a variety
of problems, which persist overtime and increase the likelihood for delinquent
and criminal behaviors.
10. Suggest interventions that may reduce a life-course persistent offender's
involvement in crime.
Chapter
11: IS DELINQUENCY MORE LIKELY IN CERTAIN TYPES OF SITUATIONS?
A careful reading of this
chapter should result in students being able to:
1. Understand how certain types of situations are conducive to delinquency.
2. Identify situational features that increase the likelihood for delinquency.
3. Tell how provocation by others may escalate into violence.
4. Describe efforts to reduce crime by reducing situational strains.
5. Describe why drug use might increase the likelihood of other delinquency.
6. Discuss the limited rationality of juveniles in their consideration
of benefits and costs.
7. Explain how the presence of attractive targets, absence of capable
guardians, and presence of delinquent peers influences perceived benefits
and costs of delinquency.
8. Describe the factors that influence the likelihood that predisposed
offenders will seek or encounter situations conducive to delinquency, including
the nature of their "routine activities."
9. Discuss factors that influence the nature of routine activities, including
age and sex, as well as social and technological changes.
Chapter 12: HOW CAN WE EXPLAIN GROUP DIFFERENCES IN DELINQUENCY, PARTICULARLY COMMUNITY DIFFERENCES IN RATES OF DELINQUENCY?
After completing this chapter
students should be capable of:
1. Describing the characteristics of high-crime communities.
2. List reasons for the increase during the 1970s and 1980s in the number
of high-poverty communities.
3. Discuss societal and economic changes that may account for the decrease
in high poverty communities that occurred during the 1990s.
4. Examine why high-poverty communities have higher rates of crime using
strain, social learning, and control theories.
5. Understand the relationship between crime rates and community characteristics.
6. Present a synopsis of delinquency using strain, social learning, control,
and labeling theories.
7. Explain and provide examples of how a combination of theories
provides a more complete explanation of delinquency.
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Chapter 13: INDIVIDUAL TRAITS: WHAT IMPACT DO THEY HAVE ON DELINQUENCY?
Students should be able to:
1. List those individual traits that increase the likelihood of delinquency.
2. Describe "super-traits" conducive to delinquency.
3. Use the leading delinquency theories to explain why these traits affect
delinquency.
4. Discuss why some individuals are more likely to possess these traits.
5. Describe studies (i.e., twin and adoption) that examine the relationship
between genetic inheritance and delinquency.
6. Identify factors that can cause biological harm and subsequently affect
individual traits.
7. Describe how genetic inheritance, biological harm, and environmental
factors may contribute to traits conducive to delinquency.
8. Understand why it is difficult to separate the effects of biological
and environmental factors on individual traits.
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Chapter
14: THE FAMILY: WHAT IMPACT DOES THE FAMILY HAVE ON DELINQUENCY?
This chapter should enable
students to:
1. Explain why the family
plays a central role in delinquency, according to the major delinquency
theories.
2. Describe the primary areas of research on the family and delinquency.
3. Discuss the effects of family structure on delinquency, including
broken homes, mother's employment outside the home, teenage motherhood,
and family size.
4. Discuss the effect of parental and sibling crime/deviance on delinquency.
5. Discuss the effects of the quality of family relationships on delinquency,
including closeness between parent and child, family conflict, and child
abuse.
6. Identify steps that parents can take to socialize their children against
delinquency.
7. Describe family disciplinary styles and indicate how they relate to
delinquency.
8. Understand why some parents engage in poor parenting practices.
Chapter 15: THE SCHOOL: WHAT IMPACT DOES THE SCHOOL HAVE ON DELINQUENCY?
The students should be able
to:
1. Describe the types of school experiences associated with delinquency.
2. Explain the association between school experiences and delinquency.
3. Indicate why some juveniles have negative school experiences.
4. Discuss the types and amounts of delinquency occurring at school.
5. Identify three dimensions of bullying and discuss negative consequences
of bullying.
6. Describe community and student characteristics associated with higher
rates of in-school delinquency.
7. List and explain the characteristics of "effective" schools (i.e.,
schools that have lower within-school delinquency rates).
8. Explain the impact of these school characteristics on delinquency
using strain, social learning, control, and labeling theories.
Chapter 16: DELINQUENT PEERS AND GANGS: WHAT IMPACT DO DELINQUENT PEER GROUPS AND GANGS HAVE ON DELINQUENCY?
A reading of this chapter
should enable students to:
1. Recognize the impact of delinquent peers on delinquency.
2. Identify conditioning variables that increase the likelihood that
delinquency will result from an association with delinquent peers.
3. Describe the characteristics of delinquent peer groups.
4. Explain the effect of delinquent peer groups on delinquency from the
perspectives of the leading theories on delinquency.
5. Discuss reasons why juveniles become involved with delinquent peer
groups.
6. Distinguish street gangs from other delinquent peer groups.
7. Know the effect of gangs on delinquency, especially serious delinquency.
8. Dispel myths associated with gang crime.
9. Evaluate the causal relationship between gang membership and delinquency.
10. Describe the characteristics of gang members and the organizational
structure of gangs.
11. Compare characteristics of female gangs with those of male gangs.
12. Explain why juveniles join and leave gangs.
13. Understand why gangs often develop in lower-income, urban communities.
14. Explain the increase and spread of gangs.
15. Explain the relationship between gender and delinquency, drawing
on the family, school, and peer/gang research.
Chapter
17: WHAT EFFECT DOES RELIGION, WORK, THE MASS MEDIA, DRUGS, AND GUNS
HAVE ON DELINQUENCY?
This chapter should enable students to:
1. Use the leading delinquency theories to explain why religion might
reduce delinquency.
2. Describe research findings on the effects of religion on delinquency.
3. Discuss the association between work and delinquency.
4. Explain why work might increase delinquency by a slight amount.
5. Describe the research dealing with the effect of media violence on
juvenile violence.
6. Explain the effect of media violence on juvenile violence.
7. Describe why drug use/sales might increase the likelihood of other
delinquency.
8. Describe the research on drug use/sales and delinquency.
9. Describe the prevalence of gun possession and ownership among juveniles.
10. Explain why juveniles own and carry guns.
11. Describe the research on the relationship between guns and crime.
12. Understand the controversy over the net impact of guns on crime/delinquency.
Chapter 18: PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER: IS IT POSSIBLE TO CONSTRUCT A GENERAL THEORY OF DELINQUENCY?
This chapter helps students:
1. Review the major theories of delinquency
2. Review research on independent variables that may cause delinquency.
3. Develop and understand a general theory of delinquency.
4. Identify the important direct causes of individual delinquency and
to recognize how these causes group into four clusters.
5. Understand the effects of each cluster on delinquency, as well as
on other clusters.
6. Discern the effects of delinquency on clusters and on subsequent delinquency.
7. Describe how biological and social environmental factors affect clusters
of causes.
8. Explain life-course patterns of offending.
9. Describe situations conducive to delinquency.
10. Use a general theory to explain why males have higher rates of delinquency
than do females.
11. Understand how sexual abuse relates to female delinquency.
12. Review a general theory of delinquency.
Chapter
19: HOW IS IT DETERMINED IF SOME POLICY OR PROGRAM IS EFFECTIVE IN CONTROLLING/PREVENTING
DELINQUENCY?
This chapter should enable
students to:
1. Explain the best way to determine if a policy or program reduces delinquency.
2. Describe how the randomized experimental model satisfies the conditions
for making causal statements that were discussed in Chapter 5.
3. Discuss the types of problems that researchers often encounter when
they try to implement randomized experiments in the real world.
4. Describe two forms of nonrandomized experiments.
5. Explain why programs may be ineffective in reducing delinquency.
6. Indicate the purpose of implementation or process evaluations.
Chapter
20: THE POLICE: WHAT DO THE POLICE DO TO CONTROL DELINQUENCY?
Once the students complete
this chapter, they should be able to:
1. Describe the major characteristics of preventative patrol.
2. Discuss the general effectiveness of preventative patrol in controlling
crime.
3. Describe the three major strategies for improving police effectiveness
in controlling crime.
4. Describe how the police "crack down" on crime and specify the conditions
under which police crackdowns are most effective.
5. Explain how community policing addresses the problems of preventative
patrol.
6. Provide several examples of community policing.
7. Discuss the effectiveness of community policing.
Chapter
21: JUVENILE COURT AND CORRECTIONS: WHAT DO THE JUVENILE COURT AND
JUVENILE CORRECTIONAL AGENCIES DO TO CONTROL DELINQUENCY?
After the students read this
chapter, they should be able to:
1. Identify the major goals of juvenile court and explain why goals have
changed in recent decades.
2. Discuss the number and types of cases handled by juvenile court in
1997.
3. Describe the characteristics of juveniles processed by the court.
4. Explain what happens when juveniles are sent to juvenile court. Specifically,
identify and explain the major stages in the juvenile court process, including:
* referral to juvenile court.
* intake screening--its purpose, factors considered in making decisions,
and how cases are handled.
* petition.
* detention hearing.
* waiver to adult court.
* adjudication hearing.
* social history or predisposition report.
* disposition.
5. Describe the various ways that the juvenile correctional system sanctions
and attempts to reform juvenile offenders.
6. Identify advantages and disadvantages that are associated with these
dispositional options.
Chapter 22: DOES THE JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM DISCRIMINATE AGAINST CERTAIN GROUPS IN ITS EFFORTS TO CONTROL DELINQUENCY?
When students read this chapter,
they should be able to:
1. Describe how criminologists typically study racial discrimination
in the juvenile justice system and know whether these studies find evidence
of racial discrimination.
2. Identify the most important determinants of a juvenile's treatment
within the justice system.
3. Describe how racial discrimination varies across police departments
and juvenile courts, and by type of crime.
4. Explain direct and indirect racial discrimination.
5. Discuss why and how states are addressing the over-representation
of minorities in the juvenile justice system.
6. Discuss data regarding class and gender discrimination within the
juvenile justice system.
Chapter
23: IS IT POSSIBLE TO CONTROL DELINQUENCY BY PUNISHING MORE OFFENDERS AND
PUNISHING THEM MORE SEVERELY? THE STRATEGIES OF DETERRENCE AND INCAPACITATION
The students should be able
to:
1. Express the basic ideas
that underlie the strategies of deterrence and incapacitation.
2. Define specific deterrence and general deterrence.
3. Describe and understand problems associated with studies that assess
the effectiveness of specific deterrence and general deterrence in reducing
delinquency.
4. Provide tentative conclusions about the effectiveness of specific
and general deterrence.
5. Explain the limitations of punishment as an effective deterrent of
delinquency.
6. Discuss the research on incapacitation, including the problems involved
in estimating the amount of crime prevented by incapacitation.
7. Describe the strategy of selective incapacitation and the difficulties
involved in implementing this strategy.
8. Describe the tentative conclusions we may draw about the effectiveness
of incapacitation in reducing crime.
Chapter
24: IS IT POSSIBLE TO PREVENT DELINQUENCY AND TO REHABILITATE DELINQUENTS?
THE STRATEGIES OF PREVENTION AND REHABILITATION
This chapter should enable
the students to:
1. Describe the strategies of prevention and rehabilitation.
2. Discuss the history of prevention and rehabilitation efforts in the
United States.
3. Indicate the reasons why most prevention and rehabilitation programs
are not properly evaluated.
4. Provide tentative conclusions about the effectiveness of prevention
and rehabilitation programs, as well as a discussion on why.
5. Describe the general characteristics of effective prevention and rehabilitation
programs.
6. Discuss the features of successful prevention and rehabilitation programs
focusing on early family environment, parent training, school factors,
individual traits and peers/gangs.
7. Describe the characteristics of other prevention and rehabilitation
programs, including mentoring programs, supervised recreational opportunities,
vocational training and employment programs, and gun programs.
8. Describe situational and community crime prevention programs.
9. Analyze the crucial role of larger social forces, especially the economy,
in reducing delinquency.
Chapter
25: WHAT SHOULD WE DO TO REDUCE DELINQUENCY?
The students should know and be able to:
1. Describe and justify their own strategies for controlling delinquency.
2. Discuss the criteria that should be considered in evaluating a delinquency
control strategy.
3. Offer reasons why prevention and rehabilitation should be part of
an effective delinquency control strategy.
4. Describe the federal government's comprehensive approach to prevention/rehabilitation.
5. Describe how the federal government is trying to implement this approach.
6. Indicate why a delinquency control strategy should also include the
sanctioning of juvenile offenders.
7. Discuss ways to more effectively sanction juvenile offenders.
Return to: Juvenile Delinquency Dedicated Site Main Page || About the Author || Key Terms || Chapter Outlines || Table of Contents || Suggested Links || Course Syllabus || Roxbury Publishing Company's Main Page