YOUTH CRIME

Youth Crime



Youth Crime

Introduction

Through the development of a number of international instruments the international community recognized the special situation of minors, in particular the situation of juvenile offenders. Because of their age, juveniles are vulnerable to sexual abuse, neglect and exploitation, and require protection from such threats. In addition, to exclude juveniles from the criminal justice system and sending them back to the society at the national level special measures should be taken to prevent juvenile delinquency. In the separate system of juvenile justice, protection is not granted to a great number of minors, because it includes several provisions aimed at providing protection than adults, which are equally applied to juveniles.

Until a certain age a person retains the right to be treated as a minor, and is entitled to such additional protection. Given that the Convention is a treaty that creates legal obligations for States Parties to it, the limit of this age is important. The Convention on the Rights of the Child defines the age of criminal liability for adults in the age of eighteen, allowing states parties to it, to deviate from that age, if their national laws define the different age of majority. It should be noted that the States parties to the Convention, not only must comply with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but also to incorporate them into their national laws.

Undoubtedly, juvenile delinquency is one of the major social phenomena that has arisen in our society, and is one of the preferred international criminological problems since the last century. The manifestations of social behaviour called the negative attention, and may be observed, usually better among the adolescent than in adults. It is also important to address juvenile delinquency today as tomorrow they may commit crime as adults.

Juvenile delinquency is a global phenomenon, it extends from the far corners of the industrial city to the suburbs of large cities, from rich families to the poorest, and it is a problem that occurs in all social strata and in every corner of our civilization.

Sociological perspectives: Functionalist, Marxist, Feminist,

The Functionalist theory's viewpoint is embedded in the work of Emile Durham (1858-1917). It offers us the outlook of humanity as an organism in which each part purposes in the certain way to double-check the steadiness of the whole. "Durham clarified that humanity was held simultaneously by the collective conscience, which are distributed assumptions, sentiments, and values" (Keller). However, humanity is a certain thing, which lives on its own and it has the structure of components that sustains it. (Keller, 2005)

Functionalist theory's outlook of the world is, as though every individual has the part in the scheme, and they have to manage their part in alignment for everything to work. In addition to acknowledging the way things are in humanity and depict them to be the usual way of life. (Erikson, 2006, 79)

Functionalist theory's outlook of stratification is the believable point of view of the inequality and inescapable hierarchy that happens in ...