Juvenile Delinquency - Risk Factors

Risk Factors

The two largest predictors of juvenile delinquency are

  • parenting style, with the two styles most likely to predict delinquency being
  • "permissive" parenting, characterized by a lack of consequence-based discipline and encompassing two subtypes known as
  • "neglectful" parenting, characterized by a lack of monitoring and thus of knowledge of the child's activities, and
  • "indulgent" parenting, characterized by affirmative enablement of misbehavior)
  • "authoritarian" parenting, characterized by harsh discipline and refusal to justify discipline on any basis other than "because I said so";
  • peer group association, particularly with antisocial peer groups, as is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised.

Other factors that may lead a teenager into juvenile delinquency include, poor or low socio-economic status, poor school readiness/performance and/or failure, peer rejection, hyperactivity, or attention deficit disorder (ADHD). There may also be biological factors, such as high levels of serotonin, giving them a difficult temper and poor self-regulation, and a lower resting heart rate, which may lead to fearlessness. Most of these tend to be influenced by a mix of both genetic and environmental factors.

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