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.