Подростковая преступность: причины и последствия

Litvinenko M.S.,
Student at the Russian State University of Justice

Scientific consultant  Osadchaya O.N.,
Associate Professor  at the Foreign Languages Department,
Russian State University of Justice, PhD in Philology

Juvenile delinquency: reasons and consequences

Executive summary. The authors of the article study juvenile delinquency, particularly social, economic, and personal causes, as well as the consequences of juvenile delinquency. Pertinent statistics for describing the issue in question is provided in this work. The results of the performed research reflect the need to refine judicial measures to combat minors’ delinquent behaviour. It is important to deal with the causes and conditions of juvenile delinquency not by cruel measures, but with the understanding and awareness that there should be punishment for any crime. Teenagers and parents should know that minors have their own responsibilities and are responsible for their misdeeds and actions. The task of the law is to direct them to the path of correction, and for this it must be perfect and uniform for all.

Keywords: juvenile delinquency, crime, reason, consequence, liability.

To a large extent, juvenile delinquency is influenced by the situation in the country, the conditions of existence of minors, their family. It is important to deal with the causes and conditions of juvenile delinquency not by cruel measures, but with the understanding and awareness that there should be punishment for any crime. Juvenile delinquency involves socially dangerous actions of minors, responsibility for which is provided for by criminal law. Socially dangerous actions of minors who are unable to bear criminal responsibility by age should be distinguished from juvenile delinquency.

According to the Criminal Code, article 20 in the Russian Federation, a person who has reached the age of sixteen at the time of committing a crime, as well as persons who have reached the age of fourteen at the time of committing a crime, are criminally liable for murder, intentional infliction of serious harm to health, intentional infliction of moderate harm to health, kidnapping, etc.

The causes of juvenile delinquency are of the nature of remnants, associated with improper upbringing, negative influence in the family, incitement by criminal elements. The age characteristics of minors – lack of life experience, tendency to imitation, difficulty in correctly assessing certain phenomena, emotional excitability, etc. – increase the danger of assimilation of negative views and habits in case of falling under undesirable influence, especially when proper educational influence and control over the behavior of adolescents is not provided. The negative influence of older family members (drunkenness, scandals, acts of cruelty, etc.) can be traced in about 30-40% of cases of juvenile crimes, incitement by criminal elements – in 20-30%, etc. Most juvenile offenders come from families with a low educational level of parents. At the same time, there are no significant differences between the families of offenders and minors who do not commit crimes, either in the material level of the family or in housing conditions. Young people are for the most part defenseless before criminal action. For this reason, the first part of the youth “plunges” into the world of criminal relationships, and the other part tries to isolate itself from the world [4].

The most characteristic types of offenses for young people are brawl, hooliganism, theft, extortion of money, robbery, fraud, assault on a woman for the purpose of violence, murder, blackmail for profit and other offenses. By the nature of criminal encroachments, youth crime is seriously different from general crime – violent and self-serving violent crimes predominate here to a greater extent. In the midst of these types of offenses, with the obvious superiority of fights and hooliganism, mercenary crimes – theft, extortion, fraud – attract interest. As the analysis of statistical data and responses of juvenile offenders shows, the volume of mercenary crimes in the real period is growing at a high rate.

Among the diverse consequences of crime, a special place belongs to the actual social consequences. Firstly, juvenile delinquency is a powerful source of self-determination of crime. The criminal infection of minors produces the criminality of young people, translates negative criminal experience into the future, which, according to the laws of social education, is returned to tomorrow’s teenagers as a social legacy of previous generations; juvenile criminals are the social base of organized and recidivist crime. Secondly, juvenile delinquency contributes to the spread of a criminal way of thinking and behavior in a healthy adolescent environment, leads to its criminal infection. The mechanism of action of this consequence is directly related to the punitive practice of the State in relation to minors, in particular with a low general preventive effect of criminal liability [1].

Crime damages not only social relations and values, but also the person who committed the crime. The view of a minor’s crime as an act that harms not only social relations and norms, but also the minor himself, opens up new prospects for criminological theory and practice. According to statistics, more than 70% of crimes are committed by minors in a group. Given the incompleteness of statistical information (individual participants in group crimes are not brought to criminal responsibility), it can be argued that the commission of a crime by a lone teenager is rather an exception than a rule, but in such cases, there is always an impact on the juvenile offender of the immediate social environment, the group behind the antisocial orientation to which they belong or belonged before.

It should be particularly noted that participation in a group and complicity in committing a crime usually do not coincide. It is also possible that there is a difference in the role performed in the group and in committing a specific crime, which must be taken into account when working with minors.

But special attention should be paid to the dominant need for communication at this age and the tendency to grouping. It is here that teenagers have the opportunity to express themselves and assert themselves as a person. According to psychological studies, participants in criminal groups of young people were initially united by: neighbourhood at home – 30.4%, living on the same street – 24.8%, co-education and work – 10%. Their antisocial orientation was conditioned by the need to satisfy the need for communication with the existing narrowness, limited interests (their primitivism), inability to organize their leisure time, reinforced by a complex of objective reasons and difficulties in normative pastime. Full-blooded communication with peers in the official environment for teenagers who find themselves in psychological isolation is replaced by asocial [7].

The antisocial group becomes a reference group, due to which its negative influence increases, and age features acquire distorted forms: increased emotionality manifests itself in intemperance, the need for self-affirmation – in rudeness, cynicism. Left to the mercy of fate, the “permissive” group is very likely to become criminogenic, first committing insignificant illegal actions caused by outrages, pranks, and then – offenses and crimes. In the process of overgrowth of an antisocial group of minors into a criminal one, important changes are taking place in it: the number of participants is decreasing; the proportion of persons with negative socio-moral characteristics (unemployed, previously convicted, etc.) is growing. The composition of the group is becoming heterogeneous in social status; participants spend more and more time in places with criminal coloring, methods of group management they change from democratic to authoritarian [5].

The personality of a criminal is a set of socio-psychological properties and qualities of a person that are the causes and conditions for committing crimes [2]. The personality of a criminal differs from the personality of a law-abiding person by social danger, it is characterized by criminal needs and motivation, emotional and volitional deformations and negative social interests. The problem of the criminal’s identity is one of the central ones for the sciences related to crime, and, above all, for criminology.

The social danger of a person is usually formed even before the moment of committing a crime. This process finds expression in disciplinary and administrative offenses, immoral acts. In any case, modern science believes that the presence of socially dangerous qualities in a person does not give grounds for “anticipatory” treatment of them as a criminal.

Criminology studies socio-demographic, moral and psychological characteristics of the criminal’s personality. In addition, the key for this topic and for criminology in general is the question of what kind of criminal human behavior has: biological or social. There are various theories of juvenile delinquency and various researchers have reported different reasons of delinquency. Most of the delinquent teenagers belong from low social, economic or psychological background. Some of the most common causes of juvenile delinquency are as follows:

• family is the basic socialization agency for the children. Children learn basic concepts about good and bad from their family, they make their values and set the norms of society. Family can make or break the personality of the children. In a family the most important role is played by the parents and siblings. Most of the adolescents who show delinquent behavior in any form belong to families that could not give firm foundation to the children. Broken families, single parent families, separated families, frequent parents fight, lack of trust and confidence among the parents, criminal parents or psychological problems in parents can be the most important reason behind juvenile delinquency. The other reason can be siblings’ rivalry or unequal treatment between children;
• parenting style also matters, and many researchers say that it is one of the biggest reasons why teens commit crime. Parents are sometimes very harsh and they punish their children for small issues. Children start disrespecting their parents and they become violent;
• socio-economic causes, namely the lack of normal living conditions among adolescents; self-interest;
• psychological:kleptomania (obsessive, painful attraction to commit theft is regarded as a mental disorder); lack of strong-willed qualities under the pressure of outsiders; alienation of minors from society can lead to the formation of a stable antisocial attitude, manifested in a negative or even hostile attitude towards the environment, which, according to the projection mechanism, can provoke aggressive behavior in such persons; psychological propensity of minors to commit crimes; psychological humiliation [6].

The Russian legislation, like any other legislation, is imperfect: it has gaps, collisions, and some features are not taken into account. However, criminal law must be impeccable, since it concerns the fate of a person. A criminal record is not an ornament, so it is necessary to avoid judicial errors, especially in relation to teenagers. In legal practice, there are often cases when defendants receive significantly different terms for similar crimes. Not many people can explain why this is happening. Therefore, the law should be the same for everyone [3].

Thus, after analyzing the causes and conditions of juvenile delinquency, it is important to note that crime is influenced by the situation in the country, the conditions of existence of minors, their family. It is important to deal with the causes and conditions of juvenile delinquency not by cruel measures, but with the understanding and awareness that there should be punishment for any crime. Teenagers and parents should be aware that a minor has their duties, and they are responsible for their misdeeds and actions. The task of the law is to direct them to the path of correction, and for this it must be perfect and uniform for all.

Литература

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7. Пирожков В.Ф. Криминальная психология. Книга 2: подросток в условиях социальной изоляции. М., 1998.