How Child Abuse and Neglect Is Linked To Juvenile Crimes (Research Paper Sample)

How Child Abuse and Neglect Is Linked To Juvenile Crimes
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Institution
How Child Abuse and Neglect Is Linked To Juvenile Crimes
Child abuse and neglect, collectively referred to as child maltreatment, is a major social problem, not only in the U.S, but also all over the world. In the U.S, it is estimated that over a million children become victims of child abuse and neglect every year, raising high concerns over the safety and welfare of children in the country (Picker, 2014). Child maltreatment may be in the form of physical abuse or harm, sexual abuse or general child neglect among others. It is associated with various negative effects to children. Some of the effects can appear in their childhood, or sometimes in their adolescence or adulthood. According to researches, it is believed that the effects of child maltreatment affect various aspects of a child’s development ranging from physical, psychological, cognitive, to behavioral aspects of their development (Goldman et al., 2003). Owing to children vulnerability to maltreatment, there is substantial evidence linking the harmful or inadequate parenting to juvenile crimes.
According to researches, child abuse and neglect increase the propensity of a child to commit crime (Chen et al., 2011). It is believed that when children are neglected at tender ages, they develop higher tendency to indulge in risky behaviours such as drug and alcohol abuse, violence perpetration and other bad behaviours. Children, who develop through their childhood with substantial care and supervision from their guardians or parents, tend to develop healthy relationships with other people and be happy, which prevent them from indulging in unhealthy behaviors that are associated with stress-related delinquencies. Those who lack considerable care are likely to feel insecure and this may influence them to develop poor social skills that may result to peer problems. Accordingly, such a child would eventually have a deterioration of self-esteem, which is a form of emotional problem that leads children to delinquent behaviors. Although the effects of emotional abuse on children are understudied, some researches have looked at how emotional abused children are influenced to delinquency. According to Evans and Burton (2013), children who underwent emotional abuse tend to develop high rates of negative emotions such as anger that could lead to delinquency. The same notion is explained by the strain theory that elucidates the connection existing between life stressors and increased level of delinquent behaviors.
A group of researchers identified that a considerable correlation exists between physical abuse of a child and later violent perpetration. Although there are some contradicting findings about the extent to which the level of physical abuse can influence a child to delinquency, researchers agree that children who face physical abuse and neglect are more prone to committing crime more than their counterparts who did not undergo the same experience. As researched by Evans and Burton (2013), sexual abused children commit significantly more status offenses than their counterparts who have not gone through the same experience. Further researches indicate that children, who have experienced physical, sexual abuse, and domestic violence, tend to exhibit greater levels of depressive symptoms. This eventually drags them into delinquent behaviors, leading the victims to juvenile courts.
When children are subjected to adverse life experiences, this pervasively impact on their healthy brain development and biological stress response systems causing trauma. According to De Bellis (2005) as cited in Chen et al. (2011), adverse life experiences cause the elevation of the stress hormone cortisol. Too much stress is known to cause depression and mental disturbance, and therefore, children suffering from this, owing to their abuse and neglect, are susceptible to anger and consequently delinquent behaviours. In response to the traumatic experiences, the children indulge in using drugs and alcohol as a way to relieve themselves from such memories. In a study conducted by Dube et al. (2003), the findings indicated that children, who experienced more severe abuse and neglect during their childhood, are more likely to report illicit drug use problems. Such drug abusing behaviour may develop to lead the child into committing other drug related crimes such as the possession of illicit drugs, which is a crime in many states.
Child abuse and neglect is a serious social issue that should be given the seriousness it deserves in order to mitigate the problems associated with it, to improve the welfare of children in the society. Overal...