Juvenile Delinquency 81cross-cultural invariance and parallel gender differences in non-human
primates, to the cultural, looking at which behaviours are differentially
encouraged and sanctioned in boys and girls. Current evidence suggests
that both biological predisposition and psychosocial factors are relevant.
Thus, boys are more liable to biologically based syndromes, such as ADHD,
that increase the risk of delinquency; and boys are also more likely to
be accepted and praised when they display aggression, as part of a wider
subculture that gives kudos for offending and violence.
Socio-economic status (SES)
There are substantial effects of SES, although many authors like to play
this down as it co-varies with many other factors. The magnitude of the
SES gradient is evident from UK surveys showing that the rates of juvenile
delinquency were around 5% for professional and managerial families,
as opposed to around 25% for unskilled manual workers’ families. Self-
reports confirm this trend for the more serious offences, but the ratio
comes down to 2:1 for less serious ones.
Race
In the UK, both official records and victim reports suggest that African-
Caribbean youths are between five and ten times more likely than their
White counterparts to be involved in assault, robbery, violence and theft.
This was not true for first-generation African-Caribbean immigrants 50
years ago. For other juvenile offences, the current African-Caribbean rates
are around double the White rates. These Black–White differences are
partly, but not totally, explained by socio-economic factors and family
characteristics; decades of prejudice and harassment may also have much
to answer for. At present, delinquency rates for ‘Asian’ youths are lower
than, or equal to, White rates.
Epoch
Historical accounts seem to indicate that violent crime was very prevalent
in the middle of the eighteenth century, but then declined, reaching a
trough in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, before rising
again. The past 50 years have probably seen a fairly steady rise in juvenile
offending. Internationally, officially reported crime rates have mostly
increased by a factor of between two and six in most countries over
this period, though this is partly attributable to better recording. Changes
in officially recorded juvenile delinquency rates are more inconsistent,
at least partly because these official rates are very sensitive to changes
in policy. For example, the official delinquency rates can dramatically
increase or decrease if the police switch from unrecorded warnings to
recorded cautions, or vice versa. Over recent decades, the proportion of
offences involving violence has stayed fairly constant at well under 10%,
but the proportion of women perpetrators involved has increased from
around one-tenth to around one-fifth. In the UK, use of knives and guns