Delinquent behavior - what do we face every day?

What is meant by the term "delinquent behavior" is generally known to professional psychologists, social workers, lawyers and policemen. Nevertheless, we encounter this phenomenon directly or indirectly almost every day, and many of us behaved this way during adolescence. What is delinquent behavior, why it arises and how it manifests itself - let's look at this article together.

What is a delinquency?

Delinquent behavior are offenses that are not subject to criminal liability: petty hooliganism, petty theft in the supermarket, in the market or in transport, fights without heavy damage, road crossing in the wrong place, being late for work. Most administrative offenses relate to delinquent actions.

If your child is a schoolboy:

- does not spend the night at home;

- uses alcohol;

- fights, pestering in the street to adults;

- leaves the school;

- breaks benches and swings, writes on the walls;

- selects pocket money from the younger ones,

Then it belongs to the category of delinquents.

At the same time, deviant and delinquent behavior is distinguished.

Deviant is any behavior that deviates from the norm, which is not approved by public opinion. A delinquent behavior is already condemned by the law. It borders on criminal behavior, and the border determines the existence of criminal punishment. If a teenager is registered with the police, he is a delinquent. And if he gets into jail, he becomes a criminal.

As you can see, delinquent behavior can become the beginning of a criminal life. Often the difference is only in the age, since it is possible to attract criminal responsibility for certain crimes only after 14 years. Adolescence lasts from 12-13 to 18-19 years, therefore delinquent behavior almost completely falls on this period. According to the UN, some form of such misconduct was noted in more than a third of adolescents.

One of the most common examples of delinquency is vandalism. Young people pointlessly destroy monuments, beat windows, cut seats. At least several times a year in the press there are reports of desecrated graves and broken tombstones - all this belongs to the category of delinquent actions.

Why do teenagers behave this way?

Very often, faced with such phenomena, we ask a rhetorical question: "Why are they doing this? What do they lack? "

As psychologists have established, teen delinquent behavior occurs for several main reasons:

- social immaturity;

- curiosity and desire to experience the thrill;

- inability to predict the consequences of their actions;

- hypertrophied desire for independence.

Teenagers are faced with the fact that society requires them to perform certain roles. They are not ready to obey, socially they are not yet ripe, while they believe that the world does not give them what they should. So there is a desire to rebel, destroy, not meet social requirements.

What is the typical psychological portrait of a delinquent offender?

It is distinguished by such features:

- self-confidence;

- hostility towards the authorities;

- insolence;

Resentment and hostility;

- weak self-control.

Some of these individuals have low self-esteem and negative self-image . Others artificially support self-esteem, denying the existence of problems and not linking positive self-image and their bad deeds. Such adolescents do not want to take responsibility for what they did, and believe that they were "provoked" by other people and circumstances.

In some cases delinquent offenses are committed because of deep neuroses, fears or anxieties.

By what principles does the teen delinquent live?

The moral of street companies is too different from the generally accepted. The younger the participant of such a group, the more active and stronger he learns the inverted values.

1. Keep your mouth shut.
2. Be tough and persistent
3. Let's change.
4. Be able to get money.
5. Be able to outwit.
6. Respect criminals.

The more a teenager "scores" on this scale of values, the more likely that his delinquent behavior will grow into a criminal over time.

The school has now ceased to be a nurturing social institution, therefore all responsibility falls solely on the parents and immediate relatives of adolescents. What values are promoted in the family, with whom the child communicates outside the house, what programs does he watch, what does he talk about most often? The analysis of all components will be able to give an answer: what to expect in the future, and whether there are grounds for concern today.