With no doubt, family is the building unit of any society. Children having no or separated families are usually subjected to harmful psychological effects which are reflected in their behaviors. Youth studies have recently proved that there is a link between the rate of divorce and the rate of child crime. According to Todd Harper in his article “Children of Divorced Parents”, research carried out by the Australian Family Institute and Dr. Gall Reekie have shown that divorces influence up to 20% of the sample children in a negative way. Above and beyond, divorce could be responsible for youth crimes and child delinquency. The main reason behind such a fact is that divorce causes a lack of communication between the child and his parents, who are expected to be his guidance and protection. Another negative consequence of the separation of the parents is the reduced family income, in other terms, poverty, and accordingly lower educational achievements which might in turn cause a child to commit theft crimes (Todd). Not only does the loss of a parent through divorce or death, particularly during critical periods of development, cause a child to be violent, it may also “increase the youngster’s sense of helplessness and vulnerability, thereby increasing the possibility of suicidal behavior” (McMahon, Robert and Peters) which is indeed a type of violent, criminal behavior in my cultural point of view.
Family violence is another important factor which must be put into account when we are concerned about the causes of juvenile delinquency. The sociological term “family violence” is described to be “physically or emotionally harmful acts between individuals in families or in intimate relationships” “Family Violence”. It includes violence between parents and mal physical treatment of the child, otherwise known as “child abuse”. In this paragraph, the effects of violence between parents will be demonstrated. I believe that wife beating is a double jeopardy for any family. First of all, it harms the wife physically and mentally, and secondly it destructs the child’s personality and psychology. A proof of that is revealed in “Domestic Family Violence” article where it is stated that as many as two thirds of criminal children have witnessed their mothers being beaten in front of them. In an attempt to identify the reason behind this statistical information, I carried out a phone interview with a Nadia Bakir, a Toronto psychologist, who stated that: “Between the age of six and ten, most children continuously watch and observe what is happening around them with a little bit of understanding and analysis. As they reach the age of eleven they start to imitate what they have been seeing even thought they might not even know the purpose of what they are doing!”. Another reason why a child, who has witnessed his mother being physically abused by his father; might have a tendency to commit crime is that: When a child continuously watches his weak mother beaten as a sort of a daily, weekly or ever a monthly routine, without the ability to interfere and protect her, vengeance will be introduced to the child as one of his natural instincts. Vengeance is a secret recipe for many kinds of crimes, I believe. I have an eleven-years old female relative, named Sara, who is now taking hypnotherapy sessions in the States, due to her often, unexplained violent behavior. Her divorced mother told me that the hypnotist told her that every time Sara gets hypnotized and begins responding to the hypnotist’s questions, she cries hysterically when she mentions that she hates seeing her drunk father hitting her mother. Not only that, but she also confessed that before her mother got divorced she sometimes thought of killing him, because she felt pity towards her mother who usually fails to defend herself. The hypnotist came to the conclusion that this was, probably, the reason behind her violent manners especially with her younger brother.
As mentioned, physical, mental and sexual abuse of a child are all included in the definition of “family violence”, and are also believed to play a major role in converting a child from the purest state to his wildest form. Child abuse is not necessarily limited to the parents. Any adult is capable of abusing a child. According to Richard J. Gelles in his article “Child Abuse”, there are three different types of child abuse: physical sexual and emotional abuse. Physical abuse includes child beating and other deliberate acts of violence that might injure or even kill a child. Sexual abuse “may begin with kissing or fondling and progress to more intrusive sexual acts, such as oral sex and vaginal or anal penetration.” Lastly, emotional abuse destroys the child’s self esteem through humiliating him and punishing him brutally such as isolating him in a dark closet. According to the article “Primary Prevention of Child Abuse”, the consequences of child abuse “include an increased likelihood of future substance abuse, aggressive behaviors, high-risk health behaviors, criminal activity…and abuse of their own children” (Bethea). Moreover statistics show that 25% of the reported child abuse cases are physical, 11% are sexual and 3% are emotional (Bethea). In his based-on-a-true-story movie, Sleepers, the writer-Lorenzo Carcaterra- has successfully shown how these two innocent teenage children who had wrongfully injured an old man at the subway station during a joke, became criminals after they being sexually, mentally and physically abused and brutalized by the guards in the detention center.
The school is the child’s second home. That is what teachers teach their students. But unfortunately recent studies show that bullying and bullies make the school a nightmare for many children. Ten days ago Al Ahram newspaper carried an article about bullying in America’s schools. The article said that the number of bullies are increasing tremendously at American schools, to the extent that it is affecting the bullies themselves beside the bullied students. Furthermore, psychological studies assert that children who are subjected to harassment and bullying are also subjected to psychological crisis. The article concluded that there is a big probability that a bully will acquire a criminal behavior if he continues to bully without being punished or suspended from school “Bullying at America’s Schools”. Yet, I have a different point of view regarding bullied children and possible long-term effects. Based on a personal experience, I think that if a child has had a bad time at school and has been bullied for a long time, he will probably be violent and offensive when he gets older which are the early symptoms of crime.
Poverty is not a crime. Neither is poor education. But the problems could arise when both mix together. Statistics show that the rate of child crime in developing countries, where there is poor education and lower standards of life, is higher than that of developed ones “Developing Countries, Crime In”. Indeed, poor parenting is one of the primary results of poor education or low awareness of the child’s psychology. Additionally, “it has been suggested that child hood disorders are a direct outgrowth of poor parenting, and that disturbed states of children correlate with ineffective, overly rejecting, or overprotective parents” (Weiner). On the other hand, poverty or a low economic status affects a child in a more direct way. Poverty is usually the major motive behind most theft crimes committed by children. In such a case I wouldn’t personally blame a child if he steals to help his family live! For example, three weeks ago I interviewed Sayyeda, is a twelve-years old servant who has been caught stealing several times. To my surprise she told me “Believe me sir, I did not steal because you are mistreating me. But my mother used to encourage me and sometimes order me to steal my friends’ pencils and copybooks when I was at school because my father told us he had no money to buy that stuff for me. I feel that now I am addicted to stealing” That is why I think that disturbed children are the primary victims of their low parental education and not vice versa.
The “Big Screen” and the movie industry in general couldn’t get away clean! Almost all psychologists and criminologists strongly accuse violent movies of being one of the major promoters of juvenile delinquency. It is clear how violence in movies affects the behavior of children, especially around the age of 10. My brother who is ten years old, sometimes imitates blindly what he sees in violent movies, such as “Mortal Combat” or even “3 Ninjas” which is supposed to be a comedy movie. These early violent symptoms, which usually appear at an early stage, can gradually get more severe and serious, depending on the psychology of the child and his parental care. I believe that, if a child is used to watching violent movies constantly without any adult warning or explaining to him that what he is watching is not real and that he shouldn’t “fight” anyone unless he is being attacked, then I would expect that child to be as violent as the non real characters he watches and takes as idols. For example, this teenager Robert, who was only 14 years old and had killed is parents and brother, to acquire power and to be the “world’s biggest criminal” (qtd. in Kaihla). Psychologists have suggested many theories to explain why this mentally unstable teenager committed such a crime. One of which is his admiration of Hannibal Lecter, the hero of the movie Silence Of the Lambs. Robert was deeply impressed by Hannibal and he thought of him as “so intelligent and in control of himself!” (Kaihla). This unpleasant example clearly demonstrates how serious the effects of the violent movies can be.
Chromosomes and genes decide the physical features of an individual. But do they control the psychology and morals of people? In other words, is there an association between the genetic makeup and criminality? I believe not. Although this field of studies will remain a part of the human mystery, criminologists have different point of views. Some of them believe that the association between genetic makeup and criminality is not just a hypothesis. They rely on the study that proved that the “degree of consistency between the criminality of identical twins is approximately twice that of fraternal twins, who share no more genes than siblings who are not twins” (Lynch). I personally disagree with such an assumption, because I think that the character of a child depends only on the way he was brought up, and his society. For if it was the genes that decide the tendency of a child to commit a crime, then many teenagers would have taken the chance, committed a crime then claimed that it is their genes that should be blamed! This theory, relating genes to criminology, shall remain an unproved hypothesis unless scientists discover specific gene patterns which is linked to the tendency to act violently.
To conclude, a child is the most innocent form of mankind. In addition to the special treatment it needs, any child’s behavior reflects his society, including his parents at home, teachers and colleagues at school or even the types of movies he/she watches. In most cases, the parents are responsible for any delinquent manner a child may show. Sometimes they treat the child violently or even deal together physically, especially the fathers. Lack of communication between the child and his parents is another fatal mistake many parents commit without knowing that lack of communication is one of the initial steps towards violence, and theft crimes. From this, it can be deduced that counseling the parents is a very important procedure which should be taken by any country whose juvenile crime rate is high. But according to the saying that says, “prevention is better than the cure” it is much better and more effective to obligate high school students to study a small general psychology course, emphasizing the psychology of a child. On the other hand, schools’ principles are completely responsible of punishing and suspending bullies who might cause themselves and other student’s to being criminals. Developing countries should not stand still doing nothing about this issue. They too have a hard job of educating people to higher the standards of life, economically, socially and literally.
