Increase your understanding of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of delinquency! This informative book provides you with specific strategies to assess delinquency and to increase the effectiveness of any prevention program. In addition, it presents a community peer model of delinquency with important implications for delinquency prevention programs and for delinquency research. Examining specific cultural groups in the United States, including Caucasians, East Asians, South-East Asians, Polynesians/Micronesians, and Vietnamese, as well as Japanese youths in their homeland, this model shows how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect the formation of peer groups—and how these groups can facilitate or inhibit delinquency. Culture, Peers, and Delinquency explores the interplay of historical, traditional culture with contemporary youth culture. It also examines the relationship between individual outcome and community disorganization and illustrates how peer relationships are conditioned by gender. The book will increase your understanding of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of delinquency with examples that show treatment alternatives and outcomes, focusing on: intercultural differences in major descriptors of the attitudes and activities of youth the demographics, economics, and history, as well as a fascinating and disturbing cultural analysis of the ever-increasing rate of juvenile delinquency in Japan the influence of peers and culture on Vietnamese youth gangs in Honolulu gender-difference studies of mixed-culture incarcerated adolescents—and what these youths have to say about the detention facility where they go to school a careful analysis of homes, schools, and neighborhoods in terms of their dysfunctions and how they increase the likelihood that their youth will spend time with similar peers and without adult supervision

Increase your understanding of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of delinquency! This informative book provides you with specific strategies to assess delinquency and to increase the effectiveness of any prevention program. In addition, it presents a community peer model of delinquency with important implications for delinquency prevention programs and for delinquency research. Examining specific cultural groups in the United States, including Caucasians, East Asians, South-East Asians, Polynesians/Micronesians, and Vietnamese, as well as Japanese youths in their homeland, this model shows how families, schools, and neighborhoods affect the formation of peer groups—and how these groups can facilitate or inhibit delinquency. Culture, Peers, and Delinquency explores the interplay of historical, traditional culture with contemporary youth culture. It also examines the relationship between individual outcome and community disorganization and illustrates how peer relationships are conditioned by gender. The book will increase your understanding of the etiology, prevention, and treatment of delinquency with examples that show treatment alternatives and outcomes, focusing on: intercultural differences in major descriptors of the attitudes and activities of youth the demographics, economics, and history, as well as a fascinating and disturbing cultural analysis of the ever-increasing rate of juvenile delinquency in Japan the influence of peers and culture on Vietnamese youth gangs in Honolulu gender-difference studies of mixed-culture incarcerated adolescents—and what these youths have to say about the detention facility where they go to school a careful analysis of homes, schools, and neighborhoods in terms of their dysfunctions and how they increase the likelihood that their youth will spend time with similar peers and without adult supervision

Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.

This book provides an interdisciplinary perspective on theory, research, and applications in human behavior change. Chapters from clinical, developmental, and community psychology and education are united by common principles and an emphasis on culture and context. The contributions of Roland Tharp to each of these fields are highlighted. The roles of parents, teachers, peers, families, schools, and neighborhoods are explored. Topics include behavior therapy, child development and culture, community programs, delinquency prevention, youth mentoring, instructional conversation, school reform, teacher professional development, and culturally relevant instruction. For each topic, new research challenges are identified. This volume is recommended for a variety of courses in psychology and education.

Criminological research has largely neglected the possibility that positive peer influence is a potentially powerful source of social control. Quantitative methods tease out cause, effect, and spuriousness in the relationship between peer delinquency and personal delinquency, but these methods do little or nothing to reveal how and why peers might influence each other toward--or away from--deviance. Costello and Hope take a first step toward uncovering the mechanisms of peer influence, drawing on quantitative and qualitative data collected from two convenience samples of university students. Their quantitative analyses showed that positive peer influence occurs most frequently among those who associate with the most deviant peers and self-report the most deviance, contrary to predictions drawn from social learning theories. Their qualitative data revealed a variety of methods of negative influence, including encouraging deviant behavior for others' amusement, a motive for peer influence never before reported in the literature.