Juvenile Perpetrators More Likely to Commit Violent Crimes

A recent behavioral study revealed that children and teenagers who are sentenced to juvenile detention or even community work are about 7 times more likely to become criminals when they grow up. To verify this, psychologists also formed a control group, made up of participants who had no record of trouble with the law.  

The survey followed some 779 children, teenagers and young adults, between the age of 12 and 25, which they then separated into the two groups. The idea behind the research was to follow the exact role that the judicial system played on the development of the participants, so all of them were selected from similar backgrounds. Their living standards were pretty much the same, as were their chances of making something of themselves in life.  

In analyzing the factors that influenced the teenagers to become the way they were, the researchers took into account several factors, including verbal ability, hyperactivity, impulsiveness, premature delinquency, family structure and revenue, parental supervision and the delinquency levels in their peers.  

The scientists, led by Universite de Montreal psycho-education professor, Frank Vitaro, who is also a researcher at the Research Unit on Children's Psycho-Social Maladjustment, tried to select the participants in such a manner, that all of these factors could be found in every study participant.  

Vitaro found that the gravity of the punishment each of the 113 teenagers that ended up in juvenile court got was directly proportional with the severity of their later crimes. In other words, the harder their sentences, the higher the gravity of their future crimes. In the end, in turns out that children and youngsters in the juvenile system are seven times more likely to commit serious crimes than test subjects in the control group.

  The researcher said "Studies show that prevention programs can help reduce criminality by as much as 50 percent," referring to the fact that well-aimed programs can help trim down the rate of criminality in this population group.