Juvenile Delinquency Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Juvenile Delinquency - Essay Example e are many theories that can be used to explain delinquent behavior, this paper will use the routine activity theory to explain the behavior of John and show how it relates to his behavior. According to this theory, people commit crimes when chances for committing crime present themselves (Siegel 123). In delinquency cases, this is mostly the case as teenagers find themselves with a lot of freedom to commit crime and the absence of deterrents only serves to make an opportunity more viable. According to this theory, three aspects must be present for a criminal activity to take place. These features include the presence of a person motivated to perform a crime, a victim of the crime and the absence of deterrents. According to this theory, therefore, criminals are opportunistic in nature. In the case of John, he is a motivated person ready to carry out his criminal activities. After being suspended from school, John may have been motivated to take revenge. From this need to revenge on the school for suspending him, he decided to carry a gun to school and shoot some students. Since there was a motive behind his actions, he is a motivated criminal. Given the fact that he had been suspended for smuggling drugs, John is a chronic offender as he is prone to be breaking the law most of the time. Being subjected to violence was a motivating factor and thus he became a youth at risk. Despite this information, shooting the students is an act of free will rather than a random event. The students who were walking out of a class may have been the first to meet John thus presenting themselves as victims. Given the fact that John was smuggling drugs into school, it is also possible that he was a victim of substance abuse. His record also shows that he had been arrested for carrying illegal substances. His delinquent behavior was noted to have been increasing, culminating in the school shooting incident. He may have become a criminal due to the labeling that he was used to when