Essay Available:
Pages:
4 pages/≈1100 words
Sources:
4
Style:
APA
Subject:
Social Sciences
Type:
Essay
Language:
English (U.S.)
Document:
MS Word
Date:
Total cost:
$ 19.44
Topic:
Delinquency and Antisocial Behavior in Childhood
Essay Instructions:
This project will be in APA format, 12 point, Times New Roman font, and double-spaced.
It will include a brief introductory paragraph of at least 150 words and will state the topic of the paper, including a thesis sentence followed by an explanation of how the information in the paper will be presented.
It will include a minimum of 4 academic, peer-reviewed journal references which may include an official .gov website that directly supports the thesis. Wikipedia and other websites outside of the professional academia are NOT authorised. These references will be cited in APA format only.
The body of the paper will be a minimum of 1000 words, which includes the introductory paragraph, and will include a categorized, well-defined body, and a concluding summary.
Assignment: Write a profile of an adult or a child who exhibits antisocial and delinquent behaviors (it CANNOT be a celebrity or other famous person). Compare and contrast this person's profile to the Social Control Theory and Self Control Theory as explained by professional Control Theorists in this academic field of study. Comment on which theory best emulates the behavior characteristics of the person you profiled. Your project should include, but not be limited to, the following areas of discussions:
1. Introduction of the person who you are profiling (first names only, gender, age, educational status, etc.)
2. Identify the person's antisocial behaviors you have observed or are aware of.
3. Social, personal, and professional consequences as a result of the person's behaviors (person fired, loss of friends, school punishments etc).
4. Identify the major factors which have contributed to their behavior (inept parenting, low socio-economics, poor living environment, lack of coping skills, etc.).
5. Interventions that have been tried with the person in attempts to improve their behavior (anger management classes, therapy, peer mentoring, etc).
6. Identify any programs or services, public or private, that the person should be involved in.
7. Comparison of similarities between the person you are profiling and a person with other antisocial behaviors; e.g., oppositional defiant behavior.
8. Comment on the similarities or differences between the person you are profiling and what you have learned about people with antisocial behaviors and how those compare and contrast to the Social Control Theory and Self Control Theory.
9. Include in the paper some of the factors about the person: where they live, influences of the community or family that has had a positive or negative effect on the person, their socio-economic status, are they a single parent or a single/adolescent mother, have they been incarcerated, is race and/or religion a factor, were they sexually/mentally abused, etc.
Essay Sample Content Preview:
Delinquency and Antisocial Behavior in Childhood
Name
Course
Institution
Date
Delinquency and Antisocial Behavior in Childhood
Delinquency refers to criminal behavior committed by a minor such as unruly behavior. However, in the educational field, such behaviors are termed as antisocial behavior. Most studies of antisocial and delinquent behavior have shown that children who display high rates of antisocial behavior are more likely to show persistence in such behaviors than children with lower rates of antisocial and delinquent behavior (Ronald, 1991). Children who are delinquents in more than one setting show a variety of antisocial and delinquent behavior. Once high levels of antisocial behavior has been established, children tend to maintain such high levels rather than to revert to lower levels. Thus, the patterns of antisocial behavior tend to change during the preadolescent and adolescent stage of child development. Some of the children who exhibit antisocial and delinquent behaviors are often disobedient and arrogant. However, such activities decline between six years and sixteen years, a period in which children engage themselves in severe antisocial acts such as crime, alcohol, and substance abuse (Shoemaker, 1990).
According to self control theory, delinquency is defined as the behavior consequent to failure of personal and social controls. Personal control is the ability of an individual to refrain from meeting needs in a manner that conflicts with a community’s norms and values. Hence, social control is the ability of social groups to make the societal norms to be effective. For example, a sample profile drawn from a delinquent child known as George Washington, male, aged 9 years, currently in class 3. The boy shows antisocial behavior through various activities such as initiating fights in school, physical cruelty, bullying, using weapons, destruction of other peoples’ property and fire setting. Thus, by committing many delinquent acts, the boy is at risk of developing chronic delinquency (Ronald, 1991).
The strongest factor associated with delinquency is the history of antisocial behavior in his childhood, prenatal difficulties, neurological and biological factors, low verbal ability, social disorganization, substance abuse and criminality among parent, poverty and exposure to media violence. The child shows antisocial behavior in response to a particular stressor, hence, he is exposed to increased risks of accidents, school failure, early drug abuse, criminal behavior, and suicide. The child displays characteristics of impulsiveness and low esteem and appears to have feelings and shows no care for others feelings or remorsefulness in hurting other people.
Antisocial behavior is developed by children as a means of defensive mechanism to prevent them from painful feelings and to avoid anxiety triggered by lack of control of the environment. According Shoemaker (1990) antisocial behavior is reinforced to children by parents, caregivers, and peers. Most children have formed negative behaviors such as whining as a defensive mechanism to prevent the behaviors of their parents in ways that they find adequate. As a child mature up, he tends to develop mutual avoidance with parents, hence making both the child and the parent to avoid the negative behaviors. This implies that a child receive little supervision and may join other peer who have developed and learned the same antisocial behaviors of expression during childhood.
According to Hirschi (2002) hostile parents and lack of parental supervision on students is closely associated to a child’s antisocial behavior and delinquency. Parents of antisocial minors have made their children to adapt to ways of responding to their aversive acts through counterattacks...
Get the Whole Paper!
Not exactly what you need?
Do you need a custom essay? Order right now: