Theories of Juvenile Crime Assignment, Essay Example

Among the different theories that explain the cause of juvenile crime, the most plausible in my opinion is the rational behavior theory. This theory states that people, even children, make decisions based on rational justification (Ghali, 1982).  Their choice to commit crime is based on some underlying logic. For example, a child steals in order to avoid going hungry. The child weighs the risk of getting caught with the possibility to starving and makes a decision that he or she would rather try to steal than concede to starve.  The main strength of this theory is that it makes the study of juvenile crime structured and makes possible solutions to preventing it more apparent (Ghali, 1982). In the above example, it becomes clear that if the child was put in good care where he or she would not have to worry about starving, the child would have no reason to steal and so would not do so. The weakness of this theory is that it assumes that there is only one standard of rationality, which is maximizing benefits while minimizing costs (Ghali, 1982). While this maxim may be true in general, there are many situations proven through experimentation in which people were found to act in contrary to the rational ideal. A child may for example, continue to steal food despite being provided for with enough food because of some compulsion to do so. Such cases which do exist cannot be understood under the rational choice theory.

Reference

Ghali, M. (1982). The choice of crime: An empirical analysis of juveniles’ criminal choice. Journal of Criminal Justice, 10(6): 433-442.