By:
Sherrica Newburn
CJS 230
Gender and Family
As juvenile delinquency continues to be a growing problem in America, research and analysis have shown that gender and family can have a huge impact on juvenile delinquency. When it comes to gender, many differences take place during the development and socialization in the male and female causing different juvenile offending patterns. Changes in family structures will also have implications on socialization for both male and females. In this paper, one will learn how the role of family structure and gender can be a contributing factor in juvenile delinquency. Gender differences in development begin as early as infancy. These differences begin with socialization, cognitive and personality. On a social level, males are believed to be more aggressive than females. The cause of this is believed to be because males are taught and encouraged to be tough, while females are taught to be lady like and act on emotions. Cognitive differences also start in early childhood. Females tend to speak earlier and have more communication than males. “Males excel in tasks that assess the ability to manipulate visual images in working memory, whereas females do better in tasks that require retrieval from long-term memory and the acquisition and use of verbal information “(Siegel & Welsh, 2005). Personality is one of the most obvious differences in gender. Females tend to have low self-esteem and they are more emotional than males. Males tend to have low attention spans while females have better attention spans. Delinquency affects gender because the differences in socialization, cognitive skills, and personality are what make up gender specific behaviors. Most children are used to growing up in the traditional family of a mother, father and siblings. The makeup of families today is no longer consisting of the traditional family structure. Children are being raised in single parent homes with
References: Seigel, L. J. and Welsh, B. C. (2005). Juvenile Delinquency: The core. (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA Thomson Wadsworth. Retrieved January 31, 2010