Juvenile Unemployment and Delinquency

Date01 June 1979
AuthorJ Kraus
DOI10.1177/000486587901200206
Published date01 June 1979
AUST
&NZ
JOURNAL
OF
CRIMINOLOGY
(June
1979) 12(37-42)
JUVENILE UNEMPLOYMENT AND DELINQUENCY
Paper
presented
at a
Seminar
of
the Institute
of
Criminology,
University
of
Sydney,
July 1978
J
Kraus"
37
To
become
a fully
functional
adult
male,
one
prerequisite
is essential: ajob, In
our
society aperson's
occupation
determines
more
than
anything
else
what
life he will lead
and
how
others
will
regard
him
, . . for
most
young
men,
it is securing
jobs
consistent
with
their
aspirations
that
is crucial,
that
provides
a
stake
in
the
law-abiding
world
and
a
vestibule
to an
expanding
series of
opportunities:
to
marry,
to raise afamily, to
participate
in civic affairs, to
advance
economically
and
socially
and
intellectually,
(The
Challenge
of
Crime
in a Free
Society,
1967 P74.)
The
world's
economic
situation
of
recent
years has
made
it increasingly
difficult,
however,
for
young
people
to
secure
a
job
essential to
their
gaining
the
social
foothold
for
adulthood.
One
of
the
major
public
concerns,
related
to
the
growing
unemployment,
is
that
youths
deprived
of
the
opportunity
to
work
will
turn
to
crime.
This
concern
seems
warranted
not
only
from
the
ordinary
common
sense
but
also
from
the
theoretical
point
of
view
(Merton,
1957;
Cloward
et al, 1960).
Nevertheless,
the
expectancy
of
increased
juvenile
delinquency
with
increased
unemployment
is
not
borne
out
by
the
available
research.
Paradoxically,
a
number
of
studies
reported
that
delinquency
was
increasing in
periods
of
prosperity
and
decreasing
during
periods
of
economic
depression
(Bogen, 1944; Wiers, 1944, 1945;
Heinemann,
1947;
Carr,
1950),
while
other
studies
reported
only
decreases
during
depression
(Sellin., 1937; Plant, 1937;
Glaser et al, 1959). In
the
UK,
the
Economic
Research
Council
concluded
from
the
data
reviewed
by
it,
that
juvenile
delinquency
has "
...
been
aggravated
by
full
employment
and
high earnings,
especially
since 1950" (Social
Problems
of
Post-W ar
Youth,
On
the
other
hand,
a
lTK
authority
pointed
out
the
lack
of
relationship
between
delinquency
and
unemployment
during
the
years
separating
the
World
Wars
(Mannheim,
1940).
There
appears
to
be
only asingle
study
in
which
a
positive
correlation
was
found
between
juvenile
crime
and
unemployment
rates,
and
the
correlation
held
for US
but
not
for
UK
conditions
(Fleisher, 19(6). Since it
covered
a
later
period
than
other
available
studies,
the
different
findings
could
possibly
be
due
to
the
social
changes
which
have
affected
the
American
black
(and
also hispanic)
communities,
in
which
endemic
unemployment
can
be
as
high
as 8W of
the
juvenile
work
force
(Juvenile
Delinquency,
1962; Eisner, 1969),
which
constitutes
a
substantial
proportion
of
overall
juvenile
unemployed
in
the
lTS.
For
example,
in 1965
unemployed
youths
aged
16 to 21
represented
one-third
of all jobless
workers,
and
for
them
the
"familiar
syndrome
-
minority
grou
p
mem
her,
school
dropout,
unemployed
-
holds
stubbornly
true"
(The
Challenge
of
Crime
Acknowledgement:
Thanks
are
given to Mr
\\'
C
Langshaw,
Director
of the
Departnu-nt
of Youth
and
Community
Services, for his
kind
permission
to publish.
oMA
(Hans),
PhI),
Dip
Psych,
Dip
Crim,
Dip
Anthrop,
Senior
Research
Consultant.
The
vir-wx
expressed
in this
article
are
not necessarily
those
of the
Department
of Youth
and
Couununitv
Services.

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