It is universally agreed among scientist, sociologist, physiologist, criminologist and other interested scholars that youths in the adolescence stage are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors. However, numerous studies are concerned with activities that teens are more apt to participate in the adolescent stage such as substance abuse and peer pressure as the cause of delinquency. Therefore there is the need for more research to be conducted to determine if juvenile delinquency may be as a result of adverse childhood experiences. Several studies such as that undertaken by Ferguson in 2010 employed statistical analysis on behavioral genetics and came to the conclusion that juvenile delinquency can be passed genetically from parent to children. However, some children are born healthy with no traits of antisocial behavior in their family tree yet they end up engaging in criminal activities because of child maltreatment they underwent in their childhood. The result of this study will help all interested stockholders understand the correlation between child abuse and juvenile delinquency so that they may develop social policies aimed at addressing this issue.
Research Question: How does child abuse influence adolescents to engage in antisocial behaviors?
This study seeks to find answers on the relationship between child abuse and their role in juvenile delinquency among the youths. Specifically, I will try to understand the relationship by reviewing literature written on the subject before conducting a qualitative and quantitative analysis of adolescents below the age of 18 that suffered child abuse. This study will investigate if there is a correlation between child maltreatment and juvenile delinquency and answer the question of how child abuse influence adolescents to engage in antisocial behaviors?
Variables
For this study child abuse is the independent variable because it is assumed as per the research hypothesis that it is the cause of juvenile delinquency. Therefore the dependent variable is juvenile delinquency. The participants of this study will comprise only of males because they are more apt to engage in antisocial behaviors than females and all of them will be sampled from one high crime area to eliminate other variables that might affect the study (Warr, 1996).
Target population
The targeted population of the study will come from Orangeville neighborhood found in Baltimore city that has a reputation for being one of the most unsafe cities in America. This research will sample students from various high schools across Orangeville and interview students who have engaged in delinquent activities in the age brackets of 14 to 17 years.
Hypothesis
This research is concerned with how child maltreatment influences youths to get involved in antisocial behavior. Therefore, the hypothesis for this study is:
Hypothesis: Youths who have been experienced child abuse in their childhood are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior than those that were not abused.
Literature Review
As noted earlier most studies are concerned with how adolescence and other factors that occur at puberty can lead to youths engaging in delinquency. However, some few scholars have questioned the role of child abuse in influencing delinquency. According to the study conducted by Smith and Thornberry (1995), there is a direct correlation between child abuse and juvenile delinquency. The data used in their research was obtained from the Rochester Youth Development Study together with interviewing 1,000 7th and 8th-grade students from high crime areas placing focus on students who have been abused before the age of 12. The limitation of their study is that it did not consider the effects that gender and race might have on their findings as some scholars have proposed that they are also responsible for delinquency (Barnes, Welte " Hoffman, 2002; Wallace Jr, Goodkind, Wallace " Bachman, 2008).
Malinosky-Rummell and Hansen (1993) conducted qualitative research that reviewed other scholar literature related to Long-term effects of child abuse. From their analysis of different pieces literature, they observed that antisocial behaviors such as violence, substance abuse, crime, and suicidal tendencies are associated with child maltreatment. The conclusion of their study echoed that of Smith and Thornberry (1995) that child abuse can influence juvenile delinquency.
Methodology
This research will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative design methods to conduct the study whereby it will employ surveys through questionnaires to gather response from participants and analyze the data using quantitative methods. The questionnaires will use a combination of close-ended and open-ended questions to collect response from the participants. The researcher opted to conduct the research using questionnaires to collect data because of limited budget and time allocated to do this research. The advantage of using questionnaires is that it is cheap to collect information from large populations and their results can be quickly analyzed and quantified. The disadvantage of using questionnaires in this research is that it provided limited response and if the answer or question is not available the researcher might not get the response they require. Also, some respondents may deliberately answer the question wrongly making the results obtained from questionnaires questionable. For example, some students may be unwilling to provide information about being abused or criminal activities that they have engaged in for fear of stigmatization and incrimination.
In this study, the investigator will employ stratified sampling to ensure that all the school where the participants will be sourced are well represented. The sample size used for this study will be small to ensure that the investigator has a close interaction with the participant and allow for a quick analysis of data collected given the limited time and resources available to conduct the study. A survey should always be performed on a small group and to avoid bias we should use sampling technique that allows for equal representation (Chambliss " Eglitis, 2013). Since am going to use questionnaires, Guest, Bunce, and Johnson (2006) recommend using a sample size of 12, but for my experiment, I will double the number given that the number of schools may be many. The selected schools will represent the different stratum with each having a selected number of participants based on their size. The participant will range from the age of 14 to 17 with the restriction that they must have been subjected to child abuse before the age of 10. All age groups will have an equal number of individuals representing it. The table below will be used to record the numbers associated with the columns.
Age
Number of individuals in stratum (Schools)
NB: filled during actual study.
Number of
Individuals selected from Stratum (Schools)
NB: filled during actual study.
Number of people in Sample
14
6
15
6
16
6
17
6
In this study, the participant will come from the African-American community to avoid other variables affecting the outcome of the research as some scholars have noted that race and gender influence delinquency behavior as observed earlier and avoid the limitations indicated in Smith and Thornberry (1995) study. The limitation of this study may be the inability to control socio-economic status among the participants as it may be responsible for youths’ engagement in antisocial behaviors (Chambliss " Eglitis, 2013). The response of the questionnaires will be analyzed and coded using statistical software to determine if there is a correlation between child abuse and juvenile delinquency. The research may use Pearson correlation formulae to determine if the hypothesis of the study is valid or not.
References
Barnes, G., Welte, J., " Hoffman, J. (2002). Relationship of Alcohol Use to Delinquency and
Illicit Drug Use in Adolescents: Gender, Age, and Racial/Ethnic Differences. Journal Of Drug Issues, 32(1), 153-178. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002204260203200107
Chambliss, W. J., " Eglitis, D. S. (2013). Discover sociology. Sage Publications.
Ferguson, C. (2010). Genetic Contributions to Antisocial Personality and Behavior: A Meta
Analytic Review From an Evolutionary Perspective. The Journal Of Social Psychology, 150(2), 160-180. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224540903366503
Guest, G., Bunce, A., " Johnson, L. (2006). How Many Interviews Are Enough?. Field Methods,
18(1), 59-82. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1525822x05279903
Malinosky-Rummell, R., " Hansen, D. (1993). Long-term consequences of childhood physical
abuse. Psychological Bulletin, 114(1), 68-79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.114.1.68
Smith, C., " Thornberry, T. P. (1995). The relationship between childhood maltreatment and
adolescent involvement in delinquency. Criminology, 33(4), 451-481. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1995.tb01186.x
Wallace Jr, J. M., Goodkind, S., Wallace, C. M., " Bachman, J. G. (2008). Racial, ethnic, and
gender differences in school discipline among US high school students: 1991-2005. The Negro educational review, 59(1-2), 47.
Warr, M. (1996). Organization and instigation in delinquent groups. Criminology, 34(1), 11-37.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.1996.tb01193.x
