Middle Class Delinquency

Paper Summary:

Juvenile justice system statistics of delinquent behavior, as compared to self report studies, fail to accurately reflect the extent of delinquency in the middle class. As such, the juvenile justice system purports that delinquency predominately occurs among lower class minors. The paper shows, however, that the extent of middle class delinquency and its varieties show that socioeconomic status does play a role in the outcome of these cases, revealing biases within the juvenile justice process along the way. The paper shows that although many theories of crime have linked low levels of socioeconomic status to high levels of delinquency, empirical studies have consistently found weak or nonexistent correlations between individuals' socioeconomic status and their self-reported delinquent behavior.

From the Paper:

"Police officers, too, who work in high-crime urban areas are probably more likely to arrest a minority juvenile for a minor offense, such as underage drinking than would an officer in a more wealthy suburb for the same offense whose beat covers mostly white neighborhoods. Likewise, an intake officer might be less likely to arrange an informal settlement for a minority child than for a child whose middle class parents made their presence known and were willing to assume future responsibility for the discipline and rehabilitation of the child. Further, a judge is probably more likely to view minorities as poorer risks than white children and thus incarcerate them more frequently. (Satterthwaite, 1997, p. 68)."

More papers on Middle Class Delinquency:

• Book Review # 116914 : "Delinquency in the White Middle Class"
• Essay # 63914 : "Status Frustration"
• Essay # 53961 : "Types of Hidden Curriculum"

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