can structure reduce juvenile delinquency?

i belive there are lots of problems for this type of behaviour in youth... main problem comes withing their family,, if a family memeber is a criminal they tend to get influence from that and start commiting crime.. this family member can be your own father or mother or even one of your siblings... i belive high parental supervision is the key to this problem...

As far as deliquency goes, it's usually just rebellion against parental units so far as I see. Kids from close families don't get into trouble nearly so often as those who dislike their parents.

You know, I believe this as well. That when kids have something structured to do—it keeps them out of trouble. It’s when kids have nothing to do- and no adult supervision that they go out and look for something to do and end up finding trouble. My daughter is 11—and she is a great kid. We live in a small town- I would also think that this probably happens more in bigger cities—where there are more kids- with less adult supervision. .

Your grandmother was a very, very wise woman! While I have not had a child who was a juvenile deliquent, I have worked with my fair share of children who were juvenile deliquents. I worked for six years on an in-patient ward of a child/ adoescent mental healh facility. We got children there who were really troubled and kept them for 6 months in an attempt to turn them around. Sadly, these kids were often the product of poor parenting or a complete lack of parenting. Sometimes it was do to chemical imbalances in their brains and other times we didn't know the cause. No matter the cause, each of our psychologists and therapists would recommend the same thing to whomever the child was being discharged to, "keep them involved." They recommended that younger children be enrolled in karate classes, dance classes, organized sports teams and anything else to give them a focus and to build self-esteem.

I have a friend who has a son who's been a budding delinquent since he was a baby. Despite everything they tried with him they failed. I don't think everyone is wire to be good (per you other discussion) but this one was definately wired to be bad.