Gender Differences & Family

Juvenile delinquency is something that is happening all over the world at any given moment. The reasoning behind juvenile delinquency is something criminologists yearn to explain. Some criminologists have thought that gender plays an important role in determining rather a juvenile will offend or not. Some even think female offenders are treated differently than male offenders. Others think family is the key behind why juveniles learn to offend. The reasoning criminologists have for these beliefs is something that does make sense.
Gender is something we have always used to explain bad behavior and good behavior. It has always been assumed that girls are just programed to behave better than boys. Crime amongst juvenile offenders has provided some proof of this assumption. Juvenile boys are more likely to become delinquent than girls. However, it is becoming more common for girls to become delinquent and commit the same crimes that juvenile boys are committing. Prior to the increase in juvenile delinquency amongst girls, it was thought that girls who became delinquent did so for reasons that were understandable. Their crimes were caused by family issues, sexual solicitation, or running away. Some early criminologists ignored female offenders altogether, refusing to see their crimes as anything serious. The reasons behind why boys are more likely to become delinquent than girls is something that may be caused by development. The development of socialization skills start to take place as early as infancy. Boys are taught to react to social situations in different ways than girls. For example boys may react to social situations with feelings of anger and become physical. Girls react in social situations by keeping things inside and suppressing these feelings for fear of damaging their personal relationships. Cognitively girls and boys also differ. Girls learn to speak earlier with better pronunciation and read better than boys. Whereas boys have excellent