asolescent delinquency

During 1991, alone, adolescents under the age of eighteen made up 17.2 percent of all arrests for violent crimes (Salts, Lindholm, Goddard, & Duncan, 1995). Watts & Ellis (1993) found that antecedents to drug and alcohol use/abuse happens before the adolescent reaches high school. So, what factors drive adolescents to act out in such delinquent behaviors as skipping school, threatening fellow adolescents with guns or other weapons, and drug and alcohol use? This is a very interesting question that seems …

…need to be involved in deviant acts. I do realize that each and every adolescent is different, so many of these factors are not characteristic of every delinquent adolescent. Some factors are characteristic of some adolescents, and all other factors have to be explored to understand if they are, in any way, related to the delinquency of some adolescents. We will never be able to determine exactly what factors cause the delinquency in every adolescent.