(Hazlehurst & Hazlehurst, 1998, p. 150). Profiles In every community,
roughly 2 percent of the juvenile offender population is responsible for up to
60 percent of the violent juvenile crime. Only 25 to 35 juveniles in every
100,000 members of the population will engage in criminal activity that matches
the Serious Habitual Offender pattern. Based on criteria developed by the U. S.
Department of Justice, this means that 0.03 percent to 0.04 percent of all
juveniles between 14 and 17 years old will be Serious Habitual Offenders. A
profile of a Serious Habitual Offender was collected from data collected and
analyzed by the Reagan Administration team at the U.S. Department of Justice in
the 1980s presents a graphic portrait of the serious habitual offender: The
typical SHO is male, 15 years and six months old. He has been arrested 11 to 14
times, exclusive of status offences, and five times for felonies. He comes from
a dysfunctional family; and in 46 percent of cases, at least one of his parents
also has an arrest history. He has received long-term and continuing social
services from as many as six different community service agencies, including
family, youth, mental health, social services, school, juvenile, or police
authorities, and continues to drain these resources for years before he is
finally incarcerated as a career criminal. The typical SHO’s family history
follows a classic pattern of social pathologies: 53 percent of his siblings also
have a history of arrest; and in 59 percent of these cases, there is no father
figure in the home. The absence of a father is particularly destructive for
boys; only 2 percent of SHOs are female. Furthermore, 68 percent of these
offenders have committed crimes of violence, 15 percent have a history of
committing sex crimes, and 51 percent have a reported missing or runaway record.
If a broken family characterized by physical or sexual abuse is an early
indicator of criminal behaviour, then virtually all of these serious habitual
offenders fit this category. These findings are consistent with the Heritage
Foundation’s widely reported analysis of the true root causes of violent crime,
particularly the crimogenic conditions associated with broken or dysfunctional
families. · SHOs do not consider the crimes they have committed to be all
that bad. · Forty-five percent are gang members, 64 percent associate
with other serious habitual offenders, and 75 percent abuse drugs. Recent
studies show that illegal drug use among the young is on the rise and a
significant majority of all present day SHOs -"Super Predators"- use
or sell illegal drugs and often become addicted themselves. Illegal drug use and
alcohol abuse tends to be regular features of their criminal conduct. Drugs, in
particular, are part of the criminal scene of these juvenile offenders, and the
use and sale of drugs contributes significantly to a SHO’s other criminal
activity. The need to purchase illegal drugs, combined with the warped hedonism
of the addict, shapes and drives much of the criminal activity of this class of
criminals. Juvenile crime and violence is on the rise. Many criminologists are
calling it an epidemic, a ticking time bomb, the calm before the storm, and a
long descent into night, you choose the clichИ. The reasons for this rise
in teen crime seems to have its roots not so much in poverty as it does to
poverty of values. Experts like John DiIulio and James Q. Wilson believe that
the cure lies in a renaissance of personal responsibility and a reassertion of
responsibility over rights and community over egoism. There is definitely a need
for more study on the new breed of teen criminal -"the Super
Predator". We don’t need yet another library full of jargon riddled
criminology studies to tell us what the Roman sages knew: what society does to
children, children will do to society. Most in the education as well as the
psychological fields will blanch whenever the terms values, church,
responsibility, and family, are bandied about. But the inescapable reality is
that since the sixties, when these terms were castigated and relegated to
"being quaint", we have witnessed an incredibly fast and pernicious
rise in the types of pathologies that have accompanied the decline of the family
structure. While I am by no means a religious zealot, it seems to me that
government has been a poor substitute for the family and the church in teaching
basic core values. Government certainly has a role to play financially, but the
strictures and the applications of any type of largess need to come from
Community leaders or clergy members who have a real stake in the community.
While it is tragic that there seem to be a large number of "lost
youths" mired in a life of crime and violence, the safety of the community,
especially the children in the community, should be the primary concern. I will
side with John DiIulio and agree that we need more churches, but I also feel
that more correctional facilities need to be built to house young offenders. If
children as young as 7, 8, or 9 years of age need to be incarcerated like
adults, then do it. While this may seem harsh, I believe that it is the only way
to prevent further decay. With harsher enforcement of laws towards violent
minors enforced, attention can be paid to addressing the ills that create the
problem, family decay. More attention needs to be paid to the people who
actually live in the communities affected. We must deal with this problem of the
"super predator" teen thug swiftly and harshly, before it’s too late
to save the children in danger of falling in with or becoming victims of crime
themselves.
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