The delinquent youth : a sociological study of juvenile delinquency in Malta

Abstract

Juvenile delinquency may be described as the manifestation of the cultural conflict endemic to any social structure. It epitomises youth rebellion against those behaviour standards, values, and lifestyles revered by the established culture. Juvenile delinquency, however, implies more than inter status-group conflict. It cuts across generational, gender, class and territorial boundaries. Moreover, the nature, source, content and extent of youth delinquency are situationally-dependent and necessitate the understanding of the relativity and the multiplicity of the problem. To define the term "juvenile delinquency" is also, in itself, an arduous task. Accepting the notion of juvenile delinquency as the misconduct of youth as indicated through juvenile violations of social norms, for example, would not help overcome the difficulty of arriving at a precise explanation of the problem. Since what is held to be non-normative behaviour is relative to the social norms upheld in one social structure or another, it is impossible to arrive at a uniform definition of juvenile delinquent behaviour. Neither is it possible to define juvenile delinquency in terms to one explanation or another. A host of factors impinge on the individual and the environment to create delinquency. This study seeks to identify some of the factors related to juvenile delinquency incidence in Malta. It cannot, nor does it seek to provide the answer to youth delinquency causality in Malta. "The Delinquent Youth", rather, seeks to highlight some of the salient features of the problem and to emphasise the necessity of subjecting this field to empirical scrutiny.