Gender Differences in Juvenile Delinquency Cases

Juvenile delinquency is a huge problem with in the United States. Turn on the television and you will always see a case involving a juvenile. But there is also something that you might have noticed. Most of these offenders for major crimes were male. Is there a reason that males become juvenile delinquents and not females? Another question is why do juvenile offend at all? Within this paper I will look at the strain that juvenile's are under using the General Strain Theory. Also looking within these strains will show why males tend to be offenders of aggressively motivated crimes and not their counterparts.

Looking first at offenses we can see right away the differences between juvenile male and female offenses. According to the Juvenile Offenders and Victims report of 2006 looking at murders "juvenile offenders were involved in an estimated 1,300 murders in the U.S. in 2002-- 8% of all murders."(Snyder &Sickmund, 06) Looking at a more aggressive year for murders, these are with firearms alone. "The year of 1994 3,000 murders were committed by males. Females within that same year committed a lot less then five hundred murders. The rate for men has gone up and down but has almost always been above 1,000 murders per year. While there has never been even close to five hundred committed by female offenders." (Snyder & Sickmund, 06 ) This shows that there is a substantial difference between the violence of males and females. This study also shows juvenile males have a larger chance of using a firearm and committing murder then females.

Continuing on looking at the Juvenile Offenders and Victims report of 2006, showing again that males are involved with more violent or lethal crimes. "In a 2003 survey 33% of high school students said they had been in one or more physical fights during the past 12 months." (Snyder &Sickmund, 06) Physical fighting can always lead to other offending in the future. Physical violence shows an aggressive nature in these offenders. Looking within those 33% of students who were in the fight you will see who is more likely to commit a violent act. "According to the survey, male students were substantially more likely to fight at school then female students at all grade levels." (Snyder & Sickmund, 06) Substantially more likely to fight shows that males tend to be the more aggressive sex. The offenses show an obvious trend that males are the more aggressive offenders.

Along with the question of why males commit such violent juvenile crimes compared to females. But why do juveniles commit crimes at all? Strain put on children can cause then to become frustrated and maybe even aggressive. One theorist Agnew came up with the General Strain Theory, this looks at how particular strains effect people. According to the article Community, Strain, and Delinquency: A Test of a Multi-Level Model of Strain Theory they look at what Agnew is saying in his General Strain Theory.

"Based on Agnew's General Strain Theory assumption that strain and negative affect are major sources of delinquent motivation. Individual measures of strain may both directly and indirectly lead to individual delinquency. Indirectly, the likelihood that strain will lead delinquency is mediated by feelings of negative affect, specifically anger, among individuals." (Cochran, Dembo, Sellers, Wareham, 2005)

So a reasoning behind juvenile delinquent behavior is the way they handle strain. The strain and negativity put on children can lead them toward crime. In an article written by De Coster and Kort-Butler it also look at the Agnew's General Strain Theory and looks at how strain can lead to certain crimes and deviant behavior .

"General strain theory fit's the assumption of indeterminacy because it posits that a given concept, stress, leads to anger and ultimately to a variety of delinquent responses, including retaliatory ( e.g., violence or vandalism), escapists (e.g., drugs or truancy), and/or instrumental (e.g., theft or cheating) delinquency. Consistent with the indeterminacy assumption, researchers often assess strain theory using a single, composite measure of stress." ( De Coster & Kort-Butler, 2006)

So again, this shows that strain and stress together leads to negative emotions which can lead to delinquent activities within youths.

Looking more particularly at the General Strain Theory you can see the different parts that can lead to strain to youths. There are three parts to the general strain theory and a paper by Robert Agnew, Timothy Brenzina, John Paul Wright, and Francis T. Cullen looks at these three things.

"There are three major types of strain or negative relationships? Other may (1) prevent individuals from achieving their positively valued goals, including monetary, status, and autonomy goals; (2) remove or threaten to remove positively valued stimuli that individual possess (e.g., the death of friends or family members, the loss of romantic partners); and (3) present or threaten to present individual with noxious or negatively valued stimuli (e.g., verbal insults, physical assaults). These strains increase the likelihood that individuals will experience a range of negative emotions." ( Agnew, Brenzina, Cullen, & Wright, 02)

So there are three major parts that lead to a youths strain. With the first strain of not being able to reach a positive goal, this can be as something simple as getting an A on a test. Being unable to achieve this goal can lead to major frustration, a feeling of failure, and a loss of self-esteem. This goal could also be something materialistic, such as getting a car or a video game. Jang found that males are more materialistic than females. "Specifically, males are more concerned with material success, whereas females are more concerned with interpersonal relations" (Jang , 07) So in this finding males stresses would be more of wanting something and not being able to get it. Females would more be effect by say the third strain of verbal insults, since female are more interpersonal. Bullying can lead to many outrageous acts as seen by many of the recent school shootings. Looking at again at Agnew, Brenzina, Cullen, and Wright's finding they look at the effect of string on delinquency.

"General Strain Theory predicts that several factors conditions the effect of strain on delinquency, with these factors influencing the experience of strain, the ability to engage in criminal versus noncriminal coping, and the disposition for criminal versus noncriminal coping. Such factors include the importance attac hed to the goals, values, or identities that are threatened; coping skills; coping resources like money, self-esteem, and self-efficiency; conventional social supports; level of social control; and assimilation with delinquent peers." (Agnew et al., 02) Looking more into strain and its emotional aspects Piquero and Sealock look at Agnew's theory and analyze how individuals can handle stress.

"Agnew identifies a typology of the major cognitive, emotional, and behavioral adaptations to strain. Cognitive coping strategies are operationalized in three ways. First, the individual may ignore or minimize the importance of the adversity. Second, she or he may maximize the positive outcomes or minimize the negative outcomes of the adversity. Finally, the individual may accept responsibility for the adversity. Emotional coping strategies encompass a variety of activist, such as drug use, physical exercise, and meditation." (Piquero & Sealock,04)

So Agnew and his General Strain theory explains why kids turn to deviant behavior. But it also goes more in-depth and looks at the gender differences as well. Showing why these stains can cause males to commit more of the aggressive crimes. Maybe it's due to strain or maybe due to aggression but males tend to be more likely to turn to crime. Piquero and Sealock look at why males have a higher crime rates than females. "They postulate three explanations; males are subject to different strains then are females, with males strain more conducive to crime; males have different emotional responses to strain, with males responses more conducive to crime; and males are more likely to respond to anger/ strain with crime." (Piquero & Sealock,04) Although males are the more likely to commit crime does not mean the females do not endure strain as well. "According to Jang women are, on average, more distressed than men." (Jang,07) Females youths tend to deal differently then male youths. Also according to Jang, he find that Broidy and Agnew state that men and women are different not only in the rate but also in the forms of crime they commit, because they differ in the types of strain they tend to experience, emotional responses to the strain, and factors conditioning the use of criminal versus noncriminal adaptations of strain and distress." (Jang,07) So overall males and females react differently to strain, leading to different behaviors and crimes committed. Females youths tend to have more stress within their lives but they deal with it better then male youths.

Also Jang finds: "that women are at least as strained and thus distressed as men but commit less crime because they are less likely than men to have criminogenic strain and emotional response to strain. Second, when women respond to strain with crime and deviance, they tend to engage in an act consistent with their emotional responses to strain, thereby making women's behavioral of strain or emotional distress with crime and deviance, and more likely to use legitimate coping strategies in response to strain and distress than men." (Jang,07)
So females tend to be more rational and not as aggressive as men. Although females do act out emotionally because their lack of aggression they are more likely to verbalize an attack against someone. Females when strained tend to internalize instead of lash out like men. This can lead to many other problems such as substance abuse.

"Jang has also look at Broidy and Agnew and found gender differences in the second and third types of strain: that is, females are more likely to have strains related to gender discrimination and gender roles at work or home, whereas males are more likely to experience the strain of criminal victimization and interpersonal conflicts due to competitive relations with peers. Then they propose that male strains are more conducive to confrontational, other-directed deviance and rime (e.g., interpersonal aggression and violence) compared to female strains." (Jang) According to this although females have more strain, male have strain that is harder to deal with an can lead to conflicting emotions. They sometimes feel they must partake in criminal activity to be able to handle certain strains and situations others put them in. "According to Broidy and Agnew, the gender and distress literature suggests that the anger women experience is different from that experienced by men in that the anger of women is typically accompanied by emotions such as fear, anxiety, guilt, and shame, whereas the anger of men is characterized by moral outrage."(Jang, 07) So men when angry become primal and lash out in outrage. Women internalize their anger and feel an anxiety full of emotions.Another look at gender differences using the General Strain Theory an article by Morash and Moon looks at the connection of strain to delinquency in boys and girls.

"In the General Strain Theory, gender is relevant to the etiology of delinquency in three different ways. First, the levels, and types of strain could be different for girls and for boys. Because General Strain Theory considers various types of strain than were earlier theories that focused exclusively on strain resulting from inability to achieve monetary, education, and occupational goals. " (Morash &Moon, 07)
So there are many strains within a child's life that can effect their lives.
"A second way that gender might influence that connection of strain to delinquency is that boys and girls may have different responses to the same strain. There is some evidence that girls tend to internalize reactions to stress; boys tend to externalize their reactions by becoming aggressive or getting I involved in property offenses. Consistent with the notion that girls internalize their responses to stress, a large body of research supports the conclusion that a cross national, cultural and ethnic groups, beginning in early adolescence, females are twice as likely to experience depression as are males." (Morash & Moon, 07)
So girls internalize situations and become emotional over strain. Boys become aggressive and instead of internalize they externalize their emotional state.
"Also relevant to different responses to the same strains, U.S. research has found that males often experience anger and contempt when their performance is being evaluated. More often than girls, boys report that anger is a result of moral outrage at being challenged or treated unjustly. Moral outrage can stimulate violent reactions intended to reassert oneself and to affirm one's sense of what is right. The gender differences in response to negative evaluation maybe particularly important in educational setting in South Koreas, where there is extreme pressure on students to succeed academically and where teachers harshly evaluate youth who are not excelling in academic pursuits and in the presence of peers." (Morash & Moon, 07)
So there is extreme pressure on youth to do well.

This article also says that males anger tends to come out of moral outrage. Neff and Waite which also shows these connections between anger and delinquency. "While the connection between strain and delinquency is not a new idea, the notion that anger or frustration is the intervening variable linking strain to delinquency is a significant reworking of the original formulation of classic strain theory. For example, Merton proposed that anomie resulted from a
lack of correspondence between positively valued goals and the socially acceptable means to acquire those goals. He suggested that different types of delinquency or crime resulted from different forms of adaptation to anomie-induced strain. Property crimes, such as theft, represented innovative adaptations. Using alcohol and other drugs, on the other hand, could be thought of as a retreatist mode of adaptation; i.e., behavior that not only symbolically rejects
the institutionalized means to achieve a positive goal, but also rejects the goal itself. Agnew's modern version of strain theory similarly acknowledges the
existence of various types of responses to the negative emotions created by Strain." (Neff & Waite,07) So when stressed some give up on achieving their goals and this can lead them to criminal activities.

Looking at women's anger Jang's article shows that ; "women's anger is likely to be mitigated by its concurrent on angry emotions, and thus less likely than men's anger to be expressed in other-directed forms of crime and deviance. Also, it has been suggested that women tend to internalize their anger, unlike men who tend to externalize it. This is partly because women are socialized to turn their anger inward and blame themselves for adversity (which GST posits to decrease the probability of engaging in other-directed deviance and crime), whereas men are socialized to outwardly express their anger. In addition, women tend to worry more than men that their anger might hurt others and jeopardize valued relationships, which would be inconsistent with their nurturing and supportive roles.(Jang, 07)

Again look at Jang's article he looks at women and anger and found that " women are socialized to turn their anger inward and blame themselves for adversity whereas men are socialized to outwardly express their anger In addition women tend to worry more than men that their anger might hurt others and jeopardize valued relationships, which would be incondite with their nurturing and supportive roles." (Jang,07)
Continuing on with Jang's look at female's under strain. "According to their review of the stress literature, females are not necessarily advantaged over males in terms of conditioning factors that are less likely to have people respond to strain and emotional distress with crime and deviance, such as self-esteem and self-efficacy. These factors, however, coupled with gender role socialization, gender stereotypes,and gender identities, may be more likely to lead women than men to employ certain types of deviant coping strategies. For example, women low in selfesteem and self-efficacy relative to men, not feeling secure or confident, may be more likely to employ self-directed, non criminal or ineffective coping strategies (e.g., alcohol abuse or selective ignoring) rather than criminal, confrontational ones that would be inconsistent with their gender roles and stereotypes." (Jang, 07)

Again showing the men externalize their feelings and females internalize them. Leading to different responses to strain and negative emotions. Continuing with the negative emotions Jang studies found. According to General Strain Theory, strain generates negative emotions that provide motivation for deviant acts, including crime, as a coping strategy. Specifically, Agnew distinguishes between two types of emotional responses to strain, self-directed (e.g., depression) and other-directed emotions (e.g., anger), suggesting that the latter are more likely to result in other-directed deviant acts, such as interpersonal aggression and violence, rather than self-directed acts like drug use. Further, to explain why not all strained individuals turn to deviance and crime to adapt to strain, Agnew proposes that an individual's internal and external factors increase (or decrease) the probability of choosing legitimate over a deviant or criminal coping strategy." (Jang, 07)

In conclusion juvenile delinquency is a problem and hard to understand. The general strain theory gives one look at why these juveniles commit crime. Due to strain they get overwhelmed and commit certain crimes. The more aggressively charged crimes are usually male based. Males get frustrated then angry, with that anger they externalize there anger and take it out on their peers or others. Females internalize their anger when strain is put on them. This leads them to feel guilty and lowers their self-esteem, which can lower their willingness to commit a crime.

Reference Page
Report
Sickmund, M., Snyder, H. (2006) Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report
National Center for Juvenile Justice, 2006
Peer Review Articles
Agnew, R, Brezina, T., Cullen, F., Wright J. (2002) Strain, personality traits, and delinquency: Extending general strain theory. Criminology, 40, issue 1
Cochran, J., Dembo, R., Sellers, C., Wareham, J. (2005) Community, strain, and delinquency: A test of a mulit-level model of general strain theory. Western Criminology Review 6, issue 1
DeCoster, S., Kort-Butler, L. (2008) How general is general stain theory? Assessing determinacy and indeterminacy across life domain. Journal of research in crime and delinquency, 43,issue 4
Jang, S. (20007) Gender differences in strain, negative emotions, and coping behaviors: A general strain theory approach. Justice Quarterly, 24 issue 3
Moon, B., Morash. M. (2007) Gender difference in the effects of strain on the delinquency of south Korean youth. Youth and Society, 38, issue 3
Neff, J. Waite, E. (2007) Male versus female substance abuse pattern among incarcerated juvenile offenders: comparing strain and social learning. Justice Quarterly, 24, Issue 1.
Piquero, N. Sealock, M. (2004) Gender and general strain theory:
A preliminary test of Broidy and Agnew's gender/GST hypothesis, Justice Quarterly,21, issue 1