improvement, but in fact the numbers add up to the 150,000 juveniles in public and private facilities and the other 800,000 under some kind of non-incarceration supervision (Abruzzese 2). .
When it all comes down to it, the one question that needs to be asked is, "Why are juveniles committing these crimes?" There are many different ways this question can be answered and most of the time it is a combination of several different factors in the youth's life. The path of juvenile crime usually begins with problems within the family. Reports show that most juvenile offenders come from single parent homes with low-income levels. These are both common characteristics of the black community, which explains why African Americans were most disproportionately involved in arrests for violent crimes such as murder, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault (Sickmund 17). Whites made up of about sixty nine percent of the total arrests in 1995, followed by blacks with twenty eight percent, Asians with two percent and Native Americans with one percent. Facts such as these show us why the presence of a good family structure is so important in the lives of children. With!.
out good parenting in a child's life, he or she has a much higher chance to become one of the previously mentioned statistics. .
One of the other key reasons why children may turn to a life of crime is merely the people they hang around with. Crime can start at a very young age, as young as third grade, when kids feel the need for attention. Something as simple as stealing a candy bar from the store can eventually lead a child to possibly stealing someone's car or robbing a house. Peer pressure and need to look "cool" is a very important thing in young teenagers. Schools are often a breeding ground for juvenile offenders because groups of kids are able to gather and cause trouble. In fact juveniles are most likely to commit violent crimes right after school (Sickmund 26).
