Cognitive Criminal Behavior of Adolescents

The family is the fundamental building block of society. The foundation of the nation is as strong as Briton’s families. Family plays a significant role in shaping the child and preventing and treatment of delinquency and crimes. Home is the natural school for children where the child learns good behaviors and manners as well as values that are important in shaping their future conduct. In families where children are abandoned or rejected by parents or inadequately supervised, there is a high risk of the youths becoming delinquents.

In the United Kingdom, the government is which behaviorto eliminate crimes in society. According to gov. UK (2019), there were over 65,000 teenagers aged between 10 – 17 by the Police in England and Wales, excluding Lancashire Police in the year ending March 2018. The report further records that this was a decrease of 78% over the last ten years and an 8% decrease in the year 2017. It is, however, warned that black children were four times more likely than white children to be arrested.

The likelihood of blacks being arrested is associated with poverty levels. People living in poor neighborhoods are most likely to be victims or perpetrators of crimes. According to Duque & McKnight (2019), there is a close relationship between inequality and poverty, which leads to a rise in criminal behaviors. . This paper seeks to critically analyze adolescents living in poverty and their insights into criminal behavior. To achieve this objective behavioral theory and cognitive theory will be compared and contrasted.

Behavioral Theory

The behavioral theory provides that all human actions are learned through interaction with the environment.

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This theory presumes that people are not born violent but first learn to think and act violently due to their daily experiences. A child who observes their parents or relatives engage in intense activities are most likely to become violent.

According to Bartol (2017), adolescents living in poverty are more likely to be offenders as well as victims. Poverty caused by lack of employment as well as lack of resources and lack of opportunities will make the parents participate in criminal activities and promote antisocial behavior. Besides, the youths are most likely to engage in crimes when they see their glorification in the media or violent behavior being rewarded. In most instances, children model the violent behavior of their parents and the extreme community where they live. This means that the children will imitate the behaviors or actions of their parents and others when they become adults, for instance, aggressive methods of child control, being abusive, being unemployed, or being victimized.

According to gov. UK (2019a), there is a link between poverty and violent crimes in London. This revelation was made by Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London. It is reported that the Mayor confirmed a secure link between intense youth violence and Londoners affected by poverty and mental health issues. The report further indicates that three-quarters of the boroughs in London with the highest level of violent offending are the top 10 most deprived. These boroughs are also populated with people less than 20 years old living in poverty. Permitting children to be brought up in deprived conditions will lead to crimes.

The rate of adolescent delinquency is expected to rise if the government accepts high rates of school exclusion, fails to tackle domestic and sexual violence as well as normalizes violence. Research conducted by Vidal et al. (2017) established that persistent exposure to poverty during childhood is linked to increased involvement in the crime. Besides, it was determined that the link between childhood maltreatment and delinquent behaviors appears stronger in boys than girls. This, therefore, indicates that the behavior and environment where the child is brought up influence their criminality. Crimes offer a way that people to obtain material good that is impossible to gain through legitimate means. In most instances, people use violence, threat, or force to collect goods that they cannot get lawfully therefore steal or use other violent crimes. In most instances, the youth considers the risk of being caught and the benefit of their offense. Therefore, poverty increases crime rates.

Cognitive theory

Cognitive is the ability to process information. That is, the ability to learn information quickly, memorize and understand it. The theory helps in the understanding of the personality and intelligence of a person are linked to delinquency. According to Piaget (1932), the main area of focus of the cognitive theory is the perception of the world around us and the factors that influence the mental development of a person. For instance, a child that is brought up in an abusive family where physical and verbal abuse is rampant, the child is most likely to adopt these behaviors. Besides, where a male child is brought up in a family where the father verbally and physically abused the mother, the child is most likely to become abusive in the future because they associate such behaviors with being a man. The upbringing of a child in such an environment will impact their future lives. The low parental modeling of the child will expose it to delinquent behaviors because they will not consider violence against women a crime.

The focus of the cognitive theory is on how people morally represent and reason about the world. It also focuses on how people acquire, retain, and retrieve information. Children learn from adults, and their development depends on the environment in which they are brought up. The children pass through different stages of moral development. The children pass through different stages of moral development. The initial stages of growth are characterized by obedience and punishment, whereby children are taught to conduct themselves in a manner that is consistent with socially acceptable norms. The children in this stage learn from their parents, teachers, and adults around them, they become obedient and follow the standards because they fear punishment.

After the children have grown and become accustomed to obedience and punishment, they then adopt the individualism, instrumentalism, and exchange stage. Here, the adolescent strives to maintain what is right by acting in the best interest. This means that the individual is concerned about their well-being and is keen not to engage in anything that will jeopardize their best interest. The individual is likely to judge the morality of his or her action by comparing them with the expectations of society. For instance, where a child has been brought up in a hostile environment or where crimes like stealing were not condemned, the child will most likely engage in such crimes. Areas with high poverty levels are most likely to record crimes because these areas have high levels of unemployment and population density. Besides, there is a high rate of mental illness; stress and anxiety are experienced among the poor than in the rich. People living in poverty are more likely to have low life satisfaction whichbehavior as is associated with poor mental and physical health. Poverty can lead to high levels of stress that prompt adolescents behavioras well as adults, to engage in crimes like robbery and theft, among other crimes.

Cognitive theory assumes that people can process and organize information or their mind. The main focus is to understand concepts like memory and decision aiming. To poverty and youth delinquency behaviors, the theory assumes that children engage in crime because they learned cbehavioralhaviours from their parents or other adults.

In contrast, behavioral theory concerns itself with the practices that can be observed. This theory assumes that people learn by associating certain events with inevitable consequences and therefore, will act in a morally acceptable way. In essence, this is the causes a person to avoid criminal activities even when they are poor, because they fear being punished. Despite the above differences, the two theories relate to dealing with crimes in that they attempt to explain human behavior. These theories seek to explain how interaction with other people and the environment shape human behavior behavioral.

Conclusion

Adolescents living in poverty are most likely to engage in crimes due to the environment that has been brought up. Crime thrives in poverty-stricken areas because it enables people to obtain material goods that they cannot gain using legitimate means. Behavioural theory has demonstrated that youth learn criminal behavior highBehavioralbehaviors that from their parents and other adults, and they practice them in adulthood. Furthermore, cognitive theory tends to support this perception that criminal behaviobehaviorsurs are learned. This is because the theory is concerned with behavior high behaviour of adolescents and how they are influenced to engage in crimes. High level of unemployment increases poverty which in turn raises crime rates due to depression and stress.