All My Children

There are more offences committed per capita in late adolescence and early adulthood than at later age periods, for several reasons. Youths feel a rebellious rivalry with parents, teachers, police and other people in authority. They have a compulsion to prove their courage and independence. Their sexual and aggressive impulses are now fully grown but are not yet fully controlled by the caution that comes—fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it—with experience.

If we want to understand the various kinds of offences for which youths can be charged, we should separate them. First I’ll mention mild delinquencies, of which a good example is petty larceny, which is snitching an apple from the stand in front of a fruit shop or a few pieces of timber at a building site. Continue Reading »