Who is a Juvenile? This is a person under the age of 18 and commits an act that would be considered a crime if committed by an adult. The juvenile justice system is in charge of looking into the juveniles offences and reprimanding them accordingly. These youths are sometimes treated differently based on gender, gender being the aspect of being either male or female. Is this differential treatment really justified?
First of all, youth crimes are mostly committed by the men (Eadie, 2003). The egocentric behavior of being tough, powerful and aggressive may make them want to display their masculinity. Acting on these ideas may put the young men at a risk of engage in antisocial and criminal behavior. They may also do these to conform to their peer group needs. This may be the driving force for males to engage in deviant behavior. When we look at the females, however, the reasons may be totally different.
In order to design effective programs to match the needs of the female offenders, it is important to find out who they are and how their various life factors impacted on their offending. The female species are less likely to commit violent crimes as compared to the young men. Most of their crimes are based on alcohol, drugs or property. If the crime is based on property, it is most of the times economically driven or motivated by the abuse of alcohol. Therefore, for the females, they may have to be rehabilitated into doing activities that may help them generate income, as opposed to the male who are ego driven.
For the females, if there is a case of a violent crime, it is mostly against a spouse or an ex spouse. This people have in most occasions assaulted them verbally or physically, and it is simply revenge against them. They are, therefore, not at risk of committing violent crimes to the general public as compared to their male counterparts who could do so.
Furthermore, most females are poor, undereducated and unemployed. A survey in the US shows that 60% of the females in the juvenile centers were unemployed as compared to the males with less than 12% of them being unemployed. This shows the difference in economic life that would have driven them in committing the crime. (Collins& Collins, 2003).
We can see that the various factors leading to the rise in moral decadence among the youths are different. This is based on gender hence the need to treat the females differently from the males as they are being helped towards rehabilitation in the juvenile centers.