However if the behaviour is judged as immoral such as joining others in cheating there is less evidence of conformity as the costs are perceived as greater. Kohlberg found that individuals who are able to resist pressure to conform tend to be more morally advanced. Individuals can resist obedience if they have an ally who also opposes the authority figure. In Milgram’s study when the participant was given two allies that refused to continue giving shocks, only 10% of participants continued to the 450 volts shock level. Milgram claims that the presence of allies who resist an authority figure makes individuals more confident in their ability to do the same.
More significant is that cases of cases of youthful offenders are on the rise on among the young female compared to their male counterparts and this situation is raising an alarm (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999). Children who are at the risk of offending in the future are treated separately from the adults. This is given special attention reason being that they require rehabilitation to get back from the bad behavior unlike adults who require punishment. Intervention facilitates in changing the antisocial characteristics which, if not
Firstly, it is important to understand what is meant by the term ‘locking up’ and why the 'locking up' of children is a more controversial issue than that of adults. There is much debate about what age children should be held responsible for their actions and whether they should be regarded in the same light as adults who commit crime. In the UK, the age of criminal responsibility is 10 years; this is the youngest that someone can be charged with a crime. Most would argue that imprisoning young offenders and ignoring their welfare would be an unsatisfactory in dealing with problematic youths. In order to address Goldson’s statement, regarding the effectiveness of imprisonment, alternative measures for rehabilitation of young offenders should be examined.
From Farringtons study they concluded that the most important risk factors are criminality in the family and poor child-rearing. Suggesting that there is a cause and effect between the upbringing of children and how they will act in their childhood and later on in life. This is shown by the results as there was a positive correlation found between those who had convicted parents and those who were convicted of crime before and after their 21st birthday, whilst those who had parents who were not convicted were far less likely to be involved in crime themselves, many other childhood characteristics were shared between the ‘persisters’. A strength of the upbringing approach to psychology is that it is on the nurture side of the nature vs nurture debate, this is shown through the Farrington study as it found that on their 15th birthday 29% of boys from the disrupted families had committed more crime compared to those boys with intact families. However a weakness of the upbringing approach is that it can be considered a reductionist because it ignores biological causes of crime.
One of such theories is by Laurence Steinberg, who holds that brain science demonstrates that the adolescents’ brain plays a big role in influencing adolescents undertake riskier behaviors. Over the years, there have been stereotypes that adolescents are irrational persons who believe that they are not vulnerable and unaware of the risks behaviors and are unconcerned and inattentive to the possible consequences of their risky behaviors. The facts, however, are that the logical reasoning of a 15years adolescent is similar to those of adults when perceiving risks. The difference comes in when reasoning about the consequences of the risky behaviors. The adolescents do not take time to critically think about the consequence of the risky behaviors.
An adult knows what are the risks, and what is going to be like; when they make their decisions, but a child does what comes first to his/her mind, and they don’t think things over. “Research suggests that adolescents squeezed through the adult system are more likely to come out as violent career criminals than similar kids handled
Furthermore, child maltreatment is a consequential social problem. Youth’s who either witnessed or endured violence and abuse in the home are much more likely than those from nonviolent homes to participate in similar behaviour elsewhere (Flowers, 2002). Lastly, the link between poor parental supervision and juvenile convictions are closely related. American studies have shown that parents who have ineffective and lax monitoring of their children displayed a consistent pattern of delinquency (Arthur, 2007). American criminologist Travis Hirschi makes “attachment” (Walsh, 1991:108) the backbone of his control theory of delinquency.
That is, considering the two pathways to delinquency described by Moffitt. The first path to delinquency mention by Moffitt is the Life course persistent. Youths who fit in this category tend to exhibit behavioral problems at an early age which by no means that these offenders tend to remain lawbreakers throughout their adulthood. Not only does this affect the lives of these offenders but it also affects the people around them. Nonetheless males and females are much more likely to be associated with life course persistent.
Although it is a "grievous moral wrong to harm" (Waller, 2008, p. 32) children under the age of ten, the evil in society today will be proved with examples to show children who are harmed are able to commit not only morally virtuous acts but can and will commit morally wrong decisions. Can Children Under 10 Commit Morally Virtuous Rights or Moral Wrongs When it is Morally Wrong to Commit Grievances Towards Them? Children in today's society are nearly forced to be older than their actual age and thus must increase in maturity and morally comparatively to children of as little as three decades ago. Although children have to "be older" today when you take a look back to the time of World War One and World War Two, the children in the household had to also be older and lose sight of being a child. Predominately when a child has to "be older" in the since of doing adult chores it can be traced back to a time of war or crisis in society.
If the age is lowered, young adults won't binge as often making it safer and not something that's done to be “cool”. Learning how to drink at a younger age allows responsibilities to be taught before kids are sent to college. Lowering the high drinking age in the United States will reduce the irresponsible drinking habits amongst the youth in America.