Juvenile delinquency: vacuum of values
S. DANDAPANI
WE SEEM to be living at a crossroads wherein time-honoured virtues are scoffed at as antediluvian relics unsuited for the ultra-modern life. Even a century ago we could boast of a well-knit family wherein the elders were respected and listened to. Joint family got disjointed, giving rise to nuclear families. With the exodus of people deserting villages and seeking accommodation in high-rise apartments, every one got used to living apart from one another.
With the compulsion of both wife and husband working, the youngsters are left to fend for themselves. The proliferation of old-age homes has come as a boon to working couples to dispatch the old folks. Bereft of a benign care of parents and grandparents, the youth today seem to lack guidance and direction. Slowly but invidiously, the cancer of cantankerous temperament to rebel against adult intervention has gripped the younger generation.
Delinquency is an expression of aggression in socially disapproved ways. It is a reactive, impulsive endeavour to find direct or substitute satisfaction for passionate urges. It is most pronounced during the period of adolescence when the impetuous youth tend to view the rules and regulations as an encroachment upon individual freedom.
Uneducated liberty is no liberty at all. It is a kind of pseudo-liberty shackled to one's own self-interest. Society can function smoothly only when all the members conform to the codes of conduct, written as well as unwritten.
A sense of belonging
One of the basic psychological needs that contribute to the well being of the individual is security. Parents in the home atmosphere foster it by proper upbringing. A child who is deprived of love and affection at home would feel highly insecure and he is likely to carry over this feeling to the world outside. Case studies of delinquents reveal that, by and large, they emerge from broken homes and unhappy families. They do not develop a sense of belonging.
Parents can spoil a child either by granting unlimited freedom or withholding it altogether. In the former case, children, having grown accustomed to act as they like at home, would expect similar patronising conditions outside home as well. Such children are likely to be petulant and rapacious when events turn contrary to their whims.
In the other extreme, children, having been subjected to rigid discipline and deprived of even basic freedom, tend to be inhibited. They would remain suspicious, withdrawn and uncommunicative. According to Adler, the famous psychoanalyst, these "styles of life" would remain permanent characteristics of individuals and act as predisposing factors for delinquent behaviour.
Delinquency is essentially a social malady. It is caused by social conditions that thwart the satisfaction of the basic needs of the individual. No delinquent has a gene or a set of genes which produce in him a tendency to indulge in anti-social behaviour.
The shocking truth is that very often, adults are instrumental in the spread of delinquency among the youth. The pornographic outlets and the call-girl rackets are not controlled by teenage monsters. These are run by adults who publicise the delinquent as a heartless, sex-crazy, rapacious and conscienceless and monstrous character with a lurid picture on the cover to sell paperbacks.
Educators, particularly at primary and secondary school levels, need to bestow special care on transformation of human behaviour rather than merely pumping into the young minds a plethora of information.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Open Page
