Sunday, July 19, 2009

Delinquent Behavior Among Boys 'Contagious,' Study Finds

The point is that if behavior is framed as a contagious disease and the accelerator is the culture, then small changes in in the culture can lead to huge changes in the behavior.

Delinquent Behavior Among Boys 'Contagious,' Study Finds: "The more intense the help given by the juvenile justice system, the greater was its negative impact,' Dr. Tremblay stresses. 'Our findings take on even greater importance given that the juvenile justice system in the province of Quebec has the reputation of being among the best. Most countries spend considerable financial resources to fund programs and institutions that group deviant youths together in order to help them. The problem is that delinquent behavior is contagious, especially among adolescents. Putting deviant adolescents together creates a culture of deviance, which increases the likelihood of continued criminal behavior.

4 comments:

  1. I agree. Putting underage, immature criminals in a boiling pot with people who share the same characteristics has been a root problem from the creation of these facilities. When kids and young adults are thrown together from hate most will undoubtedly continue crime after their sentence is over. This is partly because there is a lack of home and warmth at such a young age and the kids will eventually have to adapt as to avoid being alone.

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  2. But aside from "criminals" what happens when you put together a bunch of kids who develop a culture of giving a teacher they don't respect a really hard time.

    Do you see the similarities?

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  3. On a light note they are vaguely similar. The kid's responsibility is to listen and class and make sure he or she is nt distracted. Wrong. it is not up to the kids who go through high school to do this. It is the primary responsibility of the parents and teachers. The reason why many kids drop out of school is because too much pressure is admitted on each kid without any help.

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  4. Ok. But, suppose a teacher doesn't get it and can't earn the respect of the class.

    One thing that often happens is that the kids gang up on him/her. It makes some sense from a kid's point of view. But if the job is to fix the situation any thoughts about what a class of students can do to fix it?

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