At the Junction of Personality Theories: Working with Juvenile Offenders

Abstract

Rule breaking (Tremblay 2010), impulsivity, need for stimulation, social immaturity (Forth and Burke 1998; Skeem and Cauffman 2003), and oppositional behavior within the context of autonomy seeking (Chen 2010) and identity development (Josselson 1989) are considered by many developmentalists to be important components of normative adolescence. In general, familial and societal sensitivity to these behaviors is rather high and societal structures tend to exercise a considerable amount of tolerance and forgiveness toward such developmental events when they occur during adolescence (Wästerfors 2009). Yet, the majority (if not all) of the developed and many developing countries (Feld 1999) have a juvenile justice system (United Nations 1985, 1990a, b), according to which certain acts committed by juveniles—typically defined as individuals up to 17 years of age (United Nations 1989)—are singled out because of the severity or repeated nature of their acts against societal rules, which are dealt with legally. There are multiple points of entry into the juvenile justice system; the individuals within this system are referred to as juvenile offenders, meaning that they have offended societal rules and these offenses were serious (or frequent) enough not to be forgiven by the society. Yet, the fact of committing such serious or frequent offenses is, perhaps, one of the very few common denominators of this relatively small group of children and youth. Juvenile offenders vary tremendously in the offenses they commit and the trajectories that bring them to and follow these offenses (Le Blanc 1998); correspondingly, understanding and characterizing their trajectories might enhance attempts at prevention and rehabilitation.