The Transition From Juvenile Delinquency To Adulthood Criminality In Ghana; The Predisposing Factors

ABSTRACT

This study, the Transition from juvenile delinquency to adulthood criminality; The Predisposing factors sought to understand the transitions embedded in the offending trajectories of Ghanaian juvenile delinquents who were in their adulthood. Specifically, the study addresses four key research questions, namely how does the interplay of structural background factors and processes of informal social control mechanisms predispose individuals to crime in childhood? how does an individual experience of the criminal justice system reinforces and changes a criminal trajectory? How does labelling explain persistence and desistence from crime over the life course? how does an experience in multiple life domains modify the tendency to persist or desist from crime through adulthood? Using a qualitative research design, I explored the life history of 23 juvenile delinquents who have persisted and desisted from crime through adulthood and four stake holders. The overall findings suggest that the interplay of structural background factors and informal social control mechanisms may not necessarily predict the early onset of crime and delinquency in the Ghanaian social context due to socio-cultural and economic reasons. Also, the criminal justice had a differential impact on the juvenile delinquents; While for some it helped change their criminal careers, for others, it failed to help them desist. In adulthood, the finding suggests that friendship, quality employment, residential change, labelling and social support are critical elements which explain persistence or desistance from crime confirming the observations made by Sampson & Laub (1993) in relation to stable marriage and employment. The study further contradicts the orthodoxy of the perspective that suggests that deviant values are learnt in intimate groups Sutherland 1947) and also the theoretical underpinning of traditional labelling theories, in particular those of Becker (1963), Lemert (1951) and Tannenbaum (1938) that labeling per se does not explain persistence of crime as some of participants maneurered their delinquent status and desisted from crime.