Factors Influencing Juvenile Delinquencies Among Juvenile
[A CASE STUDY OF BORSTAL TRAINING INSTITUTE GANMO, KWARA STATE.]

Furthermore, Tinker reports that in some cultural collisions, non-involvement may be misinterpreted as indifference or lack of caring. For example, in Tinkler’s review of the connection between parent involvement and school achievement, Latino parents held such respectful views of their children’s teachers that they hesitated to interact with them, lest this be construed as contradicting and thus disrespecting them (Tinkler, 2002).
Poverty and Juvenile Delinquency
Many criminologists have viewed juvenile delinquency as a product of ecological deterioration due to the pervasiveness of poverty. Given the literature available on the ecological deterioration and juvenile delinquency, Gist and Fava (1964) and Reid (1982) reveal that an area with high population of low income families is more likely to retain high level of juvenile delinquency. Shaw and Mckay (1972:21 and 106) conducted a study and hypothesized that juvenile delinquency of adult crime is likely to flourish on the area where the residents are very poor and unskilled. Lander’s study (1954:89) supports Shaw and McKay (1972). Lander (1954) conducted a study on the delinquency rates in the city of Baltimore and found that the highest rates of delinquency occurred in this city because most households or families are extremely poor.
There have been recent studies which traced juvenile delinquency of an area based on the ecological deterioration of an area due to the pervasiveness of poverty such studies (e.g. Bursik, 1988) found that community level social disorganization factors of disorder, poverty levels of alienation, disassociation, and fear of crime explained increases in crime rates. These findings were underscored by studies such as Messner and Tardiff (1988) and Curry and Spergel (1988) which indicate that:
Social disorganization variables, such as the percentage of broken home are strongly related to neighbourhood delinquency and crime rates. And that there is a strong connection between delinquency and gang homicide to the presence of poverty and social disorganization as measured by such variables as percentage of the neigbouhood living below the poverty line, the lack of mortgage investment in a neighbourhood, unemployment rate, and influx of new immigrant groups.
                        (Siegel, 1992:197)
    According to Judith Blau and Peter Blau, a sense of social injustice occurs in communities in which the poor and the wealthy live close to one another. Income inequality causes feelings of “relative deprivation”. The relatively deprived are prone to have feelings of anger and hostility which precede delinquent acts. Research supportive of the Blau’s relative deprivation model has been conducted by a number of criminologists. Richard Block (1989) found that the variable best able to predict delinquent rates was the proximity in which poor and wealthy people lived to one another.
    Robert Sampson (1971) found that income inequality along with peer relations predicts delinquent rates. Richard Rosenfeld’s analysis of national census and delinquent patterns found that inequality was strongly related to delinquent rates especially in areas where residents have high achievement aspirations but few economic opportunities.