Functions of Law and Juvenile Delinquency: A Sociological Perspective

Functions of Law

1. Organizing Feature of Social Life

Law governs every society through rules, even rudimentary ones. It regulates social events within community life, including those beyond legal regulation. Law dictates individual and collective behavior, imposing obligations, prohibiting actions, and permitting others. Individuals must adapt their conduct to these mandates, ensuring social order rather than just personal perfection.

2. Organizational Function of Public Authority

Human society requires a superior organization distinct from individuals—a state political organization—legally mandated by law. As Kelsen states, "no state beyond the law."

3. Legitimization of Power

Law creates, distributes, and limits public power. Legitimate power is established and exercised according to law. Legitimization refers to the qualification or licensing of power, ensuring that any conferred authority or trade is exercised in strict compliance with the legal system.

4. Organization of Violence

Law organizes and institutionalizes violence, designating who exercises it and under whose authority. Bobbio notes that law regulates the use of force, specifying when, how, how much, and who holds coercive power.

5. Conflict Resolution

Conflicting interests between individuals or social groups are inherent to human social nature. Conflict arises when parties in a legal relationship, with opposing interests, cannot find common ground. Law provides mechanisms for resolving these conflicts.

Culture

Culture encompasses all information and values humans possess, accumulated throughout their existence. Every individual participates in societal values and culture. Culture includes folklore, language, religion, customs, beliefs, morals, law, knowledge, habits, and capabilities acquired as members of society.

Juvenile Crime

Juvenile crime refers to offenses committed by minors against public order, criminalized in the absence of criminal law. Article 183 of the Code of Children and Young defines a juvenile offender as one whose responsibility has been determined for participating in a criminalized act or fault under criminal law.

Juvenile law, and Article 20 of the penal code, state that children under 18 are legally immune and not responsible for any criminal or conflicting act. Juvenile law (Child and Adolescent Code) recognizes their immature development, prioritizing custody over punishment, and implementing rehabilitation or socialization measures through a multidisciplinary team.

The legal concept of a minor's inability to be held accountable is considered a legal fiction by some criminologists. While legally unable to account for their actions, some argue that minors can distinguish right from wrong. Criminology suggests that children as young as two can assess their behavior and differentiate good from bad.

In Latin America, juvenile delinquency is often linked to poverty, unemployment, drugs, low education or illiteracy, sexual abuse, and family disintegration. These social groups are denied fundamental human rights such as the right to life, health, education, housing, and recreation.

Causes of Juvenile Delinquency

1. Personal Factors

Mental health issues like psychopathy, psychosis, and other mental deviations are prevalent among young offenders. These factors can include:

• Parents with abnormal neuropathy, predisposing children to similar conditions.
• Parents with conditions like alcoholism or tuberculosis, potentially leading to epileptic, degenerate, neurasthenic, or hysterical offspring.

2. Social Factors

Social and family environments play a significant role, including:

• Family: Dysfunctional or incomplete households. The family is the primary source of values and social mores. The increasing incorporation of women into the workforce can create changes in family structure, and the absence of parents can contribute to antisocial behavior.
• School: Strong academic emphasis with minimal tutorial assistance and insufficient alternative support systems can fail to meet children's or adolescents' personal needs.

3. Television and Movies

Frequent exposure to violence, crime, adultery, seduction, hatred, revenge, and resentment in media can negatively influence behavior.

4. Bad Company

Unpleasant home environments lacking parental communication can lead children and adolescents to seek external influences and adopt criminal behavior from negative peer groups.

5. Libertinage

Lack of parental control can result in risky behaviors like alcohol consumption and smoking.

6. Beggary

Children resorting to begging in public places represents a state of vulnerability and desperation.