The Influence of The Society on Juvenile Delinquency in Uganda

Abstract

Bukulu Keneth

This research was conducted to examine the influence of the society on juvenile delinquency in Uganda and also look at the types of behaviors juveniles normally portray as well as finding possible solutions to the problem. For so many years, Uganda has been facing numerous serious social problems such as poverty, unemployment political instability, incurable diseases such as HIV aids among others and this has resulted into breakdown of families, deaths of many and increase in the number of orphans and street children hence leading to the increase in the number of juvenile delinquents in the country.

The results of the study shows that even though there are other factors to juvenile delinquency like poverty, low levels of education, mass media among others but social factors such as family dysfunction, peer influence and child abuse are said to be the major cause of the problem since most of children who are in conflict with the law come from broken families and streets according to the reports given by police of Uganda.

Juvenile delinquency causes various problems and does not only affect the overall growth and development of a child but also affects the society as whole, therefore this research was aimed to look at how we can improve the social atmosphere in order to combat juvenile delinquency in Uganda.

This paper also examined factors for juvenile delinquency in other African countries including Rwanda, Nigeria and South Africa and the results revealed that the causes to existence and increase of juvenile delinquency in these countries are almost the same and therefore this paper suggested similar solutions to eradicate this problem in the entire continent.

Secondary data analysis was used as methodology and data from World Bank, United Nations, Uganda annual crime reports and other academic papers were used as materials.

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