THE GENDER TRENDS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY DROP IN JAPAN

Author

Mayumi Hando, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

12-1-2020

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Criminology and Criminal Justice

First Advisor

Narag, Raymund

Abstract

Juvenile delinquency in Japan has steadily declined since World War Ⅱ. This decline is true for both male and female juveniles, though some noticeable variations exist between the genders. Given this overall steady decline, this paper attempted to examine what factors contributed to the lowering of juvenile delinquency rates. When it comes to gender differences, this paper attempted to determine whether the factors related to male juvenile delinquency are the same factors related to female juvenile delinquency. Theories from the United States and other western countries that predict crime and delinquency were reviewed. Guided by this review, this paper constructed dependent variables (e.g., juvenile delinquency rates of total, males, and females) collected from the White Paper on Crime by the Ministry of Justice. The analysis included independent variables derived from Macro Strain Theory (MST) (e.g., unemployment aged 15-19, divorce rate, enrollment to university), Routine Activity Theory (RAT) (e.g., cellular phone penetration rate, student-teacher ratio, police strength) and Deterrence Theory (e.g., incarceration, revision of Juvenile Act in 2000). Graphical portrayal, descriptive analysis, bivariate correlations, and multiple regression analysis using ARIMA (autoregressive integrated moving average) techniques were performed. At the bivariate level of analysis, the results indicated that unemployment is significantly associated with the total and the male juvenile delinquency, while it is not significantly associated with the female juvenile delinquency. Across genders, divorce rate and cellular phone penetration predict juvenile delinquency significantly. However, at the multivariate level of analysis, the divorce rate was found a significant effect on female juvenile delinquency only when independent variables were limited to MST variables. The implications of the findings for juvenile justice are (1) providing support for unemployed youths, (2) providing support to divorced families and (3) educating youths and their families on the proper use of cellular phones. Limitations of the data were also addressed.