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Unit 22: Backward and Delinquent Children: Definition, Types, Characteristics

incompetency or due to economic conditions. He tries to achieve the goal by his anti-social activities Notes
which are known as delinquent act. The delinquent behaviour is the symptom of his needs and
mental ailments.
(3) According to Sociologists: They have emphasized on social conditions which contribute to anti-
social behaviour or delinquency. The political and economic stress can lead to undesirable acts or
behaviour. They violate the social and cultural norms. A person is compelled by the circumstances to
achieve his goal by adopting antisocial methods. Thus delinquency is the result of unsuccessful efforts
to achieve goals of life or society, this is the reason that a person adopts anti-social acts. It is collective
reaction formation.
(4) According to Psychologists: It is deficiency in the formation of supper ego. He is unable to identify
with the values of his parents and seeks pleasure at the cost of sacrificing the principles of reality and
morality. The delinquency is as holes in superego. Moreover (1961) defined delinquency as moral
deficiency because of weak conscience due to improper teaching of the child in early age of life.
The delinquency is the manifestation of frustrated needs of the child which ultimately lead to
aggression. The delinquent the would be a person whose misbehavior is relatively illegal offence,
which in appropriate to his level of development, is not committed as a result of extreme low intellect.
According to Travis Hirchi: 'Delinquency is defined by acts, the detection of which is thought to
result in punishment of the person committing them by agents of the large society."
The leagal definition does not reveal any picture of the delinquent's personality or the causes of his
behaviour. Law delinquent's personality or the causes of his behaviour. Law-makers are not concerned
so much with delinquency as with delinquents and naturally their definition of delinquency has
been mostly incomplete and misleading. Psychologists say that a delinquent is one whose attitude
towards society is such that will eventually lead to a violation of the law. They have tried to relate
delinquency to the frustration of dependency needs which cause aggression. In many studies,
psychologists came up with differences between the psychological make-up of the delinquent and
non-delinquent. The difference was quantitative rather than qualitative. The consider delinquency to
be an unfortunate expression of the personality and emphasis that the various indices of maladjustment
shown by the delinquents have one or more personal meanings behind them.

A child is said to be a delinquent when he starts stealing assaulting, indulging in sex
offences and develops symptoms like pathological lying and truancy.

Self Assessment

2. Multiple Choice Questions:
Choose the correct option:
(i) The slow learners can be placed under ................ categories.
(a) 2 (b) 3 (c) 5 (d) 7
(ii) .................... has given the definition of delinquency may be defined as anti-social bahaviours
(a) Head field (b) Cyril Burt (c) Healy (d) Niemeyer
(iii) According to biologists the accounts for anti social-behaviour as rising from organic or
pathological factors located in the ........................ of an individual.
(a) muscular system (b) skeleton system
(c) Nervous system (d) circularly system
(iv) The .................. is expression of an individual needs and his mental ailments.
(a) delinquency (b) backwardness
(c) mental retardness (d) anti sociality

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