Juvenile delinquency : An introduction

The word ‘Juvenile’ has been derived from Latin term ‘Juvenis’ meaning thereby young. The term ‘delinquency’ has also been derived from the term do (away from) and liqueur (to leave). The Latin initiative ‘deliquere’ translate as to emit in its original earliest sense. According to Reckless (1956), the term ‘juvenile delinquency’ applies to the ‘violation of criminal code and or pursuit of certain patterns of behavior disapproved of for children and young adolescents’.

Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending or youth crime, is participation in illegal behavior by minor. Most legal system prescribe specific procedures centers and courts. A juvenile delinquent is a person who is typically under the age of 18 and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if they were an adult. Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed its possible for person under 18 to be changed and tries as adults.

In recent years, the average age for first arrest has dropped significantly and younger boys and girls are committing crimes. Between 60-80 percent of juvenile offense. These can range from status offenses to property crimes and violent crimes.

More than a century ago, Abraham Lincoln said- “ A child is a person who is going to carry on what you have started. He is going to sit where you are sitting and when you are gone, attend to those things you think are important. You may adopt all policies you people but how they are carried out depends on him. He is going to move in and take over your churches, schools, universities and corporation. The fate of humanity is in his hands”.

The problem of juvenile delinquency is not new. It occurs in all societies simple as well as complex, that is wherever a relationship is affected between a group of individuals leading to conflict.

From the psychological point of view- ‘ delinquency is a rebellion and an expression of aggression which is aimed at destroying, breaking down or changing the environment ’. In a developing country like India the problem of juvenile neglect and delinquency is considerably low but gradually increasing according to the National Crime Record bureau report 2007.  

Evolution of communication as a subject of study

The historical roots of the study of communication are often traced to Classical Greece, where such philosophers as Aristotle articulated principles of rhetoric and effective persuasive discourse. The social-scientific study of communication is the focus of the program, emerged during the early decades of the 20^th century. At that time, communication research was not conducted within a single institutional entity rather, researchers from the then emerging disciplines of sociology, psychology, political science, marketing and advertising sought to understand the role print, film and radio might play in producing a variety of effects in their audiences.

The journalist Walter hippman wrote extensively about media, public opinion and democracy and the Chicago School of sociology initiated a number of media effect studies, including the ways in which newly arrived immigrants used the press to orient themselves in American society. The voluminous Payne Fund Study, of the late 1920s and early 1930s examined the effects of movie attendance on youth. The political scientist Harold Lasswell’s extensive work on propaganda during this period was also influential in shaping the development of communication research.

During Second World War, several social scientist with interest in communication worked in government agencies conducting research in areas related to morale and propaganda. The addition, beyond the war effort, research aimed at understanding the impact of political information disseminated  by the mass behavior was initiated in 1940 by the influential sociologist Paul Lazarfeld.

Inspired by psychologist Kurt Lewin’s innovative studies studies of group decision making during Second World War, research began to study face-to-face communication in groups under the rubric of group dynamic.

Researchers came to realize that face-to-face interaction serves an important function in altering the effects of media-disseminated message thus suggesting the important of understanding social influence process in groups. Although several communication researches of this period explicit embraced the idea that communication theory could be bootstrapped out of their applied research projects, little theory was actually generated.

At the end of Second World War, many communication researchers who had worked in the government returned to academic institution and established communication research program. Carl Hovland initiated a highly productive research program me devoted to the study of communication and persuasion at Yale University. Instituted for the study of communication were established at university of Illinois and Stanford University and the Anneberg School for communication was instituted at the University of Pennsylvania.

Globalization : An Introduction

By the term, globalization, we mean different things to different people. In simple way, it refers to the opening up of the economy for international market by attaining world wide competitive. It can be called entire world as global village. Significantly, it means a process of deepening economic integration, increasing economic openness and growing economic interference between countries in the world economy.

Globalization is the process of international integration arising from the interchange of world views, products, ideas and other aspects of culture. Globalization describe the interplay across cultures of macro-social forces. These forces include religion, politics and economics, Globalization can erode and universalize the characteristic of a local group. Advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the internet are major factors in globalization, generating further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.

The term Globalization, has been in increasing use since the mid 1980s and especially since the mid 990s. In 2000, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) identified four basic aspects of Globalization :

1-    Trade and transportation

2-    Capital and investment movements,

3-    Migration and movement of people

4-    The distribution of knowledge

The term Globalization is derived from the word ‘globalize’, which refers to the emergence of an international network of social and economic system. One of the earliest known usages of the term as the noun was in 1930 in the publication entitled ‘Towards New Education’ where it denoted a holistic view of human experience in education. A related term, Corporate Giants was coined by Charles Taze Russell in 1897 to refer to the largely national truest and other enterprises of the time.

Ronald Roberstone, Professor of sociology at University of Aberdeen, was the first person to define Globalization as the compression of the world and the intensification of the consciousness of the world as a whole.

Swedish journalist Thomas Larsson in his book- ‘The Race To The Top: The real story of Globalization’ states that globalization- ‘ is the process of world shrinkage of distance getting shorter, things moving closer. It pertains to the increasing ease with which somebody on one side of the world can interact, to mutual benefit, with somebody on the other side of the world.’

Globalization can be summarized as the global circulation of goods, services and capital but also of information, ideas and people.

Globalization involves:-

•  Fast growth of trade in goods and services,
• Higher growth in international financial transactions, 
•  Fast growth in foreign direct investment, 
• Deeper form of internationalization resulting from production network of multinationals, 
• Emergence of global markets, 
• Rapid diffusion of knowledge and technology,  
• Globalized transport and communication network,  
• Changes in the thinking globalization and modes of operation of international institution,   
•  The process of globalization is not static but will continue and intensify further.

Tobacco

Tobacco is a product prepared from the leaves of the tobacco plant by curing them. The plant is categorized within the genus Nicotiana of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family. While there are more than 70 species of tobacco, the chief commercial crop is N. tabacum. The more potent species N. rustica is also widely used around the world. Tobacco contains the alkaloid nicotine, a stimulant. Dried tobacco leaves are mainly smoked in cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and flavored shisha tobacco. They are also consumed as snuff, chewing tobacco and dipping tobacco.

      Tobacco use is a risk factor for many diseases, especially those affecting the heart, liver and lungs, and several cancers. In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) named tobacco as the world's single greatest cause of preventable death.

The English word tobacco originates from the Spanish and Portuguese word tabaco. The precise origin of the Spanish/Portuguese word is disputed but it generally thought to have originated, at least in part, from Taino, the Arawakan language of the Caribbean. In Taino, it was said to refer either to a roll of tobacco leaves (according to Bartolomé de las Casas, 1552), or to the tabago, a kind of Y-shaped pipe for sniffing tobacco smoke (according to Oviedo; with the leaves themselves being referred to as cohiba).

However, similar words in Spanish, Portuguese and Italian were commonly used from 1410 to define medicinal herbs which are believed to have originated from the Arabic طبق tabbaq, a word reportedly dating to the 9th century, as the name of various herbs.

Production of tobacco leaf increased by 40% between 1971, during which 4.2 million tons of leaf were produced, and 1997, during which 5.9 million tons of leaf were produced. According to the Food and Agriculture organization of the UN, tobacco leaf production was expected to hit 7.1 million tons by 2010. This number is a bit lower than the record high production of 1992, during which 7.5 million tons of leaf were produced.

 The production growth was almost entirely due to increased productivity by developing nations, where production increased by 128%. During that same time period, production in developing countries actually decreased. China's increase in tobacco production was the single biggest factor in the increase in world production. China's share of the world market increased from 17% in 1971 to 47% in 1997. This growth can be partially explained by the existence of a high import tariff on foreign tobacco entering China. While this tariff has been reduced from 64% in 1999 to 10% in 2004, it still has led to local, Chinese cigarettes being preferred over foreign cigarettes because of their lower cost.

The harms caused by using tobacco include diseases affecting the heart and lungs, with smoking being a major risk factor for heart attacks, strokes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, and cancer (particularly lung cancer, cancers of the larynx and mouth, and pancreatic cancers).

Inhaling secondhand tobacco smoke can cause lung cancer in nonsmoking adults. In the United States, approximately 3,000 adults die each year due to lung cancer from secondhand smoke exposure. Heart disease caused by secondhand smoke kills approximately 46,000 nonsmokers every year.

The addictive alkaloid nicotine is a stimulant, and popularly known as the most characteristic constituent of tobacco. Users may develop tolerance and dependence. Thousands of different chemicals in cigarette smoke, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (such as benzopyrene), formaldehyde, cadmium, nickel, arsenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs), phenols, and many others contribute to the harmful effects of smoking.

 

Tobacco smoking is the practice of burning tobacco and inhaling the smoke (consisting of particle and gaseous phases). (A more broad definition may include simply taking tobacco smoke into the mouth, and then releasing it, as is done by some with tobacco pipes and cigars.) The practice was believed to begin as early as 5000–3000 BC . Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 17th century where it followed common trade routes. The practice encountered criticism from its first import into the Western world onwards, but embedded itself in certain strata of a number of societies before becoming widespread upon the introduction of automated cigarette-rolling apparatus.

German scientists identified a link between smoking and lung cancer in the late 1920s, leading to the first anti-smoking campaign in modern history, albeit one truncated by the collapse of the Third Reich at the end of the Second World War. In 1950, British researchers demonstrated a clear relationship between smoking and cancer. Evidence continued to mount in the 1980s, which prompted political action against the practice. Rates of consumption since 1965 in the developed world have either peaked or declined. However, they continue to climb in the developing world.

Smoking is the most common method of consuming tobacco, and tobacco is the most common substance smoked. The agricultural product is often mixed with additives and then combusted. The resulting smoke is then inhaled and the active substances absorbed through the alveoli in the lungs. Combustion was traditionally enhanced by addition of potassium or other nitrates. Many substances in cigarette smoke trigger chemical reactions in nerve endings, which heighten heart rate, alertness, and reaction time, among other things. Dopamine and endorphins are released, which are often associated with pleasure. As of 2008 to 2010, tobacco is used by about 3 billion people (about 49% of men and 11% of women) with about 80% of this usage in the form of smoking. The gender gap tends to be less pronounced in lower age groups.

Many smokers begin during adolescence or early adulthood. During the early stages, a combination of perceived pleasure acting as positive reinforcement and desire to respond to social peer pressure may offset the unpleasant symptoms of initial use, which typically include nausea and coughing. After an individual has smoked for some years, the avoidance of withdrawal symptoms and negative reinforcement become the key motivations to continue.

In a study done by Jennifer O' Loughlin and her colleagues, the first smoking experiences of seventh-grade students were studied. They found out that the most common factor leading students to smoke is cigarette advertisements. Smoking by parents, siblings and friends also encourage students to smoke.