Pathway to Delinquency A study of girls admitted to Toa Payoh Girls Home by Foo Chuen Yann

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Pathway to Delinquency- A study of girls
admitted toToa Payoh Girls Homeby Foo Chuen
Yann
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Outline of Presentation

• Hypothesis
• Theoretical Framework
• Methodology
• Significance of Study

• Background of Home
• Profile of Residents (removed slides due to
  confidentiality)
• Objectives
• Research Questions

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BACKGROUND
Toa Payoh Girls Home

• A rehabilitation centre for delinquent girls who
• have behavioural problems and most hardcore of
  cohort
• are in moral danger and
• have committed offences
• The only closed institution for girls in
  Singapore
• Girls sent in as a last resort
• after community rehab programmes
• Residents aged 13-20 but mostly 14-17 years old

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BACKGROUND

• Toa Payoh Girls Home serves as
• Approved Home - Juveniles beyond parental
  control(BPC) and referred by the Juvenile Court
  for stay of 2 years
• Approved School - Juvenile Offenders(JAC)
  referred by the Juvenile Court or the Police for
  2-3 years stay
• Place of Safety - Female persons below 21 years
  of age
• In moral danger, under Womens Charter (WC)
• Referred by Director of Social Welfare, MCDS
• Child Protection Order - Children abused or
  neglected by caregivers, and transferred from
  childrens home to TPGH due to behavioural
  problems(CPO)

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Objectives

• To gain new insight into the characteristics and
  nature of problems of the girls - different
  perspective
• To investigate the factors and conditions that
  lead to girls delinquency
• To understand how these factors and conditions
  contributed to the delinquent behaviours of the
  girls

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Research Questions

• Who are the girls?
• characterological delinquents who commit offences
  as a result of asocial personality orientation
  or
• socialised delinquents who commits acts as a
  result of social, economic factors such as
  inadequate parental supervision, negative peer
  influence
• How did they end up in the Home?
• factors that contributed to their anti-social
  behaviours

• Juvenile Delinquency
• Behaviour committed by an individual who has not
  reached adulthood (as defined by state or federal
  law) against the code of law
• Delinquent youngster who persistently deviates
  from prescribed social norm
• Delinquent Act
• behaviour that violates the code of law (e.g.
  smoking below 18 years of age underage sex)

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Hypothesis(Who)

• Girls are socialised delinquents who are
  economically and socially disadvantaged,
• i.e. likely to be from lower income families
  and/or broken families with limited means to gain
  access to mainstream middle class society
• violated law because they cannot afford the means
  to get ahead in society

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Hypothesis(How)

• Girls experienced social disorganisation in their
  lives that affects their sense of well being
  security
• indicators family instability(e.g. divorce,
  separation), poor physical living condition,
  negative life events like death, parents
  incarceration ? lack of social support, sense of
  loss, displacement
• Girls experienced strain due to blocked goals
• inability to gain status and acceptance in
  society, therefore resorting to deviant means to
  achieve goals
• culturally desired goals good in study, money to
  buy trendy clothes, handphone etc,

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Theoretical Framework

• Holism/ Structuralism
• human behaviour - a product of society culture
• can only be understood by placing him in social
  context
• dependent on social structure and norms
• individuals are what they are because of the
  social system to which they belong
• even the most individual of acts (suicide) is a
  social fact, i.e. society sets the condition in
  terms of which the act occurs (Emile Durkheim)

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Human behaviour - a product of society culture
Grand- child
Accomplice/ Gang member
Son/ Daughter
Peers
Perception of SELF
Family
Brother/ Sister
Police
School
Juvenile Offender
Probation officer
Student/ Truant
Probationer
SOCIETY
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Theoretical Framework

• Social Disorganisation Theory
• Breakdown in the influence of existing rules of
  conduct on individual members in social
  group(family)
• lack of parental control, broken family, poor
  overcrowded living conditions, negative life
  events
• Erosion of standards and values
• as individual encounters alien environment to
  which she is ill-adapted, e.g. inability to cope
  in school
• Crime and deviance are simply normal responses of
  normal people to abnormal social conditons

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Theoretical Framework

• Anomie or Strain Theory
• Utilises two concepts to explain delinquency
• Culture prescribe goals values taught by
  society
• Social structure norms, resources, social
  network that
  regulate our behaviours
• State of anomie occurs when
• disjunction between cultural goals and
  instititutional means to achieve it
• Barriers to culturally prescribed goals result in
  strain
• falls more heavily on lower class who also
  subscribes in culturally prescribed goals

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Methodology

• Subjects TPGH resident Control Group
• Quantitative Approach
• Demographic Data Analysis
• demographic profile of subjects (e.g. family
  structure, social economic status, household
  income)
• Qualitative Approach
• Survey (questionnaire) to extract information on
• attitude and perception towards culturally
  prescribed goals
• family relationship
• past school experience
• peer relationship

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Significance of Study
Better understanding into girlsdelinquent
behaviours

• Re-examine policies on sanctions and sentencing
  options
• juvenile offences represents failure of society
  to adequately function in its role as provider
  (punish negligent adults)?
• Relook current treatment programmes
• behaviourial model versus other more therapeutic
  models, for e.g.strength perspective
• Preventive work in the community
• especially in school

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Thank You

• Questions?