Juvenile delinquency and the nature of treatment measures with specific reference to theft and allied offenses

The central hypotheses of this study arc that a combination of social and economic factors; like poverty, low social class, broken homes, unemployment, poor neighbours, and not just a single one of them combine and contribute to the rise of delinquency rates in Kampala city. Thus to emphasize mono causal factors is not only misleading but also based on inadequately researched premises leading to inappropriate recipes for the problem of juvenile delinquency. Secondly, the state actively constructs juvenile delinquency. It gives it definitional parameters legally, makes rational acts, omissions or behaviour appear gravely irrational and the victim thus feels responsible for his actions, omissions or reaction and deserving penal sanctions. Therefore, delinquency is what the state decides it is; it is state's own construction of behaviour, action or omission of a particular age category in society. However, the penal sanctions/treatment measures in Uganda today seem to be applied at the symptomatic level rather than at the root cause of the problem. For this reason, juvenile delinquency continues to defy almost all the recipes based on "statism" and instead rises than abates. On the above premises, we discover why juvenile delinquency is steadily persistent in Kampala city and its sudden rise between 1970 and 1990 is easily accounted for. The study thus discards the erroneous themes based on monist theories/approaches and instead forwards an intricate multi-causal relationship between factors affecting the increase in delinquency. Finally, accounting for causes, or rather factors affecting the cause, the various measures of treatment based criminological theories - like the social defence theory for prevention and treatment/rehabilitation of substantive delinquents come under scrutiny. The study suggests that a whole range of complex situations that give rise to the problem be addressed if any measures of prevention and treatment are to be relevant and effective in any material degree. The dissertation is divided into five major parts. The first part is the introduction chapter which gives the basis of the problem under study. The first part is reinforced by the second chapter which gives the conceptualization and general theories on which the study bases. The third part is chapter three which explores the extent and nature of the problem in Kampala city, giving the data interpretation and clarification of some issues arising out of the field study conducted. The fourth part is chapter four. In the main it gives a critical analysis of the treatment measures in place today and their efficacy. It is followed by the last part which are the concluding remarks to the dissertation.