ABSTRACT
A phenomenon so widespread as juvenile delinquency and one arousing so much public concern and evoking so many agencies and programs to deal with it inevitably leads to numerous explanations. Research into causes must be directed to the discovery of significant relationships between delinquency and other phenomena. This chapter discusses the concomitance of delinquency with situations or conditions which shows that where delinquency is more prevalent or less prevalent other factors are at the same time more prevalent or less prevalent. It relates the variable of delinquency to other variables and then seeks to probe into the association between the concomitant variables, framing hypotheses concerning a possible connection and finding methods of testing them. The delinquent attitude is not suddenly evoked by the conjunction of conditions at any one moment, but develops through a series of stages, through the persistence or the successive impact of influences adverse to a law-abiding way of life.
