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Street Youth

The term street youth usually refers to youths who have runaway or been expelled from their homes and/or who spend some or all of their time in public locations. Most of these youths are unemployed, often lack a permanent residence, and spend significant amounts of time without shelter. Their lives are characterized by poverty, hunger, and other conditions of extreme deprivation. Alienated from conventional society, and lacking legal resources for survival, this group is often seen as a population “at risk” for criminal behavior.

Background Factors

Streets youths tend to come from families with a number of different problems that contribute to their taking to the street. Street youths are often drawn from socioeconomically poor families that have been fractured by divorce. They are more likely than conventional youths to be brought up in homes that lack parental supervision and monitoring, and often come from families where there is minimal emotional warmth and support from parents. Contributing further to this negative environment is the fact that many street youths come from families with histories of substance abuse, mental health problems, and troubles with the law. In addition, there is evidence that many street youths are the victims of physical and/or sexual abuse while living at home. The end result of these negative family experiences is that they allow, or force, youths to leave and/or avoid their homes, and spend time on the street.

Street youths also tend to have histories of educational difficulties, and have poor education and weak educational goals, often the result of family difficulties. The school careers of these young people are characterized by poor work habits, conflict with authority, truancy, suspensions, expulsions, failure, and dropping out. Nevertheless, these education problems also contribute independently to young people being on the street.

Crime, Substance abuse, and Victimization

Street youths are heavily involved in a range of criminal activities, including theft and other property crimes, drug trafficking, prostitution, robbery, and assaults. Research suggests that some of the background factors that lead these young people to take to the street also contribute to their criminal behavior on the street. For example, street youths who have been physically and/or sexually abused are more likely to engage in property offenses and drug dealing. These experiences undermine these youths respect for authority, leaving them more likely to engage in these offenses. There also appears to be a link between the type of abuse and the type of offense. Female street youth who have been the victims of sexual abuse are more likely to participate in prostitution. Males who have been physically abused are more likely to engage in violent offenses. Research also indicates that street youths are more likely to become serious offenders if they come from families in which parents have been involved in serious criminal offenses. Similarly, street youths are more likely to deal drugs when they come from families where parents have substance abuse problems. Other work has revealed that those street youth with school difficulties are more at risk for serious property crime. While these findings suggest that background experiences are important to understanding the criminal behavior of street youth, research also suggests that much street youth crime is a result of being homeless or spending time on the street.

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