CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.2.Background to the Study
Juvenile delinquency has become a cankerworm which has eaten deep into the fabric of our educational system. This problem has always attracted the attention of educational psychologist. Teachers parent and other experts on educational development in our nation. According to (Olusakin, 2003) the incidences of juvenile anti-social behaviour have tremendously increased in intensity and magnitude in recent years. The high percentage of recurrence of delinquent acts has become the concern of parents, teachers, social workers and psychologists. All are anxious to minimize its rising trend in the society. It is needless to mention that thousands of youth are misled and spoil their lives in anti-social behaviour causing damage to the national property. The problem has posed a serious concern for all persons who believe in healthy and harmonious development of human personality all over the world. The teachers, parents and others, who are interested in social welfare and are responsible for shaping the personality of young generation, must understand the phenomenon of delinquency so that they may take appropriate measure to check it.
It is very difficult to reach unanimity as regards the definition of the term delinquency because the term is an umbrella for a wide variety of socially disapproved behavior that varies with the time, place and cultural variance in socio-economic and political of a country. All agree that every society prescribes a sets of norm, which it expects that all its members should faithfully follow but those who violate the social norms and behave in antisocial  manner are called delinquents.
In Nigeria today delinquency is evident in the behaviour of youth as they break parental rule school regulations and societal laws. Juvenile delinquency has given rise to offences ranging from violation of disciplinary measures of parents to truancy, stealing, assaults, robbery and other socially unacceptable acts. In the Nigerian secondary schools juvenile delinquency have increased in number. Much abnormal behaviour that are rampant in juvenile delinquents are disobedience, case of rape, and other acts of gangsterism, which are also the resultant effect of broken homes. The problem of juvenile has become a national affair, which prompted the government to build remand homes and engaged the services of social welfare officers, thus spending a lot of money to cater for them.
It is disheartening to know that juvenile delinquency has also found it’s way into virtually all the secondary school in Mainland Local Government Area of Lagos State, if one walks on the street of Mainland Local Government Area during school hours what you will see are students roaming about the neighbourhood when they ought to be in classes for less some delve into immoral acts like smoking, drinking, fighting and even prostitution during school hours. A case in point was that of two students of Lagos City College, Sabo. These students engaged each others in physical combat on the highway, just opposite their school, they used bottles on each other, it took the effort of fellow students and other passerby to quell what could have resulted to loss of life.