Juvenile Delinquency in Romania: The Indirect Result of the Transition Process

The general purpose of the research is to present the evolution of juvenile delinquency in Romania after 1989, with some of its social and psychological aspects. We use a comparative perspective: the general, Romanian framework will be compared with local situation occurred in Cluj county.The presentation is based on an extensive study of 420 delinquent juveniles, whose data on family situation, education, age, etc were analyzed and the youngsters were also tested with psychological tests. Looking at the data of the psychological tests (Nowicki & Strickland's Internal-External Control Scale for Children, McGuire & Priestley's Testing Your Reaction, Zuckerman-Kuhlman's Personality Questionnaire and Tucker's Inmate Dilemma Test) and the descriptors of the social situation of juvenile delinquents, it looks like personality factors are associated with low school performance and school drop-out, as important determinants of delinquency. An integrative model was tested, to analyze the social and cognitive determinants of delinquency.