Hi! I thought this area of study was really interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you all. Juvenile Delinquency is considered the involvement of minor children, aged between 10 years old and 17 years old, whom have become part of illegal conducts.
Linking to the appropriate context, this form of illegal behaviour was present in the 18th and 19th century. From researching, I discovered that Juvenile crime was a harrowing cause for concern. The main (yet bizarre) act of crime these children were committing was pick pocketing, where they would steal silk handkerchiefs, and sell them on, for a relatively staggering value during this eira! Apparently over 5,000 of these handkerchiefs were stolen each week, typically in areas of London similar to Fagin’s den in Oliver Twist. It should be noted that these acts of crimes in fact prompted anxiety over many people during this time period, due to the “the enormous expense, and the serious loss the country is put to, by the depredations these persons commit”. This suggests that there was a lot of frustration held towards those who were involved.
With regards to Oliver Twist, we all know that Fagin and Artful Dodger are two fictional pickpockets. Skilfully, and precociously streetwise they worked as thieves throughout this novel. Similar to these two notorious characters, real life cases such as one highlighting the crime by child convict, Joseph Mee. He was a 15 year old boy who charged with pickpocketing in the Old Bailey court in 1824. He was described as a “hardened and unconcerned offender”. Additionally, another juvenile named Robert Spencer was in fact caught red-handed by police officers attempting to draw a handkerchief from an individuals pocket in a large crowd. 
Obviously, like for most acts of crime there is typically reasoning behind as to why the person/s commit such felonies. During the early periods of the 19th century, many young girls were sold into prostitution by their parents. By 1848, roughly 2700 girls based in London, were hospitalised for reasonings surrounding prostitution. For many other children, that were not occupied as such, usually ended up living on the streets and resulting to turning to crime as an alternative distraction to living in such poor conditions.
Work cited:
https://legaldictionary.net/juvenile-delinquency/ last accessed: nov. 22nd 2018
Susan Magarey, The invention of juvenile delinquency in early nineteenth-century England. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27508306?read-now=1&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents last accessed: nov. 22nd 2018
Matthew White, Juvenile crime in the 19th century. https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/juvenile-crime-in-the-19th-century last accessed: nov. 22nd 2018
http://www.oldpolicecellsmuseum.org.uk/content/learning/educational-programmes-and-tours/juvenile-crime-18th-19th-century last accessed: nov. 22nd 2018
Narratives of Crime and Punishment 