Juvenile Delinquency and Slum Areas:A Critical Outlook on Chicago SchoolWith Specific Reference to Iran

This paper is resultedfrom a fieldwork research doing in Ahwaz City ofIran.The sample group of this study, consisting of 200 juvenile delinquents, israndomly selected from a population arrested between 1996 - 200 I.As themajority of them belong to the lower class urban residents, they are mainly fromthe families living in the poor slum areas of Ahwaz. Assuming that the salientfeature of slums to be the inadequate housing conditions (IHC), this research isconducted to study the relationship between the different levels of IHCand the.relative intensity of delinquency. With a critical view on the Chicago Schoolapproach, it is maintained that the mere ecological elements, or even theshortcoming of social control, could not to be the independent factors makingthe favourable place for commitment of crime and delinquency, but poverty,job instability, and lack of educational achievement, or depression as a whole,could be the determinant factors for delinquency commitment