A topic that seems to come and go out of popularity is the effects of media on juvenile violence. This can include things like music lyrics, video games and even movies that promote violence in children. Your dissertation can propose to prove either that media violence plays a role in juvenile crimes or that it does not promote crimes among juveniles.
Juvenile corrections are constantly changing in the United States. Propose a thesis on whether the juvenile corrections are strict enough to rehabilitate juvenile offenders. Another topic is the age when a juvenile should be tried as an adult. A dissertation can also set out to show whether juvenile corrections and prisons are the only way to rehabilitate juvenile offenders in areas of burglary, rape or murder.
It can be theorized that if a child commits a crime he or she will most likely go on to commit further crimes as an adult. A dissertation topic could be to examine whether this is accurate by studying statistics of arrest records for adult offenders, or determine how many juvenile offenders actually turn into adult offenders. Comparisons of the type of corrections or rehabilitation offenders were given can also be used to show whether certain offenses repeat from juvenile years into adulthood.
Some people propose that the family environment greatly affects whether or not a child becomes a juvenile offender. A dissertation topic can cover the effects of the family life and home setting on juvenile offenders and even propose what types of crimes juveniles are most apt to commit based on their family life. Another topic might cover whether family histories of juvenile and adult offenders play a role in other juveniles in the same family.