To D. W. Winnicott, delinquency is a last cry for help, a call for what he terms a "facilitating environment" (an environment that is "facilitating" or nurturing to the self); delinquency constitutes a criticism of the social world for its inability to provide such a setting.

He saw delinquency as the protest a young person makes when the environment is just not good enough; when it fails to contain properly. He regarded delinquency as a hopeful sign because it expressed a young person’s belief that things could be made better. The delinquency is an angry demand, an attempt to force an unresponsive outside world into meeting basic needs and entitlements that the young person knows are lacking. It’s about a search for true containment; for structures that work to alleviate the deprivation that the young person feels. In Winnicott’s terms, delinquency is infinitely preferable to the situation that arises when a young person doesn’t hope to get a better deal out of life.