Reviewing Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Programs
Crime Causation and Diversion
Reviewing Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Programs
This paper studies programs that help prevent criminal activities among students. Three programs with different ratings are discussed: Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS) program, which was rated effective, the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, which was rated promising, and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), which was found to have no effect. The methods by which these programs reduce juvenile crimes are focused. The objectives and the goals of the programs are discussed along with the aid they provide to the youth. This information is useful in analyzing why certain programs are effective, while some are not.
As its title suggests, the BASICS program is aimed at reducing levels of alcohol intake among the students (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS)). The BAISC program included college male and female students from 18 to 24 years of age and from all races present, and it addressed the problem of peer pressure among students that lead to drinking problems (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS)). Alcohol consumption should have an age limit because it can lead to various social problems such as sex crimes, violence, and abuse (Youth Violence and Alcohol, 2006). Moreover, inebriated youngsters can fatally harm themselves and others (Youth Violence and Alcohol, 2006). This program conducted interviews with the students and thus provides an individual level of aid to the students. The fact that the interviews were conducted at the students’ discretion and that the students were requested to participate in it makes it favorable among the youth. As the students were about to enter college and into a an age where drinking is legally permissible, this program was very effective in reducing the harm students could cause to the society and themselves by indulging in irresponsible behavior induced by alcohol consumption.
The Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program intends to provide adolescents with sex education and to prevent adolescent pregnancies (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program). Along with providing sex education, this program includes activities related to sports, arts, and commerce to involve the students in a lifestyle that gives the adolescents a wider perspective of life (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program). Moreover, it also includes the families of the participants (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program). This is a program that takes place after school, so the fact that interesting activities are a part of it, notches up the appeal aspect of this program, which can also be a factor that give it the promising rating. The male and female participants in this programs came from families that were financially unstable or/and had adult supervisors with current or previous socially unstable pasts and they most of them belonged to minority communities, and so, these adolescents were more likely to “get into trouble” because of negative influences the adolescents were more likely to “get into trouble” because of negative influences (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program). It is known fact that adolescent pregnancies lead to unhealthy circumstances for both the child and the parent/s, as the adolescent parent is too young to display responsible behavior as a parent (Bostrom, 2001). Hence, this program can help such adolescents and this reduce the social bane of adolescent pregnancy by inducing sexually responsible behavior among them.
The DARE program objective was to reduce the drug abuse among adolescents (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). The program aimed to inculcate a level of self-esteem among the students that would enable them to resist the temptation to use narcotics of any kind (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). The program was a part of the curriculum and the students were given 17 lessons in all Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). The lessons were given by police officers and the participants were from all races and both the genders (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). While the program was shown to be effective in the course of the five years it was administered to the students, after the program ended, the students were shown to be unresponsive to it. Like alcohol, drugs too can lead to irresponsible behaviour and lead to casualties and accidents that affect both the drug user and other around him or her (NDA for Teens). Therefore, this program’s objectives were useful for ensuring that the youth remains aware of the ill effects of substance abuse, such as addiction and impairing the nervous system of the body, and the means to resist taking drugs of any kind.
It can be argued that the fundamental reason The BASIC has been the most effective among the three programs in reducing juvenile crime is because the students were interviewed personally here and because the interventions are brief and thus, they cause minimum discomfort and embarrassment to the students (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS)). The Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program’s promising nature is owing to the compassion practiced by the student aid providers: “The program employs a “parallel family system,” where staff treats children as if they were their own” (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program). This shows that the students are made to feel comfortable in the discussion of a somewhat socially awkward topic. However, as the “holistic” approach taken by the program includes many activities, it is important that the students are able to connect these activities to the objectives of the program. Finally the DARE program has been found to have no effect because it was effective over a long period of time (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). Thus, while the DARE participants were found to be positively influenced by the program and resist the need to use drugs, the influence of the program completely wore off with the passage of time, that is, after the give year period of the program. A very interesting observation drawn from studying the three programs is that students or adolescents have responded to those which have the minimum level of interference; for instance, unlike the BASICS and the Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program, the DARE program was a part of the curriculum and the students were compelled to undergo the lessons in the program, and the DARE program had a no effects rating ” (Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS)) (Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program) (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)). Moreover, the fact that the DARE program was administered by police officers and not trained teachers could have led to its failure as well (Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE)).
References
Bostrom, M. (2001). The 21st Century Teen: Public Perception and Teen Reality. Frameworks Institute: Public Knowledge LLC, 1–38.
Brief Alcohol Screening and Intervention of College Students (BASICS). Retrieved 18 January 2012 http://crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=99.
Carrera Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Program. Retrieved 18 January 2012 http://crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=81.
Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE). Retrieved 18 January 2012 http://crimesolutions.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?ID=99.
NDA for Teens. Retrieved 18 January 2012
http://teens.drugabuse.gov.
Youth Violence and Alcohol. (2006). WHO Facts on Violence and Alcohol. Retrieved 18 January 2012 from WHO website www.who.int/violence_injury_prevention/violence//fs_youth.pdf.
