Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency
Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency
Due to the contribution of family influence to juvenile delinquent behavior, it is vital to ensure that families positively impact children. This can be achieved by ensuring strong emotional bonding in the family and by laying out effective strategies for communication.
Children raised by families that do not conform to the traditional family should be closely watched to curb the development of delinquent behavior. Schools should also ensure that they know the backgrounds of children in order to fill the gaps that may be left by the parents (Saminsky 1). For instance, teachers can help to counsel a child who witnesses violence at home or a child whose parent is a criminal.
Parents should ensure that they closely monitor the kind of company that their children keep. They should ensure their children engage in productive social activities (Saminsky 1). These measures will help reduce the chances of their children becoming delinquents. In school, teachers should keep a close eye on pupils to ensure that they know their activities.
Pupils should be appropriately searched in school to ensure they do not carry guns and drugs. This step will ensure that delinquent pupils do not influence others. It will also help identify delinquent children so they can be counseled or even sent for correctional services.
Although controversial, another way of preventing delinquency is reducing or eradicating racism. This method will target delinquents in minority groups. It will help reduce the number of juveniles in these minority groups who commit offenses because they will not commit racism-inspired crimes.
It will also help boost teenagers’ self-esteem in these minority groups. Thus instances of offenses caused by low self-esteem will be limited in these minority groups (Saminsky 1).