Crime Prevention Approaches in Australia - Assignment Example

1. ‘What kind of youth crime prevention approaches are there in Australia, the U.S.A. and the U.K.’? a. Australia In Australia crime prevention is considered as being related with the initiatives of the community as part of the society. However, in order to prevent the youth crime, communities should proceed to specific activities and take into account specific factors of risk: ‘a) high rates of detected youth offending, b) a high proportion of young people who leave school, c) a high proportion of young people who leave school before the end of year 12, d) a high proportion of unemployed young people, e) high levels of substance abuse and f) a lack of structured and supervised youth activities’ (NATIONAL COMMUNITY CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMME, Australia, 2007). All the above factors should be taken into consideration by local authorities that are involved in the effort of reducing youth crime. It should be noticed that the role of the community is crucial for the reduction of youth crime, not only because the specific issue is highlighted by researchers and institutions in Australia, but also because community usually intervenes in all activities of people living within its borders. For this reason, Korn (1997, 5) referring to the prevention of youth crime in Australia stated that an effective approach used when trying to develop plans for reducing youth crime in Australia would refer to the following issues: ‘a) assistance with parenting skills; b) structured pre-school education, enhanced literacy and numeracy coaching if required; c) support for teachers dealing with badly behaved pupils, clear policies to deal with bullying; d) whole of school programs to address truancy and exclusion which aim to keep young people in school not out, e) positive leisure activities which enhance a young person’s skills to resist peer group’ and so on (Korn, 1997, 5). In other words, all approaches used in Australia in order to reduce youth crime should involve in specific initiatives related with the community and the support to young people offering chances for them for creative activities. b. USA In accordance with a report published by Human Rights News (2005) ‘there are at least 2,225 child offenders serving life without parole (LWOP) sentences in U.S prisons for crimes committed before they were age 18; the United States is one of only a few countries in the world that permit children to be sentenced to LWOP; the Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, forbids this practice, and at least 132 countries have rejected the sentence altogether’. In other words, the measures taken against young offenders in USA can be characterized as rather strict if taking into account the age of the offenders and the damage caused to their lives in the future. In the case of USA the existence of different jurisdictions (in accordance with the states) leads to the development of different approaches regarding the limitation of youth crime. We can indicatively refer to the case of Philadelphia youth crime is expected to be limited by applying the ‘partnership’s strategy’ which includes a series of potential plans like the following ones: ‘(1) identifying specific “youth partners” who would receive help by reaching a consensus among the agencies on which youth 14 to 24 years of age in the targeted areas are most likely to kill or be killed; (2) connecting the youth to community supports and programs through “streetworkers” who develop personal relationships with the youth partners; (3) intense supervision of the youth partners by teams of police and probation officers and so on’ (American Youth Policy Forum, 2006). c. UK The treatment of young offenders in Britain is rather ‘soft’ if considered the case of USA. In accordance with a report published by the BBC News (2002) ‘parents of unruly teenagers could have their child benefit taken away under new proposals to crack down on youth crime; the prime minister has asked government officials to examine the possibility as part of a range of measures to ensure parents take greater responsibility for their children’. The legislative text that deals most with youth crime prevention in Britain is the Crime and Disorder Act of 1998. In accordance with Paylor et al. (2004, 335) the approaches used by legislators and judges in Britain regarding the prevention of youth crime are based on the following issues: a) the feasibility of achieving the scheme’s ambitions given the duration of the funding and the resources available; b) issues of inter-agency work and the links between schemes and local communities and c) procedures and protocols and on what evidence policy was being based’. In practice, the schemes applied for the limitation of youth crime in UK have been considered as rather ineffective despite the fact that appropriate study was made in advance in order to ensure the feasibility of these schemes and their relevance with the style of life of young people in Britain. 2. Are these approaches simply another form of social control?" Generally, it could be stated that the approaches used by state in order to fight the phenomenon of youth crime are not appropriate in terms of the targeted result. These approaches could be easily characterized as another form of social control. Indeed, in all the countries mentioned above the limitation of youth crime has been related with the control over the young people as members of the community. There was no particular intention for the provision of psychological support in order for the young people to have the necessary ‘resistance’ against crime. Another common characteristic of all the approaches established in countries around the world regarding the problem of the youth crime (Australia, USA and UK) are included in the above list, is the fact that all these policies include strict provisions regarding the penalizing of young people for various crimes. The interest for the punishment of young people is proved to be stronger from the interest for the prevention of the crimes. Only in the case of the schemes provided from the communities, the prevention of youth crime seems to be a priority (compared to the punishment of young people). In accordance with Sutton et al. (2002, 325) ‘crime prevention and community safety has been a chameleon movement, capable of accommodating itself to a wide range of political and administrative regimes; academic criminologists should give greater recognition to the expressive and political dimensions of community safety and crime prevention’. In other words, the efforts made by the communities for the prevention of youth crime should be developed and appropriately supported by the state. Because in most of these cases, the support of the government is limited, the relevant schemes are usually led to failure or they are applied successfully only for a limited period – after a while they are totally diminished. On the other hand, the role of the state in the prevention of youth crime although it is important, it can be considered as being at the second level. As it is accepted in a relevant report of Ministry of Justice in the UK ‘there is no easy link of cause and effect between the factors associated with youth crime and actual offending; a range of risk factors is involved - which might include psychological, family, social, economic and cultural factors, plus of course the opportunity to commit an offence; these risks may be offset by positive influences such as good parenting’ (Home Office, UK, 1997). Despite the above fact, in Boston (USA) ‘black ministers in Boston, responding to a surge in youth violence, have launched a drive to recruit, train, and deploy 1,000 volunteers to work with at-risk young people from the citys toughest and poorest neighbourhoods; the initiative, the largest undertaken since the youth crime wave of the early 1990s, aims to greatly expand the ministers street-level involvement in fighting violence’. Generally it could be supported that state has to support the prevention of youth crime; however this one has been found to be mostly related with the conditions of life of the young people. In this case, the role of the state in the prevention of youth crime can be characterized as secondary. Under these terms, the fact that the measures taken by the state for the prevention of youth crime constitute a means of social control cannot be criticized. References American Youth Policy Forum (2006) available at http://www.aypf.org/forumbriefs/2006/fb120106.htm Australian Government (2007) NATIONAL COMMUNITY CRIME PREVENTION PROGRAMME. Young people and crime prevention, online, http://www.crimeprevention.gov.au/agd/WWW/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/(427A90835BD17F8C477D6585272A27DB)~4515_TipSheet7_screen.pdf/$file/4515_TipSheet7_screen.pdf BBC News (2005) Is youth crime benefit threat realistic? available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/1956024.stm Home Office (1997) Youth crime, http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/jou-no-more-excuses?view=Html#named5 Human Rights News (2005) United States: Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life without Parole, [online], available at http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2005/10/12/usdom11835.htm Korn, Y. (1997) Strategic Directions in the prevention of youth crime. National Campaign Against Violence and Crime, Paper presented at the Australian Institute of Criminology Conference Juvenile Crime and Juvenile Justice, Towards 2000 and Beyond, Adelaide, 26 -27 June 1997 Paylor, I., Simmill, C. (2004) Evaluating Youth Justice in the UK. American Journal of Evaluation, 25(3): 335-349 Sabates, R., Feinstein, L. (2007) Effects of government initiatives on youth crime. Oxford Economic Papers, available at http://oep.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/gpm038v1 Sutton, A., Chemey, A. (2002) Prevention without politics? Criminology and Criminal Justice, 2(3): 325-344 Read More