Juvenile Delinquency - Prevention and Intervention - Research Paper Example

Juvenile Delinquency: Prevention and Intervention Juvenile delinquency is a complex problem, reflective of an astounding variety of complicated problems. Its etiology is rooted in social instability, parenting dysfunction, family instability, lack of social bonding, role model dysfunction, poverty and economic instability, disconnection from nature, emotional problems, spiritual confusion, cognitive dysfunction, media influence, low self-esteem, lack of opportunity, peer pressure, stress, nutritional inadequacies, school system failures, juvenile system failures, the ubiquitous availability of alcohol and drugs, social change, social hypocrisy, authoritarian leadership, physical disabilities, immaturity, genetic influence, marginalization of children and their voices, lack of adequate social protection for children, a social context of “power over” rather than distribution of “power among”, political dysfunction, a consumer-oriented culture, and social inequality. Juvenile delinquency can be motivated by anger or rage, fear, boredom, ignorance, betrayal, despair, confusion, sadness, competition, excitement, ambition, survival, experimentation, efforts to self-medicate, efforts to escape the intolerable, hunger, adult manipulation, and various other factors. Juvenile delinquency can also be expressions of depression, suicidal ideation, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, brain inflammation or brain damage, allergies, OCD, dissociative episodes, amnesia, PTSD, Tourette’s, any number of personality disorders, brain tumor, opposition defiant disorder, an autism spectrum disorder, or other disorders. Furthermore, a lot of juvenile delinquencies are normative, so the term is imprecise [The08]. It is, therefore, difficult and even futile to specify the cause of juvenile delinquency as a singular line of focus. The cause is a combination of mutually interactive variables. Dever’s Model provides a template for considering these variables by dividing them into biological, environmental, lifestyle, and care system factors (Clark). Systems Theory looks at fields of interacting influence, such as the family, the community, the larger society. Whatever model is used, it is important to understand that a child is not a juvenile delinquent because he/she is bad, or because his/her family is bad, or because he/she is crazy, or because he/she is poor, or because he/she is anti-social, or because he/she lives on junk food, or because he/she smokes marijuana, or because he/she is too smart, or because he/she has an overly protective mother or overly aggressive father, or because he/she was born on the full moon, or because he/she belongs to a religious cult, or because they live on the wrong side of town. The purpose of this paper is to look at prevention and intervention models, while keeping in mind the vast complexity of etiology, so as to avoid over-simplification. A panel of experts reviewed available data on juvenile crime rates and concluded that most young people break laws (shoplifting, vandalism), but only 4% of juvenile arrests were for serious violence, like rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated assault. In spite of impressions we may pick up from the media, less than one tenth of one percent of juvenile arrests were for homicide (National Academies Press 2). Social prejudice contributes to over-representation of minority youth among arrested juveniles. Another interesting review finding was that most adolescent delinquents do not become adult criminals (National Academies Press 3). A separate justice system for juvenile offenders was established in the USA about 100 years ago. Its purpose was to protect young people from the destructive influences of the adult system, and to be child-centered and oriented toward rehabilitation. At the same time, there is an ongoing tension between social control and offender protection. This tension plays out differently in the 51 different juvenile justice systems in the United States, so there is no one vision that unites them (National Academies Press 6). In general, however, the recent trend in all states has been a movement away from rehabilitation toward tougher punishment, focusing on the offense and not the child behind it, due to social pressure. This is particularly so for minority youth (Petrosino, Petrosino and Guckenburg; National Academies Press). Children under age seven are considered to be cognitively unable to be held accountable for their actions, although there is a recent move toward holding their parents accountable [Nat01]. Children below ten years of age commit very few crimes, so mostly the juvenile justice system is focused on offenders between 10-17 years of age. Yet, while this age group has some control over their actions, they are developmentally not yet adults [Nat01]. Driving regulations, school regulations, movie ratings and other areas of social control reflect this realization. On the other hand, most people, being ignorant of the social, psychological, neurological, genetic, economic, cultural, and spiritual factors which contribute to a child’s responsible or irresponsible actions, are actually in what Kohlberg describes as pre-conventional and conventional stages of moral development. In these earliest stages of moral development, the individual justifies moral choice primarily on a consideration of personally avoiding suffering and punishment, or on a consideration of social order, and the necessity to abide by laws and regulation [Sau11]. People whose moral development is more sophisticated will fall into the post-conventional stage, in which the primary consideration is to do what is right, irrespective of any other considerations [Sau11]. After outlining the complexities of juvenile delinquency etiology, the tension motivating the juvenile justice system, and the moral development stages driving this tension to tilt away from rehabilitation and toward punishment, we turn our attention to prevention and intervention of juvenile delinquency. Specifically, we will consider three responses to juvenile delinquency that can be argued to be most effective. These three responses are parenting training programs, intensive and coordinated community drug use awareness and prevention marketing programs, and wilderness therapy programs The first two incorporate both prevention and intervention, and the third one is a response of intervention. It would be misguided to place the responsibility of juvenile delinquency solely into the lap of parents. However, parents can be empowered to hold perhaps the greatest influence on their children. Parents are given no user manual, when a child is born to them and, although there are many books and other resources available, parents who make use of these books and resources can also run into problems, not the least of which is trying to find two experts who agree on techniques and the interpretation of child and adolescent behavior. Parent training should be required of all parents. I do not mean to suggest that parenting values and family autonomy should be negated, but simply that basic understanding of child and adolescent development (physical, social, cultural, moral, cognitive), effective parenting leadership techniques (such as authoritative models, consistency, spending time with the child and showing genuine interest), the critical role of a parent, and how to access available community resources should be made clear. Actually, I believe that most parents would welcome this and families would benefit from it. Community drug use awareness and prevention programs, particularly targeting drugs associated with violent crime and ruined lives, should be a budget priority, and should involve television networks, magazines, social networking and game sites frequented by youth, banners in virtual communities used by young people, school events and school community projects, billboards, urban murals, toys and games, movies, church projects and events, slogan and poster contests, a drug-free fun zone, etc. While it is true that not all children and adolescents will comply with the targeted social value and behavior, peer pressure to comply can be manipulated with focused marketing. Expense should not be an obstacle because bringing down the incidence of drug use and drug abuse will drastically lower the cost of social care required for the consequences of addiction. The other part of my suggestion will be controversial, but I think that in order to prevent the use of truly dangerous drugs like cocaine, heroin, PCP, and crystal meth, we should allow the regulated use of marijuana, for medicinal and recreational purposes. Drugs have been around since the dawn of time, and even the most aggressive marketing campaign will not succeed in keeping people away from drugs. Marijuana, however, is not a drug that generally contributes to aggressive behavior or violent crime. We need to pick our battles and, in the interest of curtailing juvenile delinquency, I think it would be most expedient to eliminate those drugs associated with aggression and violence, such as PCP, alcohol and crystal meth. These are drugs which lead to the victimization of children, domestic violence, neglect, incarcerated parents and family instability. The use of any allowed drug, such as entheogens for authentic sacramental use (peyote for the Native American Church), medicinal drugs (ephedrine, morphine), and recreational drugs (marijuana) should be strictly regulated by age (18 and over), location (home use only for marijuana, under religious leadership or in ritual group only for entheogens), amount (personal use only for marijuana, prescription only for medicinal, and that drug privileges be removed for those who demonstrate lack of responsible use. In fact, just as medicinal drugs require a prescription, entheogens and marijuana could require a license which could be carried and shown and, if necessary, revoked. This would enable the focus of drug education to be geared toward personal and community responsibility, rather than toward value sanctions or fear tactics. The third response to juvenile delinquency, which I feel is an effective intervention, is therapeutic nature-based programs, such as wilderness therapy. Wilderness therapy involves placement of an adolescent in an expedition program that will put him or her in a position to engage more directly with nature (backpacking, survival skills, outdoor education, self and group safety) to learn self and community responsibility and be able to apply these lessons to their life situations. Wilderness therapy is an intervention with three phases: cleansing, personal and social responsibility, and transition and aftercare. Personal and group therapy is part of the process. Duration is typically three to eight weeks. The reason I am suggesting parent education as an effective prevention and intervention response to juvenile delinquency is that, according to a report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA), parents inadvertently contribute to their children’s delinquency by failing to monitor school night socializing, failing to safeguard prescription drugs, failing to address the drug problem in schools, and failure to set a good example [CAS09]. Almost 46% of teens go out with friends on school nights, but only 14% of parents know about it. More than half of the teens come home at night, and 15% come later than 10 p.m. One third of those who come home between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. and half of those who come home after 10 p.m. are exposed to alcohol and drug use by friends while being out [CAS09]. A third of the teens who know someone who abuses prescription drugs say that the drugs came from the parents, home or medicine cabinets. Teens who attend schools where drugs are used or sold are fifteen times more likely to use prescription drugs and 16 times more likely to use an illegal drug other than marijuana or prescriptions drugs. A fourth of all teens know a classmate’s parent who uses illegal drugs and 10% say that the parent takes drugs with people the same age as their teen [CAS09]. Clearly parents need to have better communication with their kids, better supervision, and better tools for parenting leadership. Some parents think that being extremely strict and authoritarian will force their children to be good. They do not understand that force leads to resentment and a failure to internalize values and, therefore the adolescent is less likely to make good choices in the future. Children who grow up without proper guidance, are not involved in the reasoning behind the rules, are neglected or abused, are more likely to turn to rebellious behavior and peers for support. This can encourage delinquency. Parent education, then, is effective solution. Taking an overwhelming coordinated marketing effort toward community drug awareness and education, focusing in particular on instilling values in children, adolescents and adults that are strongly opposed to all drugs associated with violence, aggression, and the ruin of bodies and lives, will be effective. The reason I think so is that public opinion is easily manipulated through media resources and commercial marketing efforts. So if we turn those resources and efforts toward this priority, there is every reason to believe it will be successful. If there is no longer demand from a target audience for the trafficking of dangerous drugs, then supply will collapse. With implementation of drug licenses and careful regulation, along with heavily influenced values, adolescents will come to think of a drug license as a privilege, like a driving license, and not as social rebellion. They would be able to gain the skills needed to be responsible and appropriate, based on a proper attitude, like family wine use in France or community peyote use among the Huichol Indians of Mexico. In the case of this suggestion, however, children would be protected from drugs, of course, and adults would be re-directed into responsible use of approved, non-violence-inducing drugs (marijuana; entheogens, if religiously appropriate; prescription drugs, if medically appropriate). This will make homes and the street safer for kids and will greatly reduce exposure to seriously bad drugs and their consequences of aggression, abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and children who learn to abuse drugs. The reason I am suggesting wilderness therapy as an effective intervention is because it has been demonstrated to be both highly effective therapeutically and with regard to cost [Rus99]. Typically, wilderness therapy clients are juvenile delinquents, anti-social, socio-paths, between 13-18 years of age, with a history of emotional problems, school problems, drug use and petty crime history, intensely physical behavior with weak verbal skills, who base relationships on exploitation and manipulation [Rus99]. Wilderness therapy is often used as a last-ditch effort, as young people are basically being sucked rapidly into dangerous emotional crisis, a more serious criminal lifestyle, or a highly dysfunctional identity [Rus99]. Ignoring an adolescent with problems, on the one hand, or locking them away, on the other, is a shame on society, when wilderness therapy has been shown to change many lives for the better. Three interventions I feel are absolutely ineffective are teen boot camps, juvenile system processing, and incarceration. Teen boot camps are authoritarian and therefore breed anger, resentment, resistance, social withdrawal, a lack of value internalization, and compliance only out of fear. They rely on behavior conditioning and punishment[Mar96]. They violate the principles of adolescent development, in that adolescents are fairness fanatics and rebel against things like group punishment. They reject structure that is imposed on them, and they require encouragement, not sheer control [Mar96]. Children are subjected to unsafe conditions, aggressive and vindictive leaders, unethical practices, violent manipulation, and furthermore it too often has proven fatal [Mar96]. It does further emotional damage to kids and it provides an environment in which they have no safe context in which to process the issues that underlie their delinquent behavior [Mar96]. Kids who are placed there by parents with unreasonable expectations for authoritarian obedience are mixed together with dangerous youth with severe emotional and behavioral problems [Mar96]. This exposure, and the labeling that goes with it, is unhealthy for the not-really-delinquent kids [Ros92]. Juvenile system processing is damaging and an ineffective intervention, due to the labeling involved. Kids, like adults, tend to live up to labels and the accompanying social expectations given [Ros92]. Research has shown that, juvenile justice system interventions increase involvement in subsequent deviance, especially through street gangs and delinquent peers (Bernburg, Krohn and Rivera 67). A major research review found no evidence whatsoever that juvenile justice system processing had any crime control effect at all, and found overwhelming evidence that it led to increased delinquency (Petrosino, Petrosino and Guckenburg 36). Incarceration is an ineffective intervention for juvenile delinquency. It disrupts the lives of children, and negatively influences future behavior and development. It increases the likelihood of serious physical injury and mental problems, and leads to a poor educational outcome, as compared with those delinquents who are treated in their community, without incarceration (National Academies Press 5). It also interferes with potential future employment and therefore inevitably leads to crime, for survival. Yet, even though research indicates that non-serious offenders can be successfully treated in the community without endangering the public, children are being increasingly incarcerated (National Academies Press 6). Incarcerating children in adult jails is all too common (7,500 children per day are incarcerated in adult jails), allowed by a federal loophole and unprotected by the states. This causes kids to face the dangers of rape and sexual assault, isolation, lack of legal protection, socialization into more serious crime and criminal identity, and suicide [Cam07]. This is certainly not an effective solution to juvenile delinquency. This paper has given a brief overview of juvenile delinquency and its highly complex etiology. We have considered three suggestions of effective prevention and intervention: parent training, coordinated multi-faceted drug awareness and prevention campaign, with drug regulation; and wilderness therapy. “They are effective because they target the complex of issues underlying juvenile delinquency, without increasing delinquency, and they build resilience. We have considered three intervention tactics that are ineffective: teen boot camp, juvenile justice system processing, and incarceration in juvenile or adult facilities. These options are ineffective because they increase delinquency and bring further damage to youth, without relieving in any way the underlying causes. They are based on a lack of understanding of child and adolescent development and an immature moral justification. The youth of today hold our future, and we must make every effort to support their development wisely. Works Cited The08: , (The Prevention Researcher), Nat01: , (National Academies Press), Sau11: , (McLeod), CAS09: , (Botvin LifeSkills Training), Rus99: , (Russell and Hendee), Mar96: , (Beyer), Mar96: , (Beyer), Ros92: , (Matsueda), Cam07: , (Campaign for Youth Justice), Read More