The problem of juvenile delinquency

Problem-Solution Essay

The problem of juvenile delinquency

Botobekov Botobek

ID: 20111629

Academic Reading and Writing I

Date: 25.11.2011

Final Draft

The problem of juvenile delinquency

Unfortunately, today the crime is one of the most important problems around the world. One of its most visible parts is the juvenile delinquency. All over the globe, newspapers and the broadcast media report daily on crimes including homicides, rapes and robberies committed by youth. According to the Howard N. Snyder, law enforcement agencies in the United States alone made approximately 2.2 million arrests of persons under age 18. Just the prospects of our society look very gloomy due to the fact that most of the youth is committed in various types of crime. Definitely nothing good will happen with any country with such kind of statistics, if not to make arrangements concerning this problem as early as possible. Understanding it, government authorities and community itself has to solve this problem today in order not to face bigger problems with crime later.

Juvenile crime is a very complicated problem with its own causes and consequences which has to be solved today. Economical problems and media violence are the main factors causing the juvenile delinquency. Economical problems affect the juvenile delinquency rate because they usually result in persistent employment and low incomes among youth pushing them to commit a crime. Media violence is another factor which greatly influences the youth crime. According to the American Psychological Association, as cited by Karen Boyd, children, who are not protected from the influence of television violence, are more aggressive, more fearful, and more accepting of violence. Recent statistics about juvenile delinquency all over the world indicates that “in virtually all parts of the world, with the exception of the United States, rates of youth crime rose in the 1990s”. Moreover, according to the world youth report, crime levels in the countries in transition including eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States have witnessed dramatic rise in delinquency rates. Observing such data makes clear that juvenile delinquency is one of the most important problems of modern society and we have to solve it as early as possible.

The first possible solution to the problem of juvenile crime level, which has a lot of supporters, is the idea of putting youth and adults under the same level of responsibility. This solution is based on the idea that it will make youth understand the consequences of their action and deter them from committing any further crimes due to their understanding that they are not given any special consideration because of their age. Thus, it will automatically lower the crime rate in society and make it a better place to live in. When there are rigorous punishments applied for children who commit crimes, others will learn from their mistakes and avoid doing the same. But it is only after their adolescent years are over that children become mature and begin understanding such important concepts as society, expectations and responsibility. During adolescence they are still trying to confront society and fight their own inner battles of peer pressure, lack of direction, impulsiveness and the like. At such a period, when mature or responsible behavior is not expected of them because they lack that power to understand the consequences of their actions and delay their needs it is considered unfair to treat them in the same way as that of adults. One more argument opposing this idea is based on the fact that most of the children who commit crimes don’t grow up into real criminals. Consequently, creating proper conditions and working with those children gives a chance that they will start obeying the law and become responsible members of society. Besides, if we start considering the same punishment for youth and adults, in other words send them to prison, there is no chance that children will start obeying the law in future because in prison they are going to be strongly influenced by the gang members who are interested in recruiting people from the youth.

Second possible solution to the problem is the shock incarceration program which is widely used in the United States. Shock incarceration program is based on the six-month, military-style boot camps and basically applied on the first-time convicts. There, as Fisher said “inmates do hard labor, perform community service, improve their physical fitness, take classes and get counseling” (as cited in Bean, 2009). The biggest advantage of this program is that it saves money spent by reducing the amount of time inmates spend in prisons up to 30 months. For example, since the beginning of this program in 1987 in New York, it has saved more than 1.3 billion dollars. (Bean, 2009) Moreover saving taxpayer’s money shock incarceration program significantly reduces overall crime rate and recidivism, habitual relapse into crimes. For example, In New York, as Fischer states (as cited in Bean, 2009) “Shock has been one of the most effective strategies in helping the state to decrease its crime rate for 35 percent over the past ten years”. However according to Osler (as cited in Susan T. Marcus-Mendoza, …….) although being very successful in terms of saving money shock incarceration program’s results in reducing recidivism were “disappointing”. According to Osler (as cited in Susan T. Marcus-Mendoza, …….), shock programs had recidivism rates similar to those for traditional incarceration. He suggested that the services and support should be provided to decrease the likelihood of recidivism. One more argument that opponents of the program use is the fact that there are at least 31 teenagers in 11 states of United States have died during the shock incarceration program since 1980(Janofsky, 2001) .

Another possible solution to the problem is to simply invest in youth. Investing in children means that every single child has appropriate child support and has access to after-school, weekend and summer youth development programs. Moreover, this solution involves identifying troubled and disruptive children at an early age and providing them and their parents with the counseling and training in order to prevent appearance of further problems with them. By making these simple actions we can prevent crime committing by children and significantly reduce the crime level without toughening laws or using any kind of harsh punishments. Of course, all of these actions are going to cost valuable sums of money for the government having as a result increase of taxes. But the efficiency of such kind of program, which is already a fact, makes it clear that this program pays the cost. For example, during the study which involved using intensive recruiting and after-school programs crime level was reduced by as much as seventy-five percent in some high crime neighborhoods. Another example of efficiency of this project is the Prenatal and Early Infancy Project. During this project a group of at-risk mothers were provided by the coaching and parenting skills and other advice and support. As the result, child abuse was reduced by 80 percent in the first two years, mothers who received these services had only one-third as many arrests, and their children were only half as likely to be delinquent.

To bring the paper to a close, the problem of juvenile delinquency is one of the most important problems of modern society which has to get proper attention of the public and solved today because by ignoring it we will condemn ourselves to the criminal rate outbreak in the future. Solving this problem can involve different available ways, such as putting youth and adults under the same level of responsibility, using shock incarceration program and investing in kids. Although other two solutions also have their own advantages and partially solve the problem my personal recommendation concerning the problem is to invest in kids. Investing in kids means working with the causes which has always been the most effective strategy to solve any problem.

Reference List:

http://www.ehow.com/info_8143011_media-influences-juvenile-delinquency.html