Summary
The Study Group stresses that the focus on risk factors that appear at a young age is the key to preventing child delinquency and its escalation into chronic criminality. By intervening early, young children will be less likely to succumb to the accumulating risks that arise later in childhood and adolescence and less likely to incur the negative social and personal consequences of several years of disruptive and delinquent behaviors.
Child delinquency usually stems from a combination of factors that varies from child to child. No single risk factor is sufficient to explain it. To develop effective methods for preventing child delinquency and its escalation into serious and violent juvenile offending, intervention methods must account for the wide range of individual, family, peer, school, and community risk factors. Some effective intervention programs that focus on reducing persistent disruptive behavior in young children have reduced later serious, violent, and chronic offending. Some interventions focus on parent behaviors that increase the risk of persistent disruptive behavior in children. Peer relations training and school/classroom programs have also shown some promise. Still, many gaps exist in our knowledge about the development of child delinquency, the risk and protective factors that contribute to it, and effective prevention and intervention methods. Addressing these gaps offers an exceptional opportunity to reduce overall crime levels and to decrease future expenditures of tax dollars.
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