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Make Me a Criminal: Preventing Youth Crime

NCJ Number
221796
Author(s)
Julia Margo
Date Published
February 2008
Length
92 pages
Annotation
Arguments are presented for a more therapeutic and family-based approach to youth offending in the United Kingdom, as opposed to the current, more punitive, system.
Abstract
The findings have clear implications for government policy: punitive measures are simply far less effective at preventing youth offending than are therapeutic and family-based initiatives. Reforms to extend the provision of structured activities and supervised public space for young people, and to tackle issues of poor youth socialization via family-based interventions, offer potentially fertile ground for changing the public discourse on youth crime in the United Kingdom. Recommendations presented are broad in range and scale. However, they aim to tackle the culture that permits or even encourages youth offending and interventions and target at-risk young people with the right interventions and programs. Recommendations are divided into primary and secondary forms of prevention. Primary preventions include: (1) tackling child poverty and in-work poverty; (2) better support for families (toward a worker/carer model); (3) protecting children (banning corporal punishment); (4) better provision of activities for 12 to 18 year olds; (5) supervised play areas; (6) supporting collective efficacy; and (7) welfare teams in primary schools. Secondary prevention recommendations include: (1) Sure Start Plus (a targeted approach for at-risk 5-12 year olds); (2) reform of Anti-Social Behavior Orders (ASBOs); and (3) outreach schools. Current public and political debate means that further change to criminal justice legislation will be difficult to undertake. However, in the long term, the aim must be to ground the response of what works, and a more welfare-orientated approach to youth offending. Figures, tables, appendix and references