Delinquency Prevention (From Introduction to Juvenile Delinquency: Youth and the Law, P 196-223, 1984, James T Carey and Patrick D McAnany -- See NCJ-116445)

• NCJ Number: 116454
• Author(s): J T Carey; P D McAnany
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 28 pages
• Sale Source: Prentice Hall
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter briefly summarizes juvenile delinquency prevention programs up to the early 1960's, when a new national policy on diversion was adopted; the juvenile delinquency prevention programs that followed are also examined.

Abstract

Early prevention programs were in the following categories: programs oriented toward the delinquent as an individual (both secondary and tertiary programs) apart from the local community and the wider social process, programs oriented toward the delinquent as a member of natural and informally organized groups primarily involved in leisure activities, and programs oriented toward local community processes (primary prevention). These programs tended to neglect theory as the basis for their development, and program evaluation was either nonexistent or flawed. The Federal Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Offenses Control Act of 1961 became the basis for a Federal program that assumed a substantial portion of delinquent behavior is caused by societal arrangements. Comprehensive intervention was proposed; the school was a particular intervention target. Efforts to increase the delinquency-prevention impact of schools has focused on the reform of the school's bureaucratic structure, the installment of less competitive opportunity structures, and improvement in teachers' reactions to student problem behaviors. The chapter outlines promising delinquency-prevention programs in the areas of family, school, peer interventions, and community interventions.