NCJ Number
80012
Date Published
1981
Length
47 pages
Annotation
This paper describes a strategy for using youth employment as a tactic for delinquency prevention; it discusses ideal arrangements in the workplace and suggests ways that schools, employers, and social service organizations can cooperate to increase young people's commitment to their work.
Abstract
Bonding theorists maintain that most people stay out of trouble most of the time because they are bonded to the conventional norms of society through their affiliations with entities such as home, school, church, and workplace. The paper therefore suggests that for work experience to reduce delinquency, the jobs in which young people are placed must strengthen their ties to work. The paper details supervisory practices and job assessment, recruitment and hiring, training, evaluation and feedback, and support services that will increase the probability that the jobs will be viewed by youth and adults as good. The ideal youth employment program is described as an experiment in selected, incremental change within employment organizations calculated to improve the quality of work assigned to young people. Changes within each work setting will be stimulated by partners (employer groups, educators, youth employment organizations, and social service providers) who engage in negotiations leading to the joint authorship and implementation of a plan. Ideally, young people will be placed in paid employment and community service where their experiences will be scrutinized and adjusted to determine whether participants develop a stake in the work and engage less frequently in delinquent acts. Footnotes, charts, and 33 references are provided.