"Safer City", Attention: Juvenile and Attention: Danger as Programs of Juvenile Delinquency Prevention in Poland (From Policing in Central and Eastern Europe: Dilemmas of Contemporary Criminal Justice, P 695-702, 2004, Gorazd Mesko, et al., eds. -- See NCJ-207973)

• NCJ Number: 208032
• Author(s): Katarzyna Pawelek
• Date Published: September 2004
• Length: 8 pages
• Sale Source: Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security, University of Maribor
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Program/Project Description
• Language: English
• Country: Slovenia

Annotation

This paper describes three juvenile delinquency programs operating in Pozna, Poland, one of the country's largest cities.

Abstract

Juvenile delinquency prevention has a high priority in Poland because the police report that juveniles commit 40 percent of break-ins, 30 percent of assaults and thefts, and 20 percent of other brutal crimes. The police designed the "Safe City" program and launched it in 1995. Its main objective is to establish a new model of relations between the police and local communities. The program has components that focus on safety in the home, the car, at work, at school, in the neighborhood, and in the city. The police cooperate with citizens to devise and implement means for reducing juvenile delinquency and its harms. "Attention: Danger" was begun in June 1999 to counter drug use among juveniles. Education is used to reduce the demand for and the supply of intoxicants among youth. It involves cooperation between crime prevention and antinarcotics agencies. Meetings at schools have involved teachers, parents, and students in discussions of the risk of drug abuse, the curbing of drug dealers' access to youth, and the identification of places where drug dealing is conducted. The "Attention: Juvenile" program was implemented in two stages. The first stage involved prevention measures to reduce juvenile delinquent activity between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. in Poznan. During this time period, police checked juveniles' identity information and, as needed, referred them to children's shelters, detoxification facilities, or escorted them to their homes. The second stage of the program, called education, involved meetings in schools to provide students with information on threats to their positive development, as well as the use of the mass media to encourage juveniles to behave responsibly. The thread throughout all the delinquency prevention programs is cooperation among police, youth-serving agencies, parents, and youth in providing information and controls that will change and impede risky and delinquent behavior. 24 references