Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Paper

Despite the various programs to help benefit the youth, statistical analysis show s that juvenile delinquency is a major problem globally but especially in the U.S. The United States (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency defines delinquency to be any act with or without malicious intent, committed by juvenile that is deemed as criminal. (OJJDP, 2010). Such acts can be describe as property damage, vandalism, arson, crimes against persons and drug offenses. The OJJDP’s 2010 Annual Report showed that there were more than 60,000 youth that were held in juvenile residential facilities. This is a slight decline than what was shown from the 2000 census data (OJJDP, 2010).

One chronic problem that we see in the in the juvenile justice

What is clear is that the state of juvenile delinquency goes unnoticed by the general public. With high recidivism rates we must also look at the multitude of prevention programs and treatment modalities. This paper seeks to produce an analysis of prevention and treatment programs available.

Juvenile Delinquency prevention measures are sometimes referred to as delinquency repression or delinquency control. According to Welsh pg. 400, delinquency prevention is about being proactive rather than reactive. The goal to prevention is intervening in a juvenile’s life before they actually take part in delinquency. In history of the United States, the prevention of juvenile offenders is tied in with that of the juvenile justice system. It doesn’t matter if its the creation of the 1825 New York House of Refugee, or more contemporary events,

This was a primary focus group in a rural community of North Carolina that studied the youth in the fourth to sixth grade. The researchers reviewed what is called the End of Grade or (EOG) Tests from previous school years to identify students who would participate in a Sylvan Skills Assessment at the beginning of the next school year (Keister, Bodapati, Aeby, Carpenter-Aeby, and Pope, 2007). More than 75 students participated in the school Program at a local middle school, where the center provided intensive reading services to students. Unfortunately the results of the study proved to be insignificant though it provided useful information to the community and school system, testing scores were not positively affected by any prevention (2007). This study proposed that if youth were successful in school, then motivation and self-esteem would reduce risk of potential delinquent behavior. There was also the premise that increased parent involvement would be a factor in reducing the risk of delinquency (2007). While the study had merit in its attempt to address real risk factors, it would fail to meet the standard of an effective program due to the limits of the development of the program and it having not been further tested for its