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Date: November 25, 2024 Mon
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Results for juvenile delinquency (europe)
1 results foundAuthor: Görgen, Thomas Title: Youth Deviance and Youth Violence: Findings from a European study on juvenile delinquency and its prevention (YouPrev) Summary: In the upcoming decades, European societies will be characterized by rapid demographic change. Population ageing will affect the entire structure and functioning of societies. These changes are of importance not only for the size of youth populations but also for intergenerational relations, family structures, and labour markets. They will also have substantial impact on the age structure of the staff of institutions responsible for prevention and control of youth deviance and violence; especially in the case of the police, processes of “staff ageing” are already visible in many countries. This era of shrinking adolescent populations will furthermore be facing substantial challenges related to young people’s deviance. The current deep and prolonged economic crisis which affects European countries in very differential ways entails changes in government options concerning management and control of social problems and exposes individuals, families, communities and entire populations to considerable economic risks. The rapid progress and spread of new communication technologies affects modes of communication and social relationships and has already begun to change opportunity structures for adult and juvenile crime and deviance. While in recent years police-recorded crime rates in many European countries mainly show downward trends, at least until very recently, juvenile violence has generally been rising. Self-report studies (e.g. Baier, Pfeiffer, Simonson & Rabold, 2009) asking young people about experiences as perpetrators and victims of violence point to the fact that part of this rise in police-recorded youth violence may be due to increased reporting of hitherto undetected offences. This indicates that the development of youth deviance and violence is embedded into larger European societal trends such as diminishing tolerance for the use of violence as a means of conflict resolution and an increasing reliance upon formal institutions as agents of conflict settlement (cf. Pinker, 2011). Still, youth problem behaviour and violent offences committed by young people remain very important problems and matters of discourse and dispute in media and politics. Considering the countries involved in the project – Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Slovenia, and Spain – there are a number of youthrelated phenomena that are regarded and discussed as paramount problems cross-nationally. Among these are problems connected to a small but very active group of young repeat offenders, the nexus between migration and crime among young people, substance abuse among adolescents and alcohol and drug-related offences, violence in schools reaching from bullying to school shootings and killing sprees, violent youth crime including the use of guns and knives, offences committed by girls and by very young juveniles and even children, the impact of new technologies on young people’s deviance, bringing about – or making possible – phenomena like cyber-bullying or digital copyright violations, and juvenile violence committed by gangs or rooted in youth subcultures. Across countries, there appear to be widespread perceptions of an increasing brutality and rudeness of juvenile violent offences and rising levels of aggressiveness in everyday life. They are linked to a perception of declining respect for authorities – including parents, teachers, and institutions of law enforcement. Though such perceptions are only partially supported by social science research, they have an impact on the ways the public and professionals – like police and social workers – perceive problems of youth deviance and violence (see Estrada, 2001). Beyond these cross-nationally consistent conceptualizations of paramount problems in the field of youth deviance, there are phenomena currently being regarded as important mainly in some countries. This holds true for offences committed by young people belonging to the Roma minority in Hungary, or severe acts of violence committed in public spaces and in public transport in Germany. So, while it is widely recognized nowadays that certain minor forms of deviant behaviour (alcohol and substance use, truancy, petty thefts, etc.) are a broadband developmental phenomenon – most young people displaying some kind of deviance during adolescence – there is a number of critical areas of youth crime that are regarded as serious problems and as severe threats to public safety. Substantial parts of this violence happen in public places (often called street violence). This has considerable impact on fear of crime and perceived quality of life in heavily affected areas. If young people are associated with deviant and violent behaviour in public spaces (consumption of drugs and alcohol, rude and physically aggressive behaviour), the attractiveness of (especially inner city) areas diminishes, places are avoided, and this in turn influences not only individual quality of life but also the local economy, the housing market, and social cohesion in neighbourhoods (cf. Thomas & Bromley, 2000, Tiesdell & Oc, 1998; Warr & Ellison, 2000). In multiple ways, young people’s deviance is connected to lifestyle aspects. Lifestyle issues have been theoretically and empirically linked to juvenile violence as well as to violent victimization (see for example Bottoms, 2006; Nofziger & Kurtz, 2005; Pauwels & Svensson, 2009). Lifestyle approaches point both at risk factors and at opportunities for prevention and intervention. Among the lifestyle issues discussed in connection with juvenile deviance and violence are young people’s consumption and abuse of alcohol and other psychotropic substances, their use of media and new communication technologies, afterschool activities, especially when frequenting risky public spaces (pubs, discos, clubs, etc.) and associating with delinquent peers, and lifestyle factors related to cultural and ethnic diversity and to migration (including perceptions of masculinity and femininity and attitudes regarding the legitimacy of using violence). Taking these lifestyle issues into account may open up approaches to successfully prevent youth deviance and violence. Among the stable findings of criminological research is that – with some exceptions – offenders and victims of crime and violence are very similar in their basic demographic characteristics and that there is considerable overlap between those committing violent acts and those affected by them. Violence committed by young people is mostly directed against young people, often their immediate peers. Thus, successfully preventing youth violence means protecting adolescents from violent victimization (Chen, 2009; Sampson & Lauritsen, 1990). While in the past, crime-related discourses have often been dominated by rather punitive attitudes, in recent years the concept of crime prevention has gained widespread acceptance – especially with regard to offences committed by young people. In multiple ways, successful prevention and control of youth deviance and violence require a broad perspective. As regards the actors involved, prevention should not be limited to police and law enforcement but should include social work, schools, the community etc. Concerning the characteristics and behaviours to be addressed by prevention and intervention, measures should not be focussed upon violence alone, but rather include other types of delinquency, with a special emphasis on the use and abuse of legal and illegal substances (cf. Ribeaud & Eisner, 2006; Webster- Stratton & Taylor, 2001). Regarding the target groups, a diversity of preventive approaches is needed – from measures of primary prevention addressing young people in general (e.g. in the field of alcohol abuse prevention) to specific measures targeting pre-identified high risk groups and known offenders. Consequently, prevention and control require a broad perspective in terms of the approaches taken, reaching from early onset primary prevention to custodial sanctions and to offender rehabilitation. Finally, regarding the levels of action, preventive measures should proceed at different levels, ranging from a micro to a macro perspective. Young people’s deviance is deeply rooted in local and regional conditions (family, school, peer group, community) which must be taken into account. However, since these micro conditions are embedded in and partly determined by factors at higher aggregate levels, prevention also requires a national and increasingly a European perspective. In the field of prevention and control of youth deviance and young people’s violence, multiple approaches are put into action in all European countries and by many different actors. Up to now, few of them have been systematically evaluated with regard to their effects and efficiency. Exchange across projects is scarce, especially if they are located in different countries. In recent years, criminological research has produced a substantial body of knowledge on risk and protective factors, offering multiple starting points for improving deviance control and prevention (see for example the Communities that Care Programme which builds upon local analyses of risk and protective factors; cf. Brown, Hawkins, Arthur, Briney & Abbott, 2007; Cleveland, Feinberg, Bontempo & Greenberg, 2008; Harachi, Hawkins, Catalano, LaFazia, Smith & Arthur, 2003; Hawkins, Catalano, Arthur, Egan, Brown, Abbott & Murray, 2008). What is currently lacking is a systematic up-to-date approach on best practices in prevention of young people’s deviance and youth violence in European countries. Further, this knowledge should be made available to the most important professions in the field in a way suitable for training and continuing education. Conclusions and consequences for policies directed at young people and at youth deviance and violence need to be made available to policy makers and practitioners in the field. The YouPrev project aimed at filling and narrowing these gaps by using a combination of different perspectives and methods. While the approaches are described in more detail below, the logic behind the methods applied is to first look what kind of approaches are currently being taken in partner countries and what is known about their effects and efficiency, and to ask key actors and experts in the field for their expertise on how to best tackle problems of youth violence and deviance. While this approach is primarily a national and cross-national one, the project also took a micro perspective by analysing juvenile problem behaviour and measures directed at it at the local level, thereby also comparing youth living in urban and rural areas. In this part of the project, young people’s first hand perspective not only on deviance and victimization but also on their perceptions and acceptance of preventive and protective measures was taken into account via surveys conducted in schools. Having analysed the current state of affairs, the proposed project then turned to future challenges and their implications for prevention and control of youth problem behaviour. Though, of course, no attempt to predict future developments can claim perfect accuracy, at least predictions regarding demographic changes in the coming decades are well-based on evidence. Since any type of strategic planning necessarily presupposes assumptions about the future, the challenge is to put these assumptions on a basis as solid as possible. The project undertook to go beyond the level of “implicit predictions” by including experts’ views in a systematic and structured manner via Delphi surveys. The project also aimed at refining and disseminating project findings and making them available for training and continuing education of the most important professions in the field. Following the basic assumption that successful prevention and intervention require multi-professional and multi-disciplinary approaches, practitioners and experts from different institutions and academic disciplines were brought together in national and international workshops. Finally, the project undertook to put knowledge on youth deviance prevention and control into action by conceiving materials for training and continuing education for police officers on the one hand and social workers on the other. Recommendations emerging from the project were set up to be disseminated among policy makers and key professionals in the field. Prevention and control of youth problem behaviour and youth violence can only be meaningfully understood as multidisciplinary, multi-professional and multi-agency endeavours. In the frame of the project, police and social work were identified as crucial and therefore teachers, trainers, and educators in this field represented the key target groups. This refers to staff at schools, colleges, faculties, universities and other educational institutions for police officers and social workers as well as to professionals in the field of continuing education. Beyond this, other groups are targeted by the project. These include practitioners from professions involved with crime and deviance prevention and control, members of crime prevention councils and networks at local, regional, national and European levels (like the EU Crime Prevention Network EUCPN and the European Forum for Urban Safety EFUS), as well as policy makers at local, regional, national and European levels. Details: Brussels: European Commission, 2013. 188p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 1, 2013 at: http://www.youprev.eu/pdf/YouPrev_InternationalReport.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Europe URL: http://www.youprev.eu/pdf/YouPrev_InternationalReport.pdf Shelf Number: 130030 Keywords: Delinquency PreventionDevianceJuvenile Delinquency (Europe)Juvenile Offenders |