NCJ Number
152390
Date Published
1993
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This paper discusses juvenile delinquency factors and the role of law-related education as a means of preventing violence in conflicts.
Abstract
Risk factors for juvenile delinquency, drug abuse, and other forms of adolescent antisocial behavior include psychological, personality, physiological, and biological risk factors. Significant social antecedents to these behaviors are peer influences. Teachers cannot influence many factors such as parental support or past and present nutrition. However, teachers can use classroom practices that generate more successful interactions among youths. They can influence commitment, attachment, involvement, belief, equality of opportunity, positive labeling, and successful interaction with mainstream classmates. The most effective advance in juvenile delinquency prevention in the last 10 years has been to improve communications between justice system representatives and adolescents. Since 1982, a Colorado program has put police officers trained in instructional techniques and proactive classroom management into classrooms along with teachers. The results have indicated that these programs can change the almost inevitable negative attitudes of youths toward the police. These police officers are patrol-level officers rather than traditional school resource officers. Everywhere the program has operated, the reductions in stolen cars alone has more than paid for the police officer's time.