Preventing Juvenile Delinquency and Promoting Juvenile Rightency (From Delinquent Violent Youth: Theory and Interventions, P 256-308, 1998, Thomas P. Gullotta, Gerald R. Adams, et al., eds. - See NCJ-169040)

• NCJ Number: 169050
• Author(s): M Bloom
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 53 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter discusses the potential of youth rather than their perceived deficiencies.

Abstract

The article proposes the term "juvenile rightency" to represent the conceptual opposite of juvenile delinquency, that is, a general term pointing to positive behaviors as the goal of socialization of children and youth and not merely the absence of negative or antisocial behaviors. The term refers to the range of legal and socially acceptable actions, from the merely adequate (being law abiding), to the mid-level desirable (such as getting good grades in school), to the highly desirable, constructive behaviors (such as volunteering as a hospital aide). The article reviews exemplary programs illustrating the interactive components of the configural framework of factors supporting rightency: strengths (of the individual, primary and secondary groups, society/culture, and physical environment), as reduced or modified by a set of limitations to the same categories. With regard to efforts in primary prevention of delinquency, the article lists effective (or proven) interventions, potentially promising program areas, and ineffective programs. References