A Transformational Paradigm for Preventing Adolescent
Involvement in Crime: Education, Health and Justice Perspectives
There is consensus internationally that early identification of
risk factors and remedial intervention is the most cost effective way
to reduce young people’s involvement in crime. But is it enough? Not
all young people in trouble with the law manifest recognisable risk
factors early in life. This is especially true for youth whose
antisocial behaviour begins after puberty. If we restrict our efforts
to build safer communities to a primary prevention approach we will
miss a significant number of young people.
Even conscientiously designed and implemented early intervention
programs are not perfect and many young people and their families slip
through the cracks. We forget that programs are only as useful as the
research behind them - and bias abounds in research. Many policy and
program initiatives suffer from a narrow definition of “the problem”
and subsequent solutions. Restrictive theoretical views, ideology,
power politics and moral panic all add barriers to the creation of
comprehensive crime prevention strategies.
Our understanding of the antecedents to young peoples’ involvement in
crime has improved significantly in the past 15 years, yet our
responses still tend to be piece meal, reactive and driven by fiscal
policy. The results have been mixed and often disappointing. What is
required is a shift away from short-sighted interventions toward
community capacity building and a new paradigm to guide and transform
the way we think about supporting young people, their families and
communities.
At the heart of this new paradigm is a fundamental change in
perspective, one that views youth involvement in crime as a community
health issue instead of a criminal justice problem. By changing our
conceptual framework in this manner we create the opportunity to forge
unconventional partnerships and harness disparate community resources
into a coherent web of support for young people and their families.
The end result is a coordinated and efficient prevention strategy with
a permanent infrastructure that may require little or no new financial
resources.
This keynote presentation will highlight research, theory and program
ideas that can be applied to the development of a transformational
paradigm to guide the design and implementation of a community health
based strategy directed toward crime prevention for adolescents.
