Burglary – There are forty out of ten thousand who have committed this crime from the ages ten to fifteen slightly less than the amount of people for the ages sixteen to twenty four. Burglary is probably one of the main crimes which adolescent commit. They may find themselves turning towards stealing to get the money for things they want or just plainly stealing the things they want.
Some of them may like to do it just for the “buzz” or to rebel against society. Adolescent males can be affected by peer pressure and may end up stealing to look “cool”.
Criminal Damage – Youths may find this slightly petty and that the fact that it does not gain them anything apart from maybe “respect” from there friends. Only eighteen out of a thousand people have committed this crime in the age group sixteen to twenty. People caught for this crime are also usually under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Robbery – There is a low amount of robbery at all ages only 5.6 people out of 10,000 have committed robbery. This is probably because it is easier to commit theft rather than this and it results in the same thing, the offender gaining stolen property.
Sexual Offences - Once again the most amount of sexual offences that are committed are mainly from the ages sixteen to twenty four, but this time the gap between all the other age groups is only 1 person out of 10,000. This shows that different age groups do not affect this crime and it is not just only adolescent males who are convicted for this.
In 1998 the peak age for offending males in England and Wales was 18. Before 1972 the peak age for offending males was 14, this then rose to 15 when the school leaving age was made 15 to 16 in 1972. This shows to me that the main period of crime is when the person has just left school, because most people these days leave school at 18.
At school a large amount of children experience a large amount of violence with so many people in one place how could there not be fights and bullying going on. The teachers cannot watch everything. Some of the students may get subjected to the violence they see in school. All people react in a different way and maybe one person who has been bullied will go away fine while another may go out and resort to violence as rebelling against his miss spent youth or abuse as a child. Whatever the reason was for young adolescent males to turn to crime it is a big problem!
Preventing Youth Crime
If we want to find out how to prevent youth crime, we need to find out what causes youth crime and why some people become violent.
Some children can build up a resilience to being violent when they are young, however much they are subjected to viewing violent acts they still do not become violent natured. While there are other children who grow up in a violent free environment, this will mean that they are most likely not to grow to become violent.
The ones that do grow up to become violent are the children who have not had:
A role model who can help in many ways for a child, if the role model is say hard working it would encourage the child to become a hard working student.
The adolescent needs self-esteem so that they believe in themselves, and do not have to prove anything to their friends by doing something against the law.
They need to have a good relationship with their family, their teachers and friends. The ability to make friends is necessary for this and being able to listen and understand other people.
They need great support from their parents, or a parental figure, to drive them on and succeed in what they want to do in life.
They need a sense of hope or plan for the future to drive them on to achieve the goal, which they have set. It doesn’t have to be a major thing it can be a small boundary, but then they would set themselves another hurdle to pass after that.
Where the Problem Starts:
The first place, where the problem begins is at home. Children need a strong home environment where they have empathy and support from their parents. If there are a lot of arguments and violence between the adolescent’s parents or even towards the youth, this could certainly trigger a violent streak in the child. The adolescent could also learn from the arguments his parents went through and not be affected by them when he becomes older.
There are two sorts of children at a young age:
The 1st being a shy child who replicates what others say and do. These children are easily affected by what goes on around them do not make there own decisions, they are happy to follow what others do.
The 2nd sort of child is one that thinks for themselves, is very resilient to what others say and do and do not imitate what they do, the child experiments by itself. This child is not prone to becoming violent or breaking the law.
The second place is at secondary school. At this age their body is just about to go through a very large change where their emotions, hormones and body will be vulnerable to great change. They become prone too mood swings and start to mould into the average teenager. They start to become far more interested in new things, such as girls, alcohol and smoking. This is the start of their rebellion against everything they have been brought up to respect. The addition of alcohol is often something that leads to criminal acts, when the adolescents do not realise what they are doing.
Both these places of the adolescents crime helps contribute to the extent of youth crime today. It is an increasing problem that more adolescent male’s are committing more crimes than they used to.
Re offending:
The police and courts main reasons for any action taken will be a deterrent against re offending. The possibility of re offending all depends on the age, number of previous convictions and gender.
Fifty seven per cent of males any age re offends during probation, while fifty eight percent of males were re convicted in the space of two years.
As you can see from this there is a very large amount of re offending so it is clear that rehabilitation is not working properly so they need to bring in more crime prevention skills.
Solutions:
After going through what causes a child to commit criminal offences I can write some short bullet points:
- Have a good role model to look up to and imitate what he/she does.
- Got to have a good relationship with parents, teachers and friends.
- Needs high self esteem so that they are confident in what they do.
- Have a figurehead as a parent, who they have strong bonds with and give complete respect to.
- Got to have self-control so that they cannot be affected by peer pressure, and can stand up for themselves.
- Need hope to the future to help motivate them, and to reach goals and boundaries they have set.
- Enjoy their life, have good opportunities so that they can take up a sport or a musical instrument.
- Have hobbies they are passionate about and so they can get on with them and not turn against the law.
Conclusion
Examining the evidence it seems that there are eight key factors, which would help to prevent adolescent male crime, I am now going to tell you why they will help and how they will affect the young society of today. The analysis below examined why they will help and how they will affect the young society of today.
Relationship with family, teachers and friends – this is very important for the child, as it is very much the same as the role model because each of these are potentially a role model.
If the child does not experience a rough up bringing he/she will not grow up to be a violent person. If the teacher inspires the youth it will make it easier for he/she to concentrate on academic achievements rather than breaking the law. In having responsible friends who you trust will help you stay on the right side of the law.
This once again is not a short term deterrent, but making sure that children get the right up bringing will put them on a path away from breaking the law. From the long-term perspective the amounts of adolescent males committing crime will go down. All of this helps to provide a positive caring environment for the children.
This then links to:
High self-esteem and self-control - If a child is bought up with high self-esteem, it means they trust their judgements, and will not be subjected under peer pressure easily. If this is linked with a good education and they do not go down the road towards crime this would, the adolescent should find it easier to succeed in life and not infringe the law. Also if they have good self-control it means they will be able to handle their emotions better.
This once again is a long-term thing that can improve society by reducing the amount of crime and also will help to produce a more confident nation.
Supported by:
i) Role Model – in having a responsible role model, the child has made a choice to try and become like that person in as many ways as possible. The role model is clearly someone they respect highly, and therefore will be affected by them easily.
If the role model is sensible the imitating youth will make an effort to be sensible, so therefore if the role model is saying no it’s bad to break the law, this will help the child not to break the law. An example of a role model would be a famous sports man or TV presenter; it is their responsibility to act sensible for society.
This would not help immediately, but over time if young children where advised to choose a sensible role model who they really looked up to. It would help these children to grow up without wanting to break the law. In general this is will take a while to take effect, but if it was to take place it would help largely for a long time
ii) Good Opportunities and Hobbies – Everyone needs a hobby or interest to keep them amused in their spare time, but if people were not to have hobbies, they may think about turning to crime to give them something to do. So if you make sure that at a young age children are given the opportunities they need to them, they should be able to develop several hobbies, which will help to keep them out of trouble. Also for people who have been convicted giving them something they can do, a common idea for boys that have committed car crime is to train them to fix cars, so that when they get out of either jail or a detention centre they can keep out of trouble by working on their hobby.
This would help in the short-term and would also give people who have offended perhaps a career in the future which should help deterrent them from re offending after they have been released.
iii) Future hope – A child always needs something to look forward to, if it’s the smallest thing to one of the most important things in their lives, they need it. Whatever it may be it helps them focus towards the goal that they want to achieve, this means that they think less and less about crime.
If everyone were given something to look forward to, and maybe say you cannot have this hope or dream if you do something against the law, it would act as a major deterrent to crime.
This would be a short-term thing, if everyone could come up with something to hope for in the future.
In conclusion adolescent male crime is far too high. Over 50% of all crime is committed by males under the age of twenty-one. It is in the interest of society that this is reduced quickly. The problem is not new and solutions require concerted action by a wide range of people. The key factors are providing a caring and supportive environment for young males to grow up in.
Both parents and teachers have a responsibility here. This can be supported by positive behaviour by role models such as sport stars and TV personalities. The aim of this is to increase self-esteem and achievement by the young male, encouraging them to channel their energy into hobbies rather than crime. But the most important factor must be to provide hope for the future and opportunities to make positive contributions to society.
