Juvenile Crime: A Growing Concern for Embark Community? - Essay Sample

Introduction

Juvenile crime is a serious problem in today's world and may represent a more significant proportion of overall criminal activities in a given community. Many children engage in offensive activities, but the community assumes that they deserve a special approach when handing them. This is because most the adolescents that involve in these criminal activities are in a formative period, and behaviour may not necessarily be transferred to their adulthood stage. The community of Embark faces a lot of challenges when implementing a rehabilitation program for the juvenile. There is an urgent need to strengthen the implementation of the existing juvenile delinquency treatment program to reduce future criminality efficiently.

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The name of the program established to foster the juvenile delinquency treatment is Aggression Replacement Training (ART). This program focuses on replacing antisocial behaviours among adolescents by actively teaching desirable values (Glick & Gibbs, 2010). Embark community experience frequent cases of juvenile criminal activities and the typical victims are adolescents. Early school dropouts, substance abuse, antisocial behaviour and delinquency were identified as the leading causes of increased juvenile criminal activities in Embark Community. The program is based in one of the social centers located within the vicinity of Embark Town. This location was selected as the most appropriate because children gather daily to engage in recreational activities.

Recent studies conducted on the effectiveness of Aggression Replacement reveal that the program has positive impacts on self-control, moral development, and social skills. The results indicate that ART can be used alongside other juvenile delinquency treatment programs to improve the cognitive ability of both children and young adults in the community. However, several interventions for correcting behaviour should be used to strengthen its implementation. For instance, research shows that home-visiting programs can be combined with Aggression Replacement Training to reach adolescents in homes to teach them about behaviour change.

Effective implementation of Aggression Replacement Training program will provide several positive outcomes to Embark Community. For instance, the program will improve the constructive social behaviours of children and young adults to prevent them from engaging in criminal activities that undermine development in the community. The program will improve the moral reasoning of children and expose them to competitive learning as well as jobs. Many children that take part in juvenile criminal activities use drugs which impairs their logical and moral reasoning (Coleman, Pfeiffer & Oakland, 2013). This program will help to restore the moral reasoning to enable the children to behave well in the community. Also, peace will be reinstated in the community because, during juvenile criminal activities, most of the operations in the community are interrupted as a result of insecurity. Finally, Aggression Replacement Training program will help to reduce impulsivity and antisocial behaviour in the community.

Aggression Replacement Training will help to curb the increasing cases of juvenile delinquency. For instance, the program will help the youths to acquire desirable behaviour and practice good morals. This will prevent them from engaging in harmful acts, which are considered immoral to the community. Also, the program will improve their logical and moral reasoning to be able to differentiate between what is moral and what is evil. As outlined earlier, the most common cause of juvenile crimes is drug abuse and lack of social values. The program will provide adequate training for the children, especially adolescents, to teach them about refraining from antisocial behaviours and practicing moral values. This program will focus on the root causes of juvenile crimes and promote acceptable social values.

The program may have some negative effects on the youths. For instance, some of them may get used to the training and expect it to continue for several years as they adopt new behaviour changes. When this program is terminated, some of the youths may go back to their old behaviours. Therefore, this program has less impact on recidivism, especially when conducted in the short-run. However, there are several suggestions to improve the Aggression Replacement Training program. Firstly, the program should be combined with other juvenile delinquency treatment programs to improve its effectiveness. Home-visiting and skill-oriented programs can be used alongside ART to ensure that youths develop acquire desirable social skills. Also, ART program should be used for a specific target group in order to be more effective. Finally, the program should foster family interactions and provide skills to the parents because they are close to their children, and they can offer daily training on behaviour changes.

I support the implementation of Aggression Replacement Training program to help in curbing increased juvenile delinquency in Embark Community. This is because the program aims at enhancing the moral values of youths by teaching the desirable social skills, behaviour and moral reasoning. The program also addresses the primary causes of juvenile crimes, which include antisocial behaviour among the youth in the community. Also, Aggression Replacement Training enriches the moral development of youths and teaches them about self-control. These are crucial aspects of influencing behaviour changes and achieving moral development. Therefore, I recommend the implementation of this program to help the youths in Embark Community to refrain from juvenile criminal activities.

References

Coleman, M., Pfeiffer, S., & Oakland, T. (2013). Aggression replacement training with behaviorally disordered adolescents. Behavioral disorders, 18(1), 54-66.

Glick, B., & Gibbs, J. C. (2010). Aggression replacement training: A comprehensive intervention for aggressive youth. Research Press.