In the course of their work, police and law enforcement agencies have changed tact on the way they handle crime and criminal activities. Over recent decades, drug abuse among the youth has increased rapidly with the involved young people being equally involved in other crimes. To curb the emerging trend, police have been reliant upon the community to help them in reporting crime and providing information about delinquent youth. The paper will discuss how community policing programs can help reduce youth crimes.
According to Sampson (2018), up to 1 million young people in the US are jailed yearly for major and minor offences. He further reports that 70% of youth in this group are jailed for drug abuse. In a separate study, Clear (2018) notes that more youth have access to firearms resulting in increased gun violence among young people. To prevent such teens from becoming adult criminals, the police and the community must work together to prevent youth delinquency. Since the parents and the community at large have the responsibility of modeling teen behavior, it is important that they devise strategies that would keep their children away from crime.
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In order to develop the most effective strategies for curbing youth delinquency, the community must identify the cause of the problems. In most cases, youth who embrace the culture of violence come from poor backgrounds, failed parenthood or crime neighborhood. One of the approaches includes increasing the opportunities available for the youth. Members of the community and law enforcement officers could initiate integrative programs where both groups serve as mentors and role models to the youth. The programs are meant to encourage youth to be fully active in their academic works and also to engage them in community activities. Such approaches serve as suitable alternatives to drug involvement and delinquency.
Given the complex nature of drug cases, community policing programs can result in the creation of crime prevention committees as well as the addition of police in target areas (Stein & Griffith, 2017). First, the committees would be responsible for zoning the most affected areas and developing solutions specific to the places. Secondly, since the police might have insufficient resources to curb the menace, the committee would engage in resource mobilization to ensure that law enforcement agents within their locality are well equipped. Additionally, increasing police presence would enhance their cooperation with the community and thus reducing the frequency of youth crimes.
The next strategy involves reducing the availability of firearms. The policing programs can achieve this by mobilizing for stricter regulation of gun laws. In this case, stringent actions are to be taken against those found in illegal possession of firearms. Since most of the delinquent youth are likely to be involved with violent groups, the community should enact suppression strategies meant to subdue the gangs (Clear, 2018). This is done through initiatives such as gang resistance programs which ensure that youth are kept in schools and dropouts encouraged to attend vocational training. Most importantly, the program should ensure a smooth transition for youth into the community after confinement. Much focus, in this case, would be directed towards rehabilitation rather than incarceration since the latter would help youth avoid a life of crime. This would prevent repeat crimes and transform former offenders into productive members of society. By engaging in such strategies, the community policing group will have met its goal of curbing youth delinquency.
Reference
Clear, T. R. (2018). The Community Justice Ideal . Routledge.
Sampson, R. J. (2018). Organized for what? Recasting theories of social (dis) organization. In Crime and social organization (pp. 113-128). Routledge.
Stein, R. E., & Griffith, C. (2017). Resident and police perceptions of the neighborhood: Implications for community policing. Criminal justice policy review , 28 (2), 139-154.
