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Juvenile crime is big news! In recent times, our local media has been saturated by accounts of youthful wrongdoings, with acts committed in Portsmouth or by residents of Portsmouth being at the forefront. The trend has escalated from armed robbery to murder, with illicit sexual acts and pornography being blatantly highlighted.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it is the general consensus that crimes committed by the youth are on the rise. Ironically, however, it is also the consensus that these youth have a major role to play in the prevention of crime. The purpose of this piece is to examine strategies youth can employ to prevent criminal acts.<\/p>\n
Youth should be involved in carrying out strategies to prevent violence in their communities. By having an active voice in discussing, planning and organizing events geared at curbing crime, targeted youth will build the skills that will help them make positive contributions to their neighborhood. One may be surprised as to the valuable perspectives on youth crime by the very same perpetrators of these acts.<\/p>\n
For some time, there seemed to be a \u201chush\u201d over the town of Portsmouth as we all took a back seat and let crime and criminals have free reign over our community. It seemed that we had lost sight of the fact that it is our civic responsibility to be our brother\u2019s keeper. Reporting crime, or becoming part of a neighborhood watch is a simple, yet effective way youth can assist law enforcement in crime prevention. It is high time we stop harboring those amongst us who commit crimes in our community. If you see it, say it.<\/p>\n
Recent statistics show that the number of young males between the ages of 13 to 17 who have dropped out of high school over the last 5 years have been on the increase steadily.<\/p>\n
When compared to acts of violent crimes committed over that same period, an increase has also been recorded. This can be interpreted to mean that a lack of a sound education and life skills by individuals from low socio economic backgrounds are more prone to commit violent acts. When youth with untapped potential drop out of school citing reason such as boredom, lack of interest or financial constraints, it widens the pool of unskilled, uneducated persons who become largely dependent on a life of crime, or as a benefactor of criminal acts.<\/p>\n
Remaining in school ensures youth obtain the education, skills, principles and morals one needs to propel themselves to higher heights and break the cycle of dependency. In that same vein, our education system needs to reintroduce skills training at all levels of education to cater for the holistic development of youth for as well all know, everyone may not be academically inclined.<\/p>\n
We live in an age of materialism and vanity. While there is nothing wrong in wanting the finer things in life, the underlying problem remains in how they are acquired. Acts of violence and crime will never be justifiable. Youth, please take note.<\/p>\n
Antonia Pierre is the Public Relations Coordinator of the National Youth Council of Dominica.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juvenile crime is big news! In recent times, our local media has been saturated by accounts of youthful wrongdoings, with acts committed in Portsmouth or by residents of Portsmouth being at the forefront. The trend has escalated from armed robbery…","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":89543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n