Discuss prevention programs in regard to risk factors faced by young children. Do you think these are viable programs for preventing delinquency? Explain your view

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

• Research has identified an array of early risk factors that may suggest future delinquency.
• For young children, some of the most important risk factors include low intelligence and attainment, impulsiveness, poor parental supervision, parental conflict, and living in crime-ridden and deprived neighborhoods.
• A number of early childhood programs have been shown to be effective in tackling these risk factors and preventing delinquency and later criminal offending, including preschool intellectual enrichment, child skills training, parent management training, and parent education programs such as home visiting.
• Some of these programs can pay back program costs and produce substantial monetary benefits for the government and taxpayers. There are a number of evidence-based and promising federal early childhood programs.
• Head Start provides children in poverty with, among other things, an enriched educational environment to develop learning and cognitive skills to be better prepared for the early school years.
• One study found that children who attended Head Start at ages 3 to 5 were significantly less likely to report being arrested or referred to court for a crime by ages 18 to 30 compared to their siblings who did not attend the program.
• Smart Start is designed to make certain children are healthy before starting school. State-funded home-visiting programs like those in Hawaii and Colorado are especially concerned with reducing child abuse and neglect and bettering the lives of at-risk families and their children.
• Student views will vary.