CHILD Protection & Rights > Child Protection Issues.

The causes of children offending are wide ranging and complex. They include among other reasons:

These causes need to be tackled with a range of social and economic interventions, including programmes for education, poverty reduction, skills development, parent counseling and job creation.

For children growing in chronic poverty or violent surroundings, adopting risky behaviour that brings them into conflict with the law is very often not choice but part of their daily life.

Much juvenile crime is committed as a means of getting an income: for example, theft, burglary, mugging and drug-dealing, as well as prostitution. If prevention and reintegration programmes are to be effective, they must address the problems that prevent teenaged boys and girls from earning money by legitimate means.

The breakdown of the family environment can also precipitate a variety of risk factors for children such as dropping out of school, joining a gang.
Impoverished children, street children and children who are marginalized because they are from indigenous or ethnic minorities, have little chance of gaining proper access to justice, as they are unable to afford lawyers and bail and are alienated from mainstream social services.

Support to families at risk, decisive reaction on signs of domestic violence, social workers with outreach capacity, neighborhood networks and a school which not only teaches but also cares for every individual child are key components of a preventive strategy.

Special efforts should be made to prevent juvenile delinquency through effective educational opportunities, stable family environments and community-based programmes that respond to the special concerns of children and offer appropriate guidance and counselling to them and their families. Legislation should be advanced to ensure that children are only deprived of their liberty as a last resort and for the shortest period possible.

The young persons themselves should be involved in these efforts. Their well-being, in the immediate future and far ahead, should be the focus. This requires some investment, but serious crimes at a later stage are much more expensive for society.

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