Early Starter – The Early Detection of Delinquency Risk

Abstract

A social problem of interest to many scholars today is that of juvenile delinquency. Juvenile delinquency is a serious behavioural problem, manifested through behaviours that deviate from the moral and legal norms of society. It was noted in Europe in the last decade an increase in the number of juvenile delinquents and a decrease in the age of young people who commit acts of delinquency. This requires prevention and intervention measures to be applied as early as possible. Prevention can be achieved only when an early detection of risk is performed. One screening tool for assessing risk is The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. This tool is intended to clarify, in a first rough assessment (a so-called ‘screening’) of whether a child is about to become an ‘early starter’; a child showing signs of an early onset delinquent behaviour. In the city of Sibiu the questionnaire was applied within schools and information was provided by teachers relating to 308 pupils in grades I-IV. The main perception of the target group of this study was that children who have committed crimes, but are not criminally responsible, are primarily troubled kids, not criminals with established patterns of behaviour. Consequently, the social and educational systems and not the justice system should bear the responsibility for this target group. From this perspective, it is important that social, educational and therapeutic activities focus on the various individual problems of each child and family.

Keywords

• deviation juvenile delinquency prevention social problems