Causes of Delinquency And Means of Prevention: - the Case of Remand Home in Lideta Sub-City
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Date
2018-06
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study is aimed at identifying causes of delinquency and means of prevention to deter
the prevalence of youth delinquency. It mainly focused on both male and female delinquents who
are involved in delinquent behavior and under treatment and rehabilitation in the remand home
and center for rehabilitation. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative research
methods. Random sampling technique was used to select 50 male and 10 female delinquents and
other participants of the study. In addition to this two crime investigator police officers from
Lideta sub-city police department were purposively selected to participate as key informants of
the study. The primary data was mainly collected through in-depth interviews and administration
of the questionnaire, after which pre-coding, coding, categorizing and theme were developed for
analysis. The data from qualitative method was analyzed thematically by coding the inputs from
the responses. The data from quantitative method was cleaned and organized in the table and
then analyzed using descriptive statistics like percentages, frequencies and presentation followed
by illustrative explanation. The findings of this study was indicated that economic problem, peer
pressure, environmental influence, parental alcoholism and overcrowding family, lack or
inadequate family support, breakdown of families as a result of divorce and death, lack of proper
child development and care skills, the influence of medias (films, TV shows and video), illegal
child trafficking, street life and less involvement of social institutions in preventing delinquent
behavior are the major causing factors of delinquency. The finding also showed that working
with the family, the school and involving social institutions, working on awareness creation on
the community at large, providing child care related trainings for parents, proper socialization
of children by the family, school and religious institutions, establishment and expansion of
community-based correctional centers, strengthening the prevention work undertaken by
community policing, enhancing economic development through hard work in both rural and
urban areas, teaching about the effect of delinquency and crime in religions institutions and
schools besides their formal teachings and improving the existing gap of the law used to treat
children by the courts were among the major ways of preventing delinquency. The findings of the
study was also showed the role social institutions can play in preventing delinquent behavior
before it has occurred as well as it indicated the influence of youth delinquency to develop the
behavior of criminality in the latter age. The study has implications for social work profession,
future researchers, for juvenile justice/court system and for school of social work in dealing with
the problem of delinquency
Key Words: Delinquency, Cause, Means, Prevention
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Keywords
Delinquency, Cause, Means, Prevention