Delinquency in Chicago Area

Delinquency and Crime Prevention The original Chicago Area Project was launched in 1932 which established twenty two neighborhood centers within six areas of Chicago. These two centers had tow main function; the first function was to coordinate community resources like schools, churches, labor unions, industries, clubs and other groups for addressing and resolving the problems in the community. The second function was to sponsor various programs such as recreation like summer camping and scouting, discussion groups and community projects, and handicraft workshops.

Through these activities the project aimed at developing a positive interest by the Chicago inhabitants in their own welfare in order to come up with democratic bodies of citizens that would enable the entire community to be aware of the problem it is facing and come up with solution by common choice (Hertzman, & Daniel, 1999). The Chicago area project was not effective in dealing with delinquency.

This is because it concentrated only on the community activities that people would be part of to try and identify and solve problems that were facing the community instead of dealing with the issue of delinquency head on. This was not helping in any way since the project was not directly involved in dealing with delinquency for sentence trying to find the reason why the young people commit crimes and rehabilitating them from crime so that they will not commit similar crimes in future (George, Thomas, & Jeffery, 2002).

Sampson did reviews on research that had been recently conducted on the relation between neighborhoods and crimes so as to determine how community structures and cultures lead to the creation of different crime rates. He found that a combination of poverty and residential mobility is associated with high rates of violent crimes. He also concluded that the neighborhood rates of family disruptions like divorce rates are also strongly associated with rates of violence. He also noted that the neighborhoods with high percentages of African-Americans had high crime rates.

Finally he concluded that areas with a high population density and high concentration of people who do not live within a family setup tend to have high rates of crime and violence. He therefore argued that where there exists social relationships among the community residents there will be less crime (Sampson, Jeffery, & Felton, 1999). Sampson then proposed various new policies to the Chicago Area Project which would focus on changing places and not people.

These included targeting of hot spots within the community where criminal activity occurs frequently, stopping the spiral of decay through clearing trash and even graffiti. He also proposed an increased social relationship between teenagers and adults through organized activities. He also proposed a reduction in residential mobility by enabling the residents to purchase their own homes or manage the apartments they live in.

though he acknowledged that similar programs were not successful in the past he argues that small success can lead to a cumulative change in the long run (Sampson, Jeffery, & Felton, 1999). CAP today is involved with advancing youth development training programs. This are aimed at improving the quality of ones after school program. The programs help the teens to be active, engaged and responsible for their own development.

This will be more successful since the programs are encouraging youth development making them more responsible and creative and hence they would not have time to commit crime (Wickes, Hipp, Sargeant, & Homel, 2013). Part 2 Developmental prevention involves interventions that are conducted early in the developmental pathways that lead to crime or substance abuse.

This usually puts emphasis on investing in child friendly communities and institutions and manipulating of multiple risk and protective factors at the transition points which are considered as crucial such as birth, preschool years, transition from primary to secondary school and the transition from high school to higher education or even the workforce. These initiatives to not perceive life as steady march towards adulthood which is set early in life or a single steady line of change.

Instead it occurs in a series of phases in life, a series of change transitions. In each transition point there is more than one outcome. (Hertzman, & Daniel,1999).These approaches are characterized by emphasizing on pathways and on the aspects of time and timing. Developmental initiatives have a place in crime prevention especially if they are conducted early in life.

Families with babies and preschoolers who are at risk of poverty, breakdown on relationships and abuse from parents are more likely to produce teenagers who are at a high risk of criminality. Once it is established that some configurations of risk at an early age have multiple consequences in life later, it shows that successful intervention at an early age is normally a preventive strategy which is cost effective (National Crime prevention, 2013). This is more important compared to other crime prevention strategies such as criminal justice and situational prevention.

This is because, the factors that can lead to an individual committing crimes in a latter stage in their life is established.