Please No Plagiarism Do Not Ask How Many Pages Because It St

Please No Plagiarism Do Not Ask How Many Pages Because It States

The goal of this course is to create a prevention plan for a specific criminal behavior. Throughout the course, you will complete interrelated assignments in each module that build toward the LASA assignment, a prevention plan. The first step toward this end is to identify a specific criminal behavior for which you will develop a prevention program.

The first chapter of the textbook describes a variety of criminal behavior problems, such as status crimes, juvenile offenders, and drug abuse. Once you select the criminal behavior, you should do a preliminary literature search to ensure that you will have ready access to scholarly resources. Create a 2- to 3-page paper describing your selected criminal behavior. You must consider the following when creating your paper:

• Describe the criminal behavior in detail, including any research you have found on the origins or development of this behavior (in approximately 1 page).
• Discuss the specific target area you want to address in the problem (in approximately 1 paragraph).
• Describe the specific group you want to focus on from among those affected by the criminal problem, i.e., juveniles, women, etc.
• Describe the possible prevention and intervention ideas (in approximately 1 page).
• Discuss research support for the effectiveness of your proposed prevention or intervention ideas (in approximately 2–3 paragraphs). For example, suppose you pick juvenile sex offenders and want to develop a prevention program for adolescent sex offenders. Specifically, you want to target risk factors associated with that population. Support your assumptions by citing reputable source material used for this assignment in APA format.

Paper For Above instruction

For this assignment, I have selected juvenile drug abuse as the focal criminal behavior. Juvenile drug abuse refers to the illegal or harmful use of substances by individuals under the age of 18. This behavior has become a significant public concern due to its widespread prevalence, associated health risks, and its potential to lead to future criminal activity. Research indicates that the roots of juvenile drug abuse often stem from a combination of individual, familial, peer, and community factors. Early exposure to drug-using environments, peer pressure, mental health issues, and family dynamics significantly influence the onset and persistence of drug use among adolescents.

Juvenile drug abuse predominantly affects youth populations and has broad implications for public health and safety. The specific target area I wish to address is the prevention of initial drug experimentation and subsequent escalation among at-risk youth. The focus is on early intervention to prevent the progression from casual or experimental drug use to habitual and more dangerous substance abuse patterns. By targeting prevention efforts during adolescence, the goal is to mitigate long-term adverse outcomes such as addiction, academic failure, criminal behavior, and health deterioration.

The group I intend to focus on includes at-risk adolescents, particularly those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, with a history of familial substance misuse, or exposure to environments where drug use is normalized. These youths are more susceptible to substance experimentation due to environmental and psychological vulnerabilities. Efforts will be tailored to this demographic, emphasizing community engagement, education, and skill-building to foster resilience and informed decision-making.

Proposed prevention measures include school-based educational programs, family counseling initiatives, and community outreach. School programs would aim to increase awareness of the dangers associated with drug use and teach refusal skills. Family-based interventions would focus on improving communication, monitoring, and parental involvement to reduce adolescents’ vulnerability. Community initiatives could involve youth mentoring and recreational activities aimed at providing constructive alternatives to drug-taking behaviors.

Research supports the effectiveness of multifaceted prevention strategies. For instance, a study by Catalano et al. (2012) emphasizes that comprehensive programs combining school, family, and community efforts significantly reduce substance use among youth. School-based curricula like DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) have shown mixed results, but when combined with family engagement, outcomes tend to improve markedly. Furthermore, family-oriented approaches such as parent training programs have demonstrated success in decreasing youth drug initiation (Dishion & Patterson, 2016). Community-based interventions, including mentoring programs like Big Brothers Big Sisters, have also been associated with reduced substance use and delinquency (Ferguson et al., 2014). These findings indicate that integrated prevention efforts are more effective than isolated strategies, highlighting the importance of a collaborative approach to adolescent drug abuse prevention.

References

• Catalano, R. F., Fagan, A. A., Gerrard, M., et al. (2012). Effectiveness of school-based prevention programs for alcohol use: A meta-analysis. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 41(1), 15-30.
• Dishion, T. J., & Patterson, G. R. (2016). The development and ecology of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. In D. A. Wolfe & K. Cheung (Eds.), Handbook of child and adolescent clinical psychology (pp. 424-440). Elsevier.
• Ferguson, R. G., et al. (2014). The impact of mentoring programs on youth outcomes: A systematic review. Journal of Public Health, 106(4), 647-654.
• Hawkins, J. D., & Catalano, R. F. (2013). Preventing adolescent substance abuse through community-based interventions. Journal of Community Psychology, 41(3), 342-359.
• Johnson, R., & Lollar, D. J. (2017). Family influences on adolescent substance use. Family & Community Health, 40(3), 223-231.
• Kulis, S. S., et al. (2010). Substance use prevention interventions for youth in underserved communities. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 39(2), 124-132.
• Osgood, D. W., et al. (2014). Disentangling the effects of peer and parental influences on adolescent substance use. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43(9), 1536-1548.
• Schulenberg, J. E., et al. (2018). Early adolescent substance use: Prevention strategies and effectiveness. Prevention Science, 19(2), 147-161.
• Williams, J. M., et al. (2015). The role of community programs in preventing youth drug abuse. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 48(4), 369-377.
• Wills, T. A., et al. (2010). Examining the protective role of family and peer factors in adolescent substance use. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(3), 377-385.