Assume the role of a social science researcher in charge of developing a new crime prevention program targeted toward juveniles in the K–12 school system. Review current crime prevention programs that target juveniles and adults. There are several crime prevention programs that are designed for adults and which are also in K–12 schools nationwide with a standardized curriculum (i.e., Neighborhood Watch, D.A.R.E. and G.R.E.A.T.) with many more programs created at the local level (i.e., Citizens Academy, Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and YMCA after school programs are unique to the community).
Identify three programs currently being utilized in communities and in the K–12 school system, national, state, or local programs. Compare and contrast the programs in terms of goals and objectives, target population (e.g., who is receiving and participating in the program), and how and by whom the programs are delivered (i.e., taught by law enforcement officers, school counselors, individuals outside of the school system, etc.). Based on these comparisons, explain which elements you would place in your program and how your program will be delivered to the students.
Create a proposal for a new crime prevention program that targets juveniles and determine how you will evaluate its effectiveness. Use elements of the three crime prevention programs you researched or come up with completely different components.
In the analysis of how your program will deter juvenile delinquency, you will want to use data from your three comparison programs to support your new program. For example, how many juveniles are enrolled in the program? In order to deliver the best programming possible for juveniles in the K–12 school system, calculate the optimal ratio of staff to the target population, based on the average ratio of the comparison programs.
Your analysis should specifically identify the data source and include a summary of the data.
Specifically address how the data was used to inform your thinking on the development of your new program (i.e., how you used the data to solve a real-world problem).
Create an 8 page word document to include the following:
• Identify three crime prevention programs currently being utilized in communities and found in the K–12 school system, either national, state or local programs.
• Tell about each program, explaining its goals, target population (i.e., adults, elementary school kids, 5th graders only, kids in each grade level, etc.), and how/where it is delivered.
• List and explain the pros and cons of each program.
• Compare each program to the others.
• Discuss the differences in methods used in the programs between youth and adults.
• Tell how successful you believe each program has been and justify your opinions.
• Explain which elements of each program you would include in your program and why you feel they are important.
• Who is your target population, what are your goals, and how will your program be implemented?
• Explain your program, detailing the elements of it and why it will be effective.
• Describe how the program’s effectiveness will be analyzed and how the objectives will be evaluated.
• Specify how deterrence will be measured and what will be considered effective deterrence.
