Theories of Crime: Risk and Protective Factors for Young Offenders

This report discusses risk and protective factors for young offenders and their impact on patterns of adult offending. It defines risk and protective factors with examples and explains their importance in preventing criminal activities. The report also evaluates the importance of identifying these factors at an early stage and their impact on public services. It includes references to relevant studies and reports.

Theories of crime
(Task 2)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
Definition of risk factors and protective factors with examples:................................................3
Risk and protective factors that are associated to young people offending and why they are
important to patterns of adult offending supported with appendices;.........................................4
Critical evaluation to identify the importance of risk and protective factors at an early stage
and its impact on the public services: ........................................................................................5
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Juvenile is a term used in legal context for young offenders who are below the age of 18
and have the mentality and understanding in the context of children. The behaviour of youth can
have direct impact on the youth phase which is a vulnerable thing. There are various factors that
dictate the behaviour of youth in relation to violent activities which arise in individuals due to
societal factors which generates the factor of risk in youth. Person between 10 to 17 years is
stated as youth offender who may commit an offence. In legal context, such offenders are
known as child in conflict with law (Byrne, 2018). Children are separately punished with a
separate trial procedure. An offender who repeatedly commits offence is known as habitual
offender. These offenders are engaged in serious criminal activities and has the habit of
repeatedly committing the offence. The criminal behaviour of an individual is depicted from his
childhood which dictates his anti social behaviour which generates a risk factor in offenders at a
very young age. This report will cover the commission of crimes by young offenders and the
forming of habitual offenders. It will also cover the strategies for eradicating the risk factors that
lead to commission of crimes in youth with the evidence procured from media outlets, reports,
documentary, commentaries or videos.
TASK 2
Definition of risk factors and protective factors with examples:
Risk Factor
The problems of crimes can be evaluated by the risk and protective factors. These factors
help in evaluating the reasons of crimes that are being build in individuals or groups. The
negative impact of society are analysed by the risk factors. The capacity of individuals to
increase the criminal activity with violence in the society leads to create terror or fear in the
society with possibility of criminal conduct in an individual (Collins, and Murphy, 2022). There
are certain examples of risk factors which are mentioned below:
 Unemployment
 Poverty
 Racism
 Abandoning child

 Intoxication or Drug abuse
 Habitual offender
 Illiteracy
 Child in conflict with law
 Children in Correctional facility
 Mental illness
Protective factor
They are the positive force which helps an individual to promote the safety and integrity
of the society. It aims to reduce the crime rates and enforce the effective legal system to mitigate
the crimes in a civilised nation (Dick, Forsyth, Chen, Forsyth, Biggar Jr, and Burstein, .et.al
2019) . It ensures safe and healthy environment where people are free to live without any fear.
There are some examples which deals with protective factors which are mentioned below:
 Family and social integration
 Parental guidance
 Presence of positive attitude
 Active participation in social and cultural programmes
 Early child development
 Presence of essential resources and basic needs
Risk and protective factors that are associated to young people offending and why they are
important to patterns of adult offending supported with appendices;
The link between youth and crime is very much persistent which evokes the urge to do
things beyond the social boundaries and limitation for the youth offenders. The childhood of an
individual depicts his contribution in criminal activities with environment endured during the
early phase of childhood. The multi-dimensional nature of childhood can be recognised by the
branch of criminology which can help in identifying different crimes. The factors which affect
the lives of young people can be addressed with the help of an extensive study which may depict
the root of crime and the behaviour of criminals in order to prevent crimes (Guarnaccia, De Vita,
Sortino, and Giannone, .et.al 2020). These factors may relate to the surroundings of
neighbourhood, life around school, mental and physical facilities, social life around friends and

family, etc. These factors may help in analysing the criminal behaviour of the criminals with
their involvement in criminal activities.
The risk factors with the factors for prevention and protection of young individuals from
their involvement into the crime zone activity can be evaluated with the aid of Risk Factor
Prevention Model. The criminal behaviour of an individual can be can be prevented or managed
with the aid of such preventive model which may enable in intervening the personal space of
young people. According to the research of UK Youth Justice Board, it was recognised that there
are 22 factors which have directly affected and impacted the youth to do crime and involve in the
criminal activities. The traditional risk factors have made the nature of young people to be
offending towards others which is a very influential factor to identify the risk factor in criminal
activities (Haines, Brown, Javaid, Khan, Noblett, Omodunbi, Sadiq, Zaman, and
Whittington, .et.al 2018). The national and cross national survey has identified the age of young
offenders to be between the range of 8-16 years. Its main purpose was to recognise the influence
that has widely impacted the factors and to bring relevant changes according to the applications
of findings and thereby contribute for making major changes for prevention of the negative
influence of risk factors in order to make effective policies through the preventive measures.
Critical evaluation to identify the importance of risk and protective factors at an early stage and
its impact on the public services:
The possibility of negative outcome can be outlined with the help of identification of risk
factor which may further help in protecting or preventing the criminal activities at an early stage.
The generation of young people or youth are more prone towards the risk factors. The main
cause of risk factor can be identified by application of preventive interventions with the aid of
professional authorities. An individual can be accessed towards the risk factors through the
biological and psychological attributes. It is very essential to identify the risk factors that may
help in preventing the consequences with the aid of professionals. An individual may engage in
more unhealthy behaviour, with exposure to more risk factors which may not be beneficial for
the community.
The risk factors that need to be addressed at an early stage are Illiteracy, Consumption of
drugs, Poverty, Failure, Rejection, Lack of parental guidance and Impulsive behaviour of an
individual at an early stage (Heerde, and Hemphill, 2019). These measures should be taken to

prevent the undertaking of risk factors. The protective factors must be followed in order to
eliminate the risk factors by assuring proper livelihood and healthy surroundings to every
children and youth at every place in society.
The analysation of risk is very essential to identify the risk factors as they can impact or
influence the entire life of a person (Neil, O’Rourke, Ferreira, and Flynn, .et.al 2020). A person
can be highly influenced of risk factor due to the condition of abandonment and deprivation of
his basic needs which may cause mental disorder or disability in a person's life. According to the
report of The Guardian, which was surfaced on social media that out looked the criminal
activity of young offenders in causing risk to people and society. It was further recommended by
social media that offenders who are seriously involved in the cyber crime must be strictly
monitored to prevent the cyber crime. The report of an HM Inspectorate of Probation identified
that every one in four young people are responsible for the commission of crime or offence on
social media. It was further identified that in today's world, people are planning and executing
crimes at their homes rather than committing it at the corners of streets. This led to the facility or
service of a team that is focused on the addressing and identifying the offence of social media for
deployment of youth offenders.
A report of offences by youth was shown on social media through the report stated on
BBC Radio, which stated that the misuse of social media is been done by the young people
through the platforms of social media such as Facebook, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Instagram, which
are the leading social media platform on which mostly crimes are done. The argument was
based on the regularisation of activities on social media through the legal framework as the
implementation of monitoring of youth offending teams had no effect for the conduct of
activities on social media. The question of legality is still very ambiguous on the performance of
social media activities.
The report of Inspector on Youth Offending Teams stated the requirement of protection
of public from youth offenders. There are around hundreds of cases that are committed in
relation to sexual and other offences by the youth (Spiranovic, Hudson, Winter, Stanford,
Norris, Bartkowiak-Theron, and Cashman, .et.al 2021). The reason for committal of more crimes
on social media is due to the consuming of more time on social media which is causing some
serious and heinous crimes.

CONCLUSION
From the above report it is concluded that, the commission of crimes in young people can
be identified by their behavioural attribute during the early stage of childhood. The continuos
commitment of crimes incline the offenders to be habitual offenders. Juveniles or young
offenders are prosecuted or legally monitored in a very sensitive manner that may impart simple
punishments in comparison to grievous or harsh punishment. The behavioural conduct of child at
an early stage determines his conduct in relation to commission of offences. The availability of
risk factor can help in evaluating the risk before hand for the prevention of crime with the help of
protective factor. The misuse of social media is leading to commission of many cyber crimes
which is negatively influencing the youth or young people. There are various reports, study for
prevention of crimes by youth offenders.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Byrne, B., 2018. Troubled and troublesome children: Education, participation, and restoration.
In Children and Their Education in Secure Accommodation (pp. 3-20). Routledge.
Collins, J. and Murphy, G.H., 2022. Detection and prevention of abuse of adults with intellectual
and other developmental disabilities in care services: A systematic review. Journal of
Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 35(2), pp.338-373.
Dick, S.J., Forsyth, C.J., Chen, J., Forsyth, Y.A., Biggar Jr, R.W. and Burstein, K., 2019. School
and peers: Examining the influence of protective factors on delinquency and age of
onset. Deviant Behavior, 40(4), pp.476-483.
Guarnaccia, C., De Vita, E., Sortino, L. and Giannone, F., 2020. Links between adverse
childhood experiences, psychopathological symptoms and recidivism risk in juvenile
delinquents. European Journal of Criminology, p.1477370820941408.
Haines, A., Brown, A., Javaid, S.F., Khan, F., Noblett, S., Omodunbi, O., Sadiq, K., Zaman, W.
and Whittington, R., 2018. Assessing protective factors for violence risk in UK general
mental health services using the Structured Assessment of Protective
Factors. International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology, 62(12),
pp.3965-3983.
Heerde, J.A. and Hemphill, S.A., 2019. Exploration of associations between family and peer risk
and protective factors and exposure to physically violent behavior among homeless
youth: A meta-analysis. Psychology of violence, 9(5), p.491.
Neil, C., O’Rourke, S., Ferreira, N. and Flynn, L., 2020. Protective factors in violence risk
assessment: Predictive validity of the SAPROF and HCR-20V3. International journal
of forensic mental health, 19(1), pp.84-102.
Spiranovic, C., Hudson, N., Winter, R., Stanford, S., Norris, K., Bartkowiak-Theron, I. and
Cashman, K., 2021. Navigating risk and protective factors for family violence during
and after the COVID-19 ‘perfect storm’. Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 33(1),
pp.5-18.