With so much political and media focus on youth crime lately, a groundbreaking study has revealed the long-term success of early prevention initiatives and community support for young children and families on reducing rates of involvement in serious youth crime.
The Pathways to Prevention project was a collaboration between Griffith University, Education Queensland and Mission Australia which operated from 2002 until 2011, with the project team finding an enriched preschool program reduced the number of court adjudicated youth offenders by more than 50 per cent, and when combined with a support program for parents and families, up to 100 per cent.
Run in a disadvantaged Brisbane region, four-year-old children attending two of seven local preschools received an enhanced curriculum focused on communication and oral language skills, delivered by specialist teachers working alongside regular classroom teachers and in close partnership with parents.
Children who received the enhanced curriculum were more ready for school, had improved classroom behaviour throughout primary school, and were 50 per cent less likely to be involved in serious youth crime by age 17.
The corresponding family support program was also offered for several years following, involving more than 1000 families and nearly 1500 children aged 4-11 years.
This offered a range of services including counselling, mediation and practical assistance aimed at empowering parents and improving their capabilities, plus support services from community workers with relevant cultural backgrounds.
While family support alone did not reduce youth offending, its combination with the school-based program proved highly effective.
Lead researcher Dr Jacqueline Allen said the findings demonstrated the importance of early prevention.
"The power of early childhood education combined with support for families should not be under-estimated," she said.
"Programs like this work by levelling the playing field and improving the lives of children early in their developmental pathways, with those pathways including events and experiences that follow on from each other, or cascade, across the course of life.
"By addressing the root causes of youth crime through preventive measures, we can create safer communities and better futures for our children."
While much media, political and public conjecture recently has leaned towards detaining youth offenders and the catchy 'adult crime, adult time' mantra, co-researcher Emeritus Professor Ross Homel said expensive, punitive youth crime policies do not make the community safer.
"Our study shows it is possible to address some root causes of serious youth crime while respecting children's human rights," he said.
"This requires recognising the developmental pathways and linked events and experiences from early childhood that lead to crime and enhancing life conditions very early in that journey.
"The key is supportive, non-punitive strategies that improve children's life chances, implemented cost-effectively through existing systems including schools and primary care.
"Improving children's life chances not only prevents crime, it improves educational and employment outcomes, and mental and physical health."
Key Findings:
- The enriched preschool (prep) program reduced the likelihood of participants being involved in serious youth crime by more than 50 per cent by the age of 17.
- Of the children whose families received additional support alongside the enriched curriculum, none were involved in youth crime.
- By the time participants were in their teenage years, the rate of youth offending in the program's region was 20 per cent lower than in comparable low socioeconomic areas in Queensland.
Moving forward, the researchers would like to see similar prevention initiatives incorporated into early childhood education systems.
"Efforts across the country are devoted to intervention with children identified as 'at risk' in some way," Professor Homel said.
"In Queensland however, there is an over-reliance on punishment and youth detention which is often very harmful for children and of no preventative value.
"We're not saying what we did with Pathways to Prevention needs to be replicated exactly, but our findings show it could certainly be used as a model to achieve similar positive outcomes.
"We do need more developmental initiatives in disadvantaged communities that are open to everyone, are controlled by the local community as far as possible, are based on good evidence, and don't stigmatise people."
