A study on the causes of juvenile delinquency and its prevention by the community

Juvenile Delinquency is one of the serious problems where almost all the societies of the world are facing and Meghalaya, Shillong is not an exception. The present research study in Meghalaya, Shillong aims to explore the causes that lead children or youths to commit offenses and how as a community we can take preventive measures to help in curbing the rise of juvenile offenses. Exploratory research design was used for this study. The samples for this study were 26 respondents who was supposed to be Teachers, Headman, Police, Officers from the Juvenile Observation Home, Social Workers and Teachers but only 18 of them responded and out of the 18 respondents 7 of them were teachers and 11 of them belongs to the police department. A Semi-structured Questionnaire and thematic analysis was used for data collection and analysis. After the study was conducted, it was found out that the major causes that leads children to commit offences are Peer pressure, Adolescence phase (Emotional instability and personality), financial instability, Environmental factors (Family background, parental skills and surroundings) and Social Media. It was also found out that Education plays a major role in shaping the beliefs system and moral values and that Community and schools can come up with awareness programmes, role plays and counselling to help the youths to learn how to engage in positive self-appraisal, deal with conflict and aggression.