TO
THE QUESTION BY ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL-PEDAGOGICAL ACTIVITIES WITH MINORS FOR
PREVENTION OF NEGLECT AND OFFENSES
Zheinis
A. Zh., master student by specialty «Social Pedagogic and Self-cognition»,
Department
of Pedagogic and Management of Education,
Faculty
of Philosophy and Political Science,
Al-Farabi
KazNU, Almaty, the Republic of Kazakhstan
Scientific
adviser: Kassen G.A., associate Professor
В статье
описывается социально-педагогическая и профилактическая деятельность по
предупреждению безнадзорности и правонарушения несовершеннолетних в Республике
Казахстан. Основной идеей статьи является выявление основных причин роста
правонарушений среди подростков и раскрытие вопроса эффективной организации
социально-педагогической деятельности с несовершеннолетними по профилактике
безнадзорности и правонарушений.
Ключевые слова:
социально-педагогическая деятельность, профилактика, беспризорные, безнадзорные
несовершеннолетние подростки.
The article discusses social
pedagogical and preventive measures on prevention of
juvenile vagrancy and crime in the Republic of Kazakhstan. In particular,
the article aims to identify the main reasons behind the increase in crime
among teenagers and cover the issue of effective management of social
pedagogical activities with under-age children to prevent vagrancy and
offenses.
Key
words: social
pedagogical activities, prevention, vagrancy, vagrant minors.
One of the most urgent and socially significant challenges our society
faces today is a search for ways to decrease juvenile crime and increase the
effectiveness of its prevention. The necessity to address this issue stems
not only from the persistence of the criminal situation in the country, but
also due to the steady increase in the involvement of under-age
children in criminal groups organized by youth. Crime is becoming younger
and taking on a steady recurrent character. Moreover, such criminalization
deprives the society of the perspectives of social well-being and harmony in
the near future.
The main role in addressing this acute problem belongs to social pedagogic,
yet it can be solved only collectively with the engagement of a
full-fledged social movement. Still, integrated community efforts can be
accomplished only in the framework of scientifically established and
technologically advanced social pedagogical system of re-educating under-age
children through consistent pedagogical and educative preventive measures,
which can provide for the personality formation with right life
attitudes.
The process of re-education as well as general crime prevention acts as
the process of the inclusion of an individual in intellectual and
moral culture, on the one hand, and
the process of individual growth and correcting the behavior of
an individual, on the other. The technological revolution and its consequences
on the social life have led to the emergence of more effective tools to manage
the process of re-education of individuals. These opportunities are achieved:
- first of all, through qualitative changes of the re-educating
subjects, as not only pedagogues and social work specialists,
but also community efforts, work groups, culture institutions, press, radio,
television and cinematography take part in educative preventive
activities.
- second, through enhancing and extending educative and preventive
tasks, as social production and socio-cultural and political life
actively facilitate effective organization of the whole crime prevention
system specifically among under-age children, taking into account changing
conditions and specificities of various age groups and their occupation.
Most costs and shortcomings in education result from the absence of
proper system with individual approach, implementation of the educative
preventive process with specific offenders. It is important to
overcome limited understanding of the individual approach itself, which often
comes down to accounting for individual characteristics of boys and girls
with behavioral difficulties.
Individual prevention of crime includes corrective effects as one of its
elements, but not exclusively. This is a focused process of re-education
of an individual, which is designed to ensure that offenders formulate
right views and beliefs under the influence of educators and
community, master skills and habits of positive social behaviors and
develop their emotions and will, changing hereby their interests,
aspirations and inclinations. On the other hand, individual prevention is aimed
to eliminating unfavorable impacts of environment on specific individual. In
order to manage this process effectively, it is necessary to
choose preventive methods, which provide:
- development of moral conscience,
- formulation of skills and habits of positive behavior,
- strengthening willpower, which will help to confront antisocial
forces,
- social rehabilitation of microenvironment.
Nevertheless, it should be taken into account that re-education
of an under-age offender and formulation of positive skills, habits
and willpower are related to various, special spheres of psychological
activities and based on particular physiological factors, which cannot be ruled
out while choosing preventive methods.
Negative impact of microenvironment and life confusions on
a young man often lasts for a long time, changing his personality and
placing him on an antisocial path. Social educator’s timely intervention in
this process can prevent these negative effects on a boy or a girl, alter
their views and beliefs and channel their energy towards a socially useful
direction.
When subjective understanding, purposes and intentions of a juvenile
offender are identified and motives, beliefs, personal values are
assessed, it can be proceeded to a comprehensive formulation of a program
on educative preventive effect on the offender.
Preventive effects become optimal, if it takes into account
specificities and tendencies of personal development and concurs with its
internal motivations. In that case, the process of external preventive impacts
merges with the process of self-education and self-development. Naturally, the
results of such concurrence are maximized. This effect of crime prevention very
often depends not only on external factors, but also on the ability to bring
the external forces in line with the specificities of a personality
[1].
According to the data provided by the Committee on the Legal
Statistics and Special Accounts of the State Office of Public Prosecutor of the
Republic of Kazakhstan, approximately eight thousand juvenile offenders are
detained annually, and almost half of them become subject to criminal
prosecution. Over the last eight years, more than 70,000 minors have been
placed in the Centers of Temporary Isolation, Adaptation and Rehabilitation of
Minors because of neglect and homelessness, and 10,796 of them have been
officially registered in children’s homes and residential schools
[2].
Male offenders predominate among juvenile offenders. Particularly,
this can be attributed to the difference in social relationships with
the environment, in which an individual develops, and in conditions
of moral forms, and to difference in personality and in relationships between
typical conflict situations. Predominance of male among juvenile offenders is
related to psychological and mental characteristics of the gender, differences
in historically established behavior patterns and upbringing between boys
and girls, high adventuresomeness and other common male characteristics.
According to the statistics, male offenders comprise 90% and female
comprise about 9% of all juvenile offenders. However, in past years, the
increase in the numbers of crimes committed by female juveniles can be
widely observed. It is no coincidence that the numbers of female juveniles
involved in prostitution, alcoholism and an immoral lifestyle have also been on
the rise, as it consequently leads to criminal behavior [3].
Studying juvenile offenders according to their place of
residence demonstrates that 75% of them come from urban areas and 25%
from rural areas. This difference might depend on socio-economic factors
as well as traditions and customs, historically established in cities and
countryside [4].
Judicial literature often points to the correlation between an
offender’s personality and his or her education level [5]. Hereby, potential
abilities of a juvenile offender’s personality can be judged according to
his performance of social functions that, to a certain extent, are
contingent on the level of his interests and culture. Speaking of the
education level of juvenile offenders, it should be noted that it is as a
rule lower than their peers’ are. Many of them have been held
back a year, dropped out from schools, vocational training colleges or
auxiliary schools.
More than 30% of juvenile offenders have neither ever studied nor worked;
moreover, there has been a rising trend of the numbers of unemployed and
uneducated participants of criminal offenses.
The problem of unemployment among minors remains to be serious in the
country, and the prognosis on this issue looks bleak. In this regard, the
numbers of unemployed and not studying juvenile offenders will continue to
rise.
Main elements of the system of preventive effects are
a thorough study of predisposed minor offenders; identification of
principal measures and activities, through which objectives could be achieved;
design of rational methods of organization and control, and determination of
the impacts of individual preventive effects [6].
It should be noted that educative activities of administrative
authorities on juvenile offenders are reaching governmental proportions, which
can be attributed to the fact that one of the collateral successes
of building a democratic state and civil society in the Republic
of Kazakhstan is upbringing the youth as a guarantee of the future
statehood. The lack of special legislation with objective regulations of
all necessary conditions hinders preventive measures on juvenile vagrancy
and the enhancement of effectiveness of state activities in this direction [7].
Thereby, child vagrancy remains to be one of the highly acute
problems that the state and society face today. The issue requires
implementation of more preventive activities, the results of which could
help to monitor families in high-risk categories. And minors and their
parents should be sent to social rehabilitation, where experts will assist
them to overcome difficult life situations, which consequently can lower the
risk of juvenile vagrancy. It is significant to ensure that a child
in adolescence, when he or she can still be corrected, has an opportunity to
communicate with an expert, who can listen to him or her and help to solve
difficulties encountered.
Main reasons of child vagrancy:
1) increase in social deprivation of families, decrease in their moral
level;
2) distancing children with difficulties from schools;
3) criminalization of an environment, rise in crime among adults;
4) increase in the number of citizens deprived of parental rights, which
predetermines widespread abandonment of children and juvenile vagrancy;
5) mass violations of children rights.
The combination of these factors generates dangerous tendencies among
minors and youth, which suggests the need to improve the state system of
juvenile vagrancy and crime prevention and protection of their
rights.
Timely practice of preventive activities is built on
the principles of security concepts and includes an extensive network
of various sectoral agencies offering social legal, psychological,
medical and pedagogical help to children families in high-risk categories.
It is necessary not only to improve the work of law
enforcement agencies on the protection of children and minors from physical,
psychological and sexual assaults and from involvement in criminal
and antisocial activities, but also to enhance socio-pedagogical and
preventive measures of schoolteachers, social pedagogues and school
psychologists on averting juvenile vagrancy and crime.
References:
1. Galaguzova
M.A., Galaguzova Y.N., Shtinova G.N., Tischenko E.Y, D’akonov B.P. Social Pedagogic: Course of Lectures:
Training Manual for Students. 2001
2. Online
source: http://online.zakon.kz
3. Online
source: http://newzz.kz, mvd.kz.
4. Igoshev
K.E. Psychology of Juvenile Crime.
2000, p.238
5. Domova
A.I. Socio-psychological Aspects
of Juvenile Crime. Judicial Literature, 2000. p.160
6. Melnikova
E.B. How to Protect a Teenager
from Conflict with Law. Bek, 1998. p.211
7. Online
source: http://group-global.org