Background of Young Offenders

What do we see?

• Many of these young people are not very successful in the regular school system. Their results are poor, they cannot cope with the system as it is and behavioural problems are rather the rule than the exception. As a result they frequently drop out of school.
• Also as a consequence of this many end up in unemployment or jobs that only last for a short period alternated with periods of unemployment. In general this group has a large distance to go before being ready for the labour market. Financial problems and a lack of fixed income is one of the results.
• A considerable number of these young people live or have a history of living in residential homes, often due to family and behavioural problems.
• The abuse of drugs and alcohol is high in this group with all the obvious problems related to that.
• Social skills are in general underdeveloped. Many of these young people have problematic contacts with adults, not accepting authority and having feelings of distrust in relations with adults. This also works the other way around. Many adults have problems to cope with these young people, avoid them as much as possible and don't accept their behaviour. As a result these young people often find themselves in an isolated position in society.
• A proportionally large percentage of this group comes from a different cultural background facing integration problems and all the connected challenges.

Case Study: Danny

Danny had been in and out of prison for many years. Most crimes were connected to his problems with alcohol. He had been brought up by his grand parents, but they were no longer prepared to have him stay in the house due to his anti-social behaviour.

Staff from his home organisation were involved with Danny's family and in particular had close liaison with the grandmother to explain about European Voluntary Service and the benefits it gave to young people. They ensured that Danny was able to return to the family home whilst awaiting his European Voluntary Service placement. Unfortunately due to his license conditions, he was not able to travel to Europe when originally intended. Before he was able to go at a later date, he unfortunately spent another period in prison.

However, perseverance, together with a number of preparation & pre-departure training events to keep him motivated, meant that Danny finally went on a 3 week European Voluntary Service placement in Poland in the autumn. The experience was around environment and conservation and Danny spent time working in a local community park to ensure that it was kept at its best for visitors who went there to relax. Danny stayed with a local family and spent his relaxation time with volunteers from other countries.

When he came back Danny said it was the best 3 weeks of his life! His grandmother said he was a changed person. Danny had been staying in the guest room before his departure, but together they converted the loft so that he could have his own space. His host organisation is now preparing Danny to travel to France for a 3 month European Voluntary Service experience. The first 2 months will be spent on a heritage project and the last one will be helping at an international camp. The National Agency is very interested in Danny's case and currently including him in a video to promote European Voluntary Service to this same target group in different settings.

• More on European Voluntary Service on the website of the European Commission http://ec.europa.eu/youth/index_en.html.

^^ top ^^

What's behind what we see?

So that's what we see. But what is the background of what we see? What makes it that these young people are acting like they do? When we want to do meaningful work with these young people it's important to answer that question in order to tailor our approach.

It must be said that of course these backgrounds can differ greatly.

• Personal problems
• Serious social and emotional problems can dominate these young people's lives which makes them face life in a way in which negative feelings and feelings of fear take over. These negative feelings preoccupy the young people to such an extent that all their actions and experiences are coloured. Failure anxiety can cause the young people not to start anything.
• Problems at home
• Conflicts at home, divorce, psychiatric problems or prolonged unemployment of one of the parents can completely preoccupy the young people. There just is no possibility to aim for his/her own goals. The young people seems to show indifference and lack of interest but mentally he/she is at home.
• Lack of self-confidence
• A lot of these young people have pasts which are often characterized by negative experiences and failure. They lacked the skills for tasks they had to face or were aiming too high. Consequently they have developed a sense of inferiority. The young people feel they have no control over their life and think they can do little to change their situation. A feeling of competence is missing which easily leads to passivity and feelings of apathy. The motivation to take anything on disappears, since the young people has the idea being incapable to manage his/her own life.
• Limited awareness of problem
• Some young people are not aware of their problems and therefore feel no need for change. For a number of young people insufficient awareness of problems goes hand in hand with the denial of them. These young people place their problems outside themselves, because they are afraid of confronting them. Feelings of insecurity are compensated by opposite behaviour: a big mouth and showing off. Not they, but the rest of the world has to change.
• Lack of motivation
• Sometimes these young people suffer from a lack of perseverance. They lack motivation, are put down by something futile and easily give up. By others this behaviour is often recognised as 'no backbone'. Such an attitude is stimulated by consistently experiencing failure. Being spoilt or overprotected at home can lead to the frustration tolerance developing insufficiently. The young people has not learned to postpone needs or drops out when goals striven for are too far away in the future.
• Negative experiences with school and school life
• Young people who prematurely leave school have often developed a strong aversion towards it. For them the subjects are too theoretical, the classes too large and the lessons too dull. The ties with school are limited and they do not see the use of school for future employment. These young people are not motivated by a certain future perspective, but are focussed more on immediate satisfaction of needs. This often leads to bad school results.
• Strong ties with the 'wrong' friends
• Bad school results and negative behaviour of young people evoke counter-reactions of the world around them. Teachers and classmates regard them as stupid, troublesome or dishonest and will treat them as such. This can lead to negative labelling and social isolation of the young people. Such a process increases the chances that the young people will seek alliance with deviant subgroups, causing reinforcement of all sorts of problematic behaviour. The need for recognition and appreciation brings these young people to connect themselves to reference groups who influence their behaviour negatively.

Adapted from 'Get Going' - Motivating young people to break out of deadlock. Klomp/Kloosterman/Kuijvenhoven

• The conclusion might be that you don't get what you see. Often these young people present themselves as 'cool', self-confident and forceful but under that image you'll find often a low self-esteem and many fears.

^^ top ^^