building safer communities (Coursework Sample)

Working towards safer communities Student’s Name: School Affiliation: Date: Abstract Safety is a human right as it is a precondition for human development, enhanced quality of life, and improved productivity overall. Community safety is imperative if people are going to feel safe rather than live in fear, which could influence the economic development as well as the people themselves through hindering their potential. This is acute for vulnerable groups in the community who are at increased likelihood being at the wrong end of an unsafe environment. Thus, it becomes increasingly important for a community to create a working party to aid in building a safer community in which all residents can prosper. This requires increased focus on vulnerable groups as well as concerted effort from stakeholders to contribute to the development of a safe environment. The wellbeing of vulnerable groups including children, youth, women, as well as the elderly is often a concern when a community safety framework is developed. Youths are especially at increased risk of engaging in unsafe behavior and practices due to such social problems as poverty and environment, and focusing on them is likely to address most factors contributing to an unsafe community environment. Prospering individuals mean a thriving community because safety and security are increasingly linked to socio-economic development as well as equality in communities. Safety fears should be eliminated through having a comprehensive safety or security strategy in the community. Introduction The aim of creating a safety plan for communities is to create an environment in which all persons live safely, partake in development and maintaining a safe environment, as well as feel safe from violence and crime. This also includes the desire to have equal access as well as resource to quality services when affected by violence and crime. It becomes evident that community safety plans are intended to increase not only safety of citizens, but also their health and wellbeing through focusing on factors contributing to crime and well as violence. More so, the wellbeing of vulnerable groups including children, youth, women, as well as the elderly is often a concern when a community safety framework is developed. These groups are often identified as at increased risk of being exploited especially when the environment they live in is unsafe, which often involves socio-cultural and economic factors that disadvantage them altogether. Indeed, safety in a community is commonly measured through the extent to which vulnerable groups feel and are safe from violence as well as crime. Principally, safety relates to the state of a region and it can be determined through the real as well as perceived risk of victimization (Rogers, 2015). It can be understood that an unsafe environment relates to factors typified through the significant violence and crime prevalence. This draft paper presents a strategy to provide a safe environment for youths in a community. Youths, as a focus group for a safety framework in a community, translates to effort to address root causes of present and future safety problems. The term youth is used loosely and it has been described to refer to the years when an individual is young and when she or he is yet to become an adult. This period is often characterized through growth and development in a person’s life. Key issues to be addressed Crime Among the key issues to be addressed for the strategy to provide a safe environment for youths, involve crime and anti-social behavior. Crime against and by youths is major safety concern for a community especially because this group is often viewed as the future of the society. Community crime prevention is also termed as neighborhood crime prevention. By far and large, crime prevention among youths is increasingly targeted at local, identifiable entities including neighborhoods and this means that the term community crime prevention is utilized even when undertaken on a citywide basis. Among youths, community crime prevention aims directly to affect such intervening constructs as community environment, social cohesion, as well as surveillance. What is more, community crime prevention attempts to influence community cohesion, crime levels, as well as the fear of crime. Examples of community crime prevention programs for youths include educational programs, anti-drugs activities, and social events. It becomes evident that crime as an issue to be included in the framework to create a safe community is increasingly vital because it is concerned with other socio-economic areas such as education, which may contribute to safety levels in a community. Community crime prevention is an appealing area for the safe community framework because it is increasingly concerned with what can be described as a common sense approach to crime among youths. This is because crime comes across as a wide-ranging issue for the community with regard to safety, and thus calls for increased human capital to deal with it successfully. Indeed, human capital has been demonstrated as a policy as well as program instrument, which means that human capital has come to be viewed as a key ingredient in law enforcement-citizen neighborhood interventions. Social capital’s role in youth crime prevention has been highlighted in past studies in troubled neighborhoods such as United States’ Chicago, which witnessed promotion of interventions linked to social capital (Sampson and Raudenbush, 2000). This involved the use of social capital as an instrument to reduce youth street crimes as well as disorder, which seemed to have contributed to on reducing violence and crime in the neighborhood. Crime prevention among youth is increasingly important in creating a safe community because it looks into some precursors that contribute to crime by youths including opportunity, availability of law enforcement personnel, and education among others. Drug abuse and alcoholism The other issue to be addressed when developing a strategy for youth to provide a safe environment involves drug abuse and alcoholism. Drug and alcohol use by youths affects community safety including safety at family and personal level. Abuse of these substances is often associated with increased anti-social behavior including violence as well as crime. Risk factors specific for youths with regard to substance abuse must be considered when designing a framework for developing safe communities. Such factors include access to drugs and social circles, which have been identified as contributors to substance abuse among youths. In fact, it has been claimed that communities in which there is high prevalence of substance abuse among youths safety levels plummet noticeably as this group is increasingly to engage in antisocial behavior including hooliganism, theft, mugging, violence, rape, and drunken driving among others (Corrado et al, 2005). It follows that targeting the issue of substance abuse among youths is increasingly vital for communities seeking to develop a safe environment for all persons. More often than not, prevention programs targeted at youths with regard to substance abuse prevention seek to enhance protective factors as well as minimize risk factors. Protective factors relate to those linked to reduced potential for substance use, and risk factors relate to those that make substance abuse more likely. It has been speculated that for persons who start abusing substances at youthful ages, a number of risk factors may raise the likelihood of continued as well as problematic use throughout their lives (Caputo & Vallée, 2010). Such a situation raises the overall chances of youths to engage in crime and violence, which creates an unsafe community environment. Some of the risk factors for substance abuse among youths include negative peer association, false belief about the prevalence of substance abuse, abusive parenting, as well as feelings of self-worth. It is beyond doubt that these risk factors are rooted in socio-economic challenges facing youths, which demonstrates the need for proper consideration even as a framework for community safety is developed. More, responding to the risk behavior contributing to substance abuse prior they become problematic in a community is challenging. It must be noted that risk factors do not necessarily determine substance abuse among youths. Yet, it has been claimed that risk factors have a cumulative influence in which the more risk factors youths are exposed to the increased the likelihood they will engage in violent or delinquent behavior. The implication is that the community seeking to create a safe environment for its inhabitants must seek to limit the risk factors its youths are exposed to simply because the number as well as type of risk factors influences an individual’s risk of substance abuse. For instance, a youth growing up in family an environment in which substance abuse is common increases their likelihood of substance abuse. Stakeholders and the client group The client group targeted through strategy to create a safer community involves youths. As identified above, youth as a term is used loosely and it has been described to refer to the years when an individual is young and when she or he is yet to become an adult. This period is often characterized through growth and development in a person’s life. In addition, the client group is often viewed to be at a crossroad in life and the group is typified through joblessness, school dropout, need for independence, as well as need for family among other socio-economic needs. Such as a situation has been found to place youths at increased risk of engaging in crime as well as violence and thus creating an unsafe environment in a community. In fact, past studies have demonstrated that communities that have considerably high levels of jobless and uneducat...