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At Risk Youth

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At Risk Youth
At Risk Youth Basketball Diaries

Liberty University
May 8, 2014

Abstract
At-risk youth is an epidemic in society and an issue that not only is troublesome for the at-risk teens themselves but affects their family systems, their peer clusters and the broader community that they live in. It is not necessary to look far to find at-risk youth in your own community, but the media is also filled with examples of at-risk youth. We can look to the media as a case-study of sorts as we analyze a variety of issues related to at-risk youth. This paper analyzes the character Jim Carroll from the 1995 movie entitled the Basketball Diaries. Jim fits the profile of an at risk youth and during the course of the movie the audience follows him on a downward spiral which includes truancy, violence, substance abuse and engaging in risky sexual behaviors. Keywords: At risk youth, substance abuse, delinquency

Jim Carroll an At- Risk Youth
This paper profiles the main character in the movie the Basketball Diaries. In the movie, released in 1995 Leonardo DiCaprio, plays Jim Carroll, a troubled youth. The movie was actually adapted from Jim Carroll’s best selling novel which is a true story highlighting his struggles and addictions. During the two-hour movie the story of Jim Carroll’s life and his many struggles as a troubled teen unfolds before our eyes. Jim can be classified as an at-risk youth since he is raised to a single parent in a lower socio-economic, urban neighborhood. During the course of the movie he faces a series of setbacks that leads him to make a series of bad decisions. As with many adolescents that make bad decisions his bad decisions lead to other bad decisions. Without any interventions from a positive role model in his life he falls further and further into addiction and other harmful behaviors. By the end of the movie Jim finds himself in a perilous degenerative state. He drops out of school,


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