Youth Crime vs Youth Organized Sports
Introduction: The thesis for my data summative will focus on the idea of a possible correlation between youth organized sports and youth crime rates. Sports are able to teach youth discipline, honesty, character building and social skills. Since there are not many variables in the data being researched most data will be taken from case studies and examples. Although there are a lot of variables regarding youth crime it would take too much time and effort to try and pinpoint all the different factors affecting youth crime (socio-economic, cultural influences etc...) and instead we will focus on two major variables. The rate in which young people are committing crimes in an area and how much money is being put into organized sports and recreation. Hopefully if a correlation is found the use of organized sports can at least be attributed to the reduction of youth crime. The reason sports and recreational organizations are being used as a method to reduce youth crime rates is that punitive methods have been tried with little effect. In Ontario a “Zero Tolerance” policy. This resulted in the number of youths being charged for criminal offences tripling between 1989 and 1993. This may seem impressive however, there was no real reduction in youth crime. Therefore the focus should be on youth crime PREVENTION rather than youth crime
PUNISHMENT. It is believed that roughly 70% of all the money spent by Ontario in regards to youth crime is spent on incarcerating the offenders. Roughly 100 000$ a year is spent per offender.1 In short money is being spent in a failing system that is costing taxpayers tremendous amounts of money. Sports and recreation may not completely eliminate youth crime but if it shows any correlation with reducing crime rate it will be far more efficient than the current method of incarcerating many while preventing nothing.
Youth offenders usually come from poor socio-economic regions where they also tend to have lower education, lower income
PUNISHMENT. It is believed that roughly 70% of all the money spent by Ontario in regards to youth crime is spent on incarcerating the offenders. Roughly 100 000$ a year is spent per offender.1 In short money is being spent in a failing system that is costing taxpayers tremendous amounts of money. Sports and recreation may not completely eliminate youth crime but if it shows any correlation with reducing crime rate it will be far more efficient than the current method of incarcerating many while preventing nothing.
Youth offenders usually come from poor socio-economic regions where they also tend to have lower education, lower income
Bibliography: Page 1 Carmichael, David. "Youth Sport vs. Youth Crime Evidence that youth engaged in organized sport are not likely to participate in criminal activities." www.fairplayforchildren.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Oct. 2012. . Page 2 "Youth Violence." www.who.int/. World Health Organization , n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. . "SPORTS : Exercise Causes the Brain to Secrete Endorphins." ThinkQuest : Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Nov. 2012. . Page 3 "www.heacademy.ac.uk - /assets/hlst/documents/olympic_sig/."Higher Education Academy - Home. N.p., n.d. Web. 8 Nov. 2012.