Children and youth are particularly vulnerable to getting drawn into criminal and corrupt activities. Practitioners and institutions can play a crucial role in the early identification and prevention of delinquent behavior among young people. To foster their knowledge and expertise on this topic, the OSCE, in co-operation with youth crime prevention initiative Kurve Kriegen under the Ministry of Interior of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany, gathered law enforcement representatives from Albania and Tajikistan for a joint study visit to Düsseldorf to exchange best practices.
The study visit enabled practitioners to learn how to leverage collaboration between government agencies, schools and social services to prevent at-risk youth from becoming involved in criminal and corrupt activities. Participants also strengthened their knowledge of effective approaches to promoting a culture of lawfulness and integrity among young people from an early age.
"Kurve Kriegen's experience once again showed us that crime prevention among youth people is most effective when addressed at an early age through multi-stakeholder engagement" said Klaudia Hasanllari, Director of the National Youth Crime Prevention Center in Albania. "Integrating the methods learned through this study visit into the youth crime prevention work in Albania is an ambitious plan we aim to implement," she said.
Dilshod Barotiyon, a representative of the Drug Control Agency under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan, said: "Through this study visit we learned that fostering a culture of lawfulness among youth requires the adoption of a co-ordinated set of measures and actions by multiple government bodies, social workers and educational institutions".
"According to our research, one multiple offender causes up to 1.7 million euro in social follow-up costs by the age of 25, which makes the issue of preventing youth engagement in crime from an early age extremely important and relevant" said Christopher Ursuleack, Criminologist at the Kurve Kriegen initiative. "We are thus honored to be able to share our best practices on juvenile delinquency prevention with our colleagues from Albania and Tajikistan to address this issue."
As a follow-up to the study visit, the representatives will discuss the possibility of a partial replication of the Kurve Kriegen model in Albania and Tajikistan to strengthen early identification and prevent at-risk youth from becoming involved in illicit activities.
The study visit was held in the framework of the OSCE-wide multi-year project "Enhancing youth crime and drug use prevention through education on legality and awareness campaigns addressing threats of organized crime and corruption", implemented by the OSCE's Transnational Threats Department and the OSCE Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities. The project is funded by Germany and Italy, with additional support from Andorra, Finland and Poland.
