Authorities in Shanghai are focusing on crime prevention among children of migrant workers as part of efforts to make the streets safer.
"Juvenile criminal cases involving migrants have grown rapidly in recent years and now account for a majority of Shanghai's juvenile delinquency, posing a great challenge for local juvenile education departments and social workers," Cai Zhong, director of the Shanghai Community Juvenile Affairs Office, said at a recent press conference.
The city reported 2,625 cases of juvenile delinquency last year, an increase of 56 percent from the figures in 2004.
Officials said a major cause for concern is the city's five to six million migrant population, whose children are often left alone, poorly supervised and run an extremely high risk of becoming involved in criminal activities.
"High mobility and unstable community relationships among such a group of juveniles may cause some of them to commit crimes," an official from the Shanghai Juvenile Reformatory said.
More than half of total juvenile convicts in the city were jailed for stealing, robbery, assault or rape, he said. Most of the young criminals come from Anhui, Jiangxi or Jiangsu provinces.
He hopes the success achieved with local youths can be repeated with migrant juveniles.
"Due to years of education and guidance by local government and communities, the current rate of delinquency among Shanghai's juveniles is nearly half the 2004 levels," Cai said.
"Now such prevention work and guidance should be extended to the children of migrant workers."
According to Shanghai Community Juvenile Affairs Office, more education programs aimed at migrant workers' children will be introduced this year to help prevent delinquency at an early stage. A special legal education campaign will also be introduced soon in local migrant schools to improve migrant juveniles' legal and moral awareness.
Similarly, a follow-up supervision system is being planned for juveniles who are released from prison to prevent them from committing crimes again.
(China Daily July 21, 2009)
