Youth Empowerment: A Criminological Approach to Crime Awareness and Prevention at North Malaysia

Abstract

The study raised awareness on cyber-crime, sexual offenses, and drug abuse among the youth at Polytechnic Tuanku Sultanah Bahiyah. The study also assessed how much knowledge and understanding this age group had on crime, prevention, and victimization. Globally, youth are the most perpetrators of crime, Malaysia included, yet this is the age group that mostly lacks knowledge and understanding of what is criminal or not. The study took a seminar approach to address 100 participants using lecturing, open discussions, teaching aids, and dramatization of concepts. The study used a survey method using questions constructed by the seminar presenters to assess how much knowledge the youth had on crime. The study gathered that 50% of male and 20% of female participants had general information about cyber-crime in the form of cyberbullying mainly from harassment of themselves and or peers on social media platforms. On drug abuse, 100% of the males and 90% of females knew about drug abuse generally, and 60% of the males and 50% of females knew about the long and short-term effects of drug abuse. On sexual offenses, 60% of males and 80% of females generally knew about sexual abuse crimes. Future studies are recommended to hold such crime awareness programs in other locations for this age group in Malaysia.