SOCIAL WORKERS' PERCEPTION OF JUVENILE CRIME PREVENTION IN NIGERIA : A CASE STUDY OF LAFIA TOWN, NASARAWA STATE.

This study sought to investigate social workers perception of juvenile crime prevention with the view to understanding juvenile crime preventive mechanism that are available in Nigeria and to use the perception of social workers as a yardstick for measuring the effectiveness of these mechanisms in reforming the offenders. Generally, juvenile delinquency is considered as law breaking by young people of the criminal codes regulating the behavior of young persons in the society. By this, it is expected that plethora approaches should be directed towards the prevention and treatment of juveniles within the ambit f Nigerian Criminal I Justice System. The study also explore existing literature and the concept of social work, the role of social work, the concept of crime, becoming juvenile criminal in | Nigeria society as well as crime prevention and the juvenile system as a whole. It i relied solely on the following theories; General strain theoryfSocial structure and Anomie) as well as social control paradigm (Labeling Theory) sin order to gain an indepth and objective outcome of the analysis.. The study used qualitative and quantitative method of data collection and analysis (that is), in-depth interview and | focus group discussion. The research was able to find out that the constraint in juvenile crime prevention situated within the family cycle. This was made evident in the perception of respondents that the family has a large impact on criminal behavior; where caring, loving, diligent, responsible and righteous parents do not generally produce children who are prone to engage in generalized problematic behavior. Most of the social workers interviewed agreed on the importance of a strong parent-child bond as one way of preventing young people from engaging in delinquent behavior. Hence, children who do not have good growth condition like getting love, protection and security from parent are more likely to commit crime. Thus, parents become a very important tool in taming the child, the research came to a conclusion that in itself is tied down to social disorganization in the society which contributes significantly to deviance behavior among young persons, and therefore recommended a general restructuring of all the basic institutions of the society to function effectively in the process of treating juveniles and their j reintegration in the society.