Preventing Narcotics Abuse Among Adolescents as a Means of Controlling Street Crime

Abstract

Narcotics abuse among adolescents is a social problem that not only adversely affects physical and psychological health but may also increase adolescents' involvement in various forms of street crime, including intergroup brawls and theft. This study aims to analyze the relationship between adolescent narcotics abuse and the emergence of street crime and to formulate an effective preventive approach from a holistic, family- and community-based perspective. This study employs normative legal research using statutory and conceptual approaches, with the legal materials analyzed qualitatively through a descriptive-analytical method. The findings demonstrate that narcotics abuse constitutes a criminogenic factor capable of increasing the risk of adolescent involvement in street crime through social learning processes, weakened social control, and psychological changes that impair self-control. This relationship is reflected in the increased tendency of adolescents to participate in intergroup brawls as a result of deviant group solidarity and aggressive behavior, as well as in theft driven by the economic need to sustain narcotics consumption. Accordingly, the prevention of narcotics abuse cannot be undertaken in a fragmented manner; it requires a holistic approach integrating the strengthening of the family as the primary mechanism of social control with an enhanced community role in creating a healthy social environment. Such an approach is expected to reduce narcotics abuse while simultaneously controlling street crime among adolescents.