Wednesday 24 / April / 2024
Muscat: Initiatives to reduce juvenile crime in Oman have proved successful, with the rate of theft by minors at its lowest for two years.
The number of thefts committed by juveniles (children between 9 and 18) in 2018 dropped to 143 from 173 the year before, according to the Public Prosecution. Assistant Prosecutor General Mohammed Al Marzouqi, an official spokesman for the PP told Times of Oman:
“The most common cases in both 2018 and 2017 were theft cases. According to Public Prosecution reports, the number of juvenile criminals in 2018 is lower than it was in 2016.”
Asked about the reason for the drop in thefts, as well as a general decline in the number of cases over the years, the official said: “We attribute the decrease to higher efficiency in the Ministry of Social Development’s procedures regarding juvenile crime prevention, alongside the high levels of security deployment by the Royal Oman Police. In addition to that, the Ministry of Education has established summer centres with activities for the children, which absorb a significant number of students.
“The Public Prosecution has also raised the efficiency of its procedures when dealing with juveniles in order to suit the legal intervention needed. This includes conducting social research and submitting recommendations for the best precautionary measures for each individual case. The Public Prosecution has also spread awareness using official and social platforms, as well as seminars and lectures held in schools, institutes, colleges, and private and civil organizations. All these efforts have raised awareness among juveniles and their guardians, resulting in lower crime rates,” he said.
An official from the ROP spoke to Times of Oman about some of the work being done to try and prevent children becoming involved in criminality.
The official said: “The Royal Oman Police has worked in multiple initiatives to raise awareness, starting with our collaboration with the Ministry of Education in 2016 to visit schools and discuss crime prevention with them.
“It is extremely important to make minors aware of the real dangers of committing crimes or that some of their behaviour is illegal and how it can cause harm to them and others. We also warn them about the crimes themselves and explain what punishments exist”, he added.
The increased awareness programmes conducted by the authorities have been praised by staff in Omani schools, who thought that the work would stop juveniles from committing crimes.
An educational counsellor working at a public school said that one student completely changed his life choices after listening to the ROP.
The counsellor said: “I had one student who ditched school and had lied to his parents by telling them that he had a part time job in the evenings. It turned out that he was going out shoplifting, and when we found out we sat him down and gave him what advice we could and tried to support him. He attended some of the talks by the ROP where he learned about the dangers of his actions and benefited from them in his behaviour.
A very large impact
“This work by the ROP thankfully had a very large impact on the students and we (the faculty) felt like they were a major contributor to decreasing the number of issues we saw.”
According to the counsellor, his school was visited multiple times each term. “We would get visits from the Royal Oman Police, who came to talk to kids about combating drugs and how dangerous these substances are.
They also spoke to students about thefts such as shoplifting and how stealing can harm both society around them and the students themselves.
“They explained that spending your time in criminal activity would have an impact on your mentality and even your grades at school. You can end up becoming a burden on society. The ROP visited us twice per semester and sometimes sat in classes with the students,” he added.
According to the counsellor, crimes such as theft could prove disastrous to the student’s future.
