Juveniles' Perception of Drug Crime Among Young People

Abstract

Modern society is affected by the problem of drug addiction and drug crime on a global and national level, and the damaging consequences of drug abuse are extremely serious and widespread. The fact that minors are more often than before in the role of perpetrators of criminal acts related to narcotic drugs contributes to the additional seriousness of the overall situation. As the trend of drug crime among young people in the last few years indicates growing of this phenomenon in our society, the focus of our work will be determining the importance of certain factors on the perception of young people about drug crime. In order to achieve this task, we conducted a survey among high school students whose goal was to examine the influence of family environment and school environment factors, and also influence of certain media content on their perception of drug crime. A hundred students participated in this research. The research results show that the socio-demographic characteristics of young people do not have a significant impact on their perception of drug crime. The school environment, on the other hand, has a more dominant influence, due to the existence of convenient places for buying and selling drugs in close proximity to school, as well as the presence of people who "deal" drugs. In addition, minors are strongly influenced by their peers who previously had some experiences with the abuse of narcotic drugs. The research results indicate a high level of liking media content about drug crime among young people, but also an insufficiently developed awareness among them about the impact that such content has on them.