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Just over a dozen years ago, I wrote a special report for THE FUTURIST entitled “Youth at Risk: Saving the World’s Most Precious Resource” (March-April 1997). The report outlined the growing problems of children and adolescents and offered an eight-point plan to save these youth. How far have we come since then, and how much more work is there to do for the tiffany jewelry on sale youth? This article assesses our previous work and offers a twenty-firstcentury approach to the issue.To add perspective to the previous analysis, I enlisted support from a Delphi panel composed of members of Police Futurists International (PFI) and the Futures Working Group (FWG, composed of PFI members plus FBI officers and academics). The Delphi asked participants to answer two questionnaires and provide their own ideas as to what belonged in a strategic plan to ameliorate the youth-at-risk dilemma.Factors That Put Youth at Risk

As a first step, I asked the Delphi group to analyze the importance of risk factors that were identified in the 1997 report. The questionnaire included a 10-point Likert scale for judging the relevance of each of a dozen problems. The most critical factors, according to the group, are teenage pregnancy, child abuse, chronic truancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and crime and delinquency, all of which scored 8.5 or above on the scale. Also cited were lack of commitment to the norms/rules/laws of society, lack of hope and faith in the future (a belief that the future can be better), dropping out discount tiffany pendants school, poor health care, homicide and suicide, unemployment or underemployment, and poverty.

Delphi members were also asked to add their own views on important factors. Most often mentioned was gang involvement (receiving an average 8.7 rating), followed by broken homes, bullying or being bullied, lack of belief in a higher power, lack of social skills, physical limitations and handicaps, and mental illness. One problem mentioned often, but not rated, was “boredom” – a factor related to many other problems, from “gang as family” to school truancy and dropouts.”I see all of these problems as symptoms of a larger problem – people not prepared to be parents having children,” said PFI/ FWG respondent William Maki, deputy chief of police in Waynesboro, Virginia. “Children require inexpensive jewelry oversight, minute- by-minute efforts by parents to help the children grow into productive members of society.”The State of Risk: A World of Differences

In declaring all children to be at risk, Family First Aid held: “Children will be exposed to ’sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll’ at a very early age. Teens will know other kids that do drugs, drink alcohol, or smoke cigarettes. Some parents will do all they can to raise their kids right – and their kids may still make poor choices. The statistics we have gathered are amazing. At risk youth can be either sex, any race, and any age. Each ‘group’ has a different area where they are at risk, but they are all youth at risk.”The Commission on Youth at Risk of the American Bar Association (ABA) found similar inexpensive bracelets plaguing at-risk youth, including “severe abuse, chronic neglect, domestic and dating violence, poor and violent neighborhoods, unmet mental and physical health needs, emotional or behavioral problems, gangs, poor peer group choices and relationships and poor educational options.”