Policing Street Crimes: The Role of Pnp in Regulating Youth in Quezon Avenue, Lucena City as Viewed by Selected Media Practitioners of Lucena City

POLICING STREET CRIMES: THE ROLE OF PNP IN REGULATING YOUTH IN QUEZON AVENUE, LUCENA CITY AS VIEWED BY SELECTED MEDIA PRACTITIONERS OF LUCENA CITY

An Undergraduate Thesis

Presented to the Faculty of

College Criminology and Law Enforcement

Manuel S. Enverga University Foundation

Lucena City

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Criminology

By

FERDINAND A. APOSTOL

MARK ANTHONY M. ALBAÑA

NICHAEL I. ARONG

RUEL PEREZ

March 2012

CHAPTER I

THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND

Background of the Study

The government is faced with various formidable social problems and concerns. One of these problems is criminality, which affects all parts of the country and every aspect of community life. In policing street crimes, it is very much imperative to recognize criminality as a complex matter. Its causations are numerous and its trends are difficult to ascertain. It proliferates with the acceleration of change and development and is magnified when this process is accompanied with the negative impact of population growth, unemployment and rapid urbanization. The problem of criminality is aggravated by the popular perception that crime is a very narrow sphere of behavior. In reality, there is no single formula and theory that can explain the vast range of criminal behavior.

A criminal could be a juvenile delinquent stealing goods from a grocery store or a gun-for-hire who brutally assassinates a government official. Internally generated conditions attendant to a developing nation with a heterogeneous and expanding population have been cited as the primary contributors to crime trends. The crime problem is further magnified by the negative impact of unemployment and related difficulties, the weakening of the traditional social control processes as well as the constant change in moral standards, the alienation from family and social groups and the rising affluence enjoyed by some sectors of society. Another factor which also adversely affects the problem is the public perception of the prevention and control of crime itself. The general notion that controlling crime is solely the task of the police, the courts and the correctional institutions is apparently erroneous.