RE-EDUCATIONAL TREATMENT OF JUVENILE CRIMINALS BASED ON A DRAMA APPROACH

Abstract

When it comes to the treatment of juvenile offenders and their resocialization, programs based on a dramatic approach in correctional facilities are divided into two categories: theater education programs and drama therapy programs. Determining the right boundary between the two categories is often problematic. The paper presents a dramatic approach used in the resocialization of juvenile offenders in the Banja Luka Correctional Facility. This approach in working with juvenile offenders affects a number of positive changes in their behavior, correction of antisocial attitudes, development of social skills, but also the reduction of disciplinary offenses and recidivism. The drama section has a therapeutic effect in the rehabilitation of juvenile offenders, and workshops in which scripts for plays are created have a prosocial impact on the wards of the home. What is especially important is that the plays performed by juvenile delinquents have a preventive effect on their peers, because through their true stories, they see the causes of deviant behavior in the best way, but also see where this wrong path leads them. Precisely the aim of this paper is to point out the importance of a dramatic approach in the prevention of risky behavior of children and youth, but also in the resocializa[1]tion of juvenile offenders, who are in a correctional facility, as active participants in the play. Also, through this paper, we point out the specific role of social pedagogy in the institutional re-educational treatment of minors.