Let the person who has never committed a crime cast the stone first. This was the situation with Jesus Christ and the Jewish people who tried to trap him with the woman who was caught in the very act of adultry. Crime did not start today by young minds and it won't stop.
The truth is that every adult today has a past that will keep hunting him until he or she dies. A child is always naive and that is why it is said that foolishness abides in a child and the rood of corrections will chase it away. Every growing child has that tendency of doing something very bad because they are still growing and lacks the knowledge of what is good or bad. As I just hold my phone typing this post I remembered how bad I was back then as a teenager. I was influenced by my friends and I almost got myself destroyed because I did not know what I was doing back then. My mom tried to correct me and put me in the way that I should go, I felt like running away was the best option. And guess what? I did. I ran away from the house and went and hide myself in a place where I know that my mother will never see me. I stayed there for complete three days before someone who saw me went and told my mother. When I finally got back my mom refused to beat me again because she did not want me to run again. But today life have dealt with me so that I wish I never did those things that I did back then. If people were to hold grudges against me for the kind of life that I lived while growing up, then I would have been stoned to death by now.
A child is always childish.
There is nothing anyone can do about this. I heard of someone who stole in his secondary school days. He use to live in a boarding school and his friends told him to carry anything home that no one was going to see him. He did and at first no one saw him. But later on he was cut and taken to police station. But because he saw a teenager he was released after spanking him. Thirty years later when he was contesting for a political seat, one of his friends went ahead to dig that his dirty past out. When the news papers carried the news, the person in question did not even replied to that because he knows that no one was going to take his openent serious. That was how the case died off because he did that in ignorant which was so obvious.
WHY TEENAGERS COMMIT CRIME.
It depends where the child lives. Every teenager that is currently living in Nigeria will have hundred and one reasons to commit a crime. I still know that there are others who won't commit a crime despite how bad the situation becomes. I know that people are hungry, people live under bridges, but there is still hope for us as long as there is life. Bad economy should not be a reason why our youths should go into all manner of crime. There is no justification what so ever.
SOLUTION
I believe that our country should create job opportunities for teenagers so that as the study, there also find something doing to keep them busy and also make money.
Secondly, I think that parents should try to make sure every teenager has a skill or two to help them make money for themselves and also help keep them busy because an idle mind is the devil's workshop.
There should also be mentorship programs that will help shape the young minds and make them a better version of themselves.