Juvenile thefts fall

An educational counsellor working at a public school said that one student completely changed his life choices after listening to the ROP.

The counsellor said: “I had one student who ditched school and had lied to his parents by telling them that he had a part time job in the evenings. It turned out that he was going out shoplifting, and when we found out we sat him down and gave him what advice we could and tried to support him. He attended some of the talks by the ROP where he learned about the dangers of his actions and benefited from them in his behaviour.

A very large impact

“This work by the ROP thankfully had a very large impact on the students and we (the faculty) felt like they were a major contributor to decreasing the number of issues we saw.”

According to the counsellor, his school was visited multiple times each term. “We would get visits from the Royal Oman Police, who came to talk to kids about combating drugs and how dangerous these substances are.

They also spoke to students about thefts such as shoplifting and how stealing can harm both society around them and the students themselves.

“They explained that spending your time in criminal activity would have an impact on your mentality and even your grades at school. You can end up becoming a burden on society. The ROP visited us twice per semester and sometimes sat in classes with the students,” he added.

According to the counsellor, crimes such as theft could prove disastrous to the student’s future.