PAL is a recreation-oriented juvenile crime prevention program that relies heavily upon athletics and recreational activities to create and cement the bond between the police officers and the kid o­n the street. PAL is based o­n the strong belief that children, if they are reached early enough, can develop a strong, positive attitude towards police officers in their journey through life towards the goal of adulthood and good citizenship.

Research studies indicate that children accurately reflect the attitudes of their parents and other individuals significant in their environment and that attitudes are learned from o­ne's culture and subculture. The most significant finding for the professional police officers, however, is that with a little effort, attitudes learned from o­ne's culture or subculture can be changed.

A PAL program promotes greater trust and understanding between youngsters and officers. PAL program brings youngsters under the supervision and constructive influence of a responsible law enforcement agency and expands public awareness about the role of a police officers. That role is the reinforcement and support of the responsible values and attitudes instilled in young people by their parents.

The relationship between sport and juvenile delinquency has been the subject of much discussion. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, physical educators, educational sociologists, educational psychologists and penologists have contended that sports can serve as an effective and powerful antidote to delinquency. The idea that sports can serve as a deterrent to delinquency was first espoused in the English public schools during the middle of the nineteenth century. Sport was then used as a substitute for the stealing, bullying, and drinking that dominated the leisure hours of the English schoolboy.

As o­ne of the most integral and venerated components of the educational system, youth sports programs have contributed significantly to the reduction of delinquency. The considerable financial and administrative support that teachers, parents and coaches give to youth sports is generated in part by the conviction that athletic participation instills certain desirable educational, social and personal values that prevents the occurrence of delinquency.

PAL is a most effective tool in this effort. Studies have shown that if a youngster respects a police officers o­n the battlefield or in the gym, he or she will very likely come to respect the laws that the police officer enforces. Such benefit to the youngsters and to the neighborhood and business community in which they grow up is virtually unmeasurable.