Category Archives: Op-eds

Concerns about knife crime amongst young people, unacceptable delays in the court system, prisons bursting at the seams and yet most reported crime goes unresolved.

The UK has areas of deprivation the likes of which have not been seen since the second world war. There are children and young people with little to do and very little hope or aspiration. How can we punish children for behaviour which is a direct result of the society into which they have been born?

There are now 3.9 million children being brought up in poverty – 2/3rds of whom have a parent in work. Children brought up in poverty are less likely to do well at school, more likely to have health problems, making a demand upon the NHS, and have a shorter life expectancy.

Many children who offend, commit their first offence whilst truanting from school. The educational system has failed them. Children should want to go to school and not have to be made to do so. Schools should encourage children to get involved in organised out of school activity.

Community Policing should be exactly that by re-instating neighbourhood police officers who can be around so that the children know him/her and (s)he knows most of the children by sight.

Many children go on offending sprees between apprehension for an offence and disposal through the courts which is why this period needs to be kept as short as possible and to a matter of days.

Group residential intervention, be it Young Offender Institutions or residential care (secure or otherwise) for young people has been shown to reinforce offending and establish a pattern of offending for life. “Creating Criminals”.

During my social work training my residential placement was in a Remand Home. When boys arrived the others would ask what they had done. Which would usually be greeted by “Oh, is that all”. The story would get progressively serious with each telling and most conversation be about crime. Even if children were rehabilitated the local community would expect them to behave as before and they would soon revert to past behaviour.

Stigma and labelling is responsible for a great deal of anti-social behaviour.

Policies of diversion and alternatives to custody need to be adequately resourced because of the risks involved and capable of fully occupying the child who has offended throughout their waking hours on activities which interest and motivate him/her, so (s)he grows out of his/her offending.

Community-based activities are very visible and, as such, can lead to criticism of rewarding bad behaviour. Society is quite happy to spend £130,000 per child per year on Young Offenders Institutions which is seen as punishment even though it does not work than a fraction of that cost on constructive intervention.

This is why it is important that some of the activity should involve face to face contact with people in need (such as the CSV Children in Care Programme of the 70s and 80s) to change the perception from delinquent to helper in both the young person’s own eyes and in those around them.