News In Focus
27 July 2007
Study says authorities failing young people
Young people referred to the children's hearing system in their early teens are three times more likely to have a criminal record by the time they get to 19, according to a new report.
The study, by Dr Susan McVie and Dr Lesley McAra of the University of Edinburgh, reports that social work resources are not targeted at older children or at addressing children's personal and family issues. Instead, resources have been channelled into child protection, particularly in the wake of the case of baby Caleb Ness in Edinburgh in 2001.
Education services are also criticised for not providing enough vocational opportunities to meet the needs of significant numbers of young people. Those who leave school as soon as they can, or who are excluded from school, are also more likely to become disaffected adults involved in criminality.
The report states that the risk of criminal conviction could be substantially reduced if there were more resources to help teachers tackle young people with behavioural problems and reduce the numbers excluded.
The report followed the lives of more than 4,000 young people who started secondary school in 1998. By the time they had reached the age of 19, 355 (9%) had at least one conviction and 729 of them had gone through the children's hearing system. Of this number, 295 had a criminal conviction by 19 and of the 1,140 children who left school as soon as they could, 23% ended up with a conviction.