11-year-old blamed for 100 crimes a year
Preteen crime wave
An 11-year-old boy has emerged as one of the most prolific offenders
in Scotland, clocking up more than 100 offences in the past year and
being reported by the police 43 times. The youngster’s crimewave has involved car break-ins, vandalism,
theft and assault, but the lack of secure accommodation for child
offenders means there is no choice but to leave him in a care home. The child, from Lothian, is the latest in a long line of persistent
juvenile offenders — dubbed ‘superneds’ — who cause chaos in Scottish
communities.
Police are increasingly frustrated at what they claim is the lack of
action by the government to deal with the problem, which leaves officers
trapped in an endless cycle of detaining youngsters and releasing them
only to see more crime committed. An extra 25 secure places for juvenile offenders are currently being
built but it is estimated that will leave at least another 50
‘superneds’ on the loose.
The case of the Lothian youngster has shocked police who believed
they were hardened to youth crime. Superintendent Paul Gilroy, of Lothian and Borders Police’s community
safety unit, said: “This youth is a problem for society. He certainly is
involved in crime: theft, breaking into cars, vandalism and assaults. This is a young child who, for a whole bunch of reasons, has gone so
far off the rails it’s unbelievable. But it says something about society when you’ve got something like
this. How has he got this far without some form of effective
intervention? ”
“You feel sorry for him in a way because it’s not normal behaviour
for a boy his age, but I also feel sorry for people who have had their
cars broken into, their property vandalised, the people who have been
the victims.”
Gilroy said the present system was “very slow” when trying to deal
with persistent young offenders, which only exacerbated the problem. “Even when the system does catch up, the sanctions are limited. If
the children’s panel makes the decision to send them to secure
accommodation, all secure accommodation in Scotland is full: it’s one
in, one out,” he said.
The problem of ‘superneds’ was highlighted by the case of Edmond
Eccles, who was responsible for a four-month reign of terror over the
town of Alva in Clackmannanshire, involving violence, vandalism, theft
and threats. Eccles, 16, was effectively banished by a sheriff from much of
central Scotland and went to start a new life in Aberdeen.
However, Scotland on Sunday can reveal that Grampian has its own
serious problem with ‘superneds’. During the past 12 months in Aberdeen,
just five teenagers were responsible for 616 offences, representing a
third of all crimes committed by their peer-group in the city.
Grampian Police Chief Inspector Harry Thorburn said: “Predominantly
they are involved in crimes of dishonesty: theft by shoplifting, theft
from motor vehicles but also fire-raising and fights, petty assault, one
or two incidents of a racially aggravated nature, possession of
cannabis. Within the superned category there are quite a lot of motoring
offences: speeding, driving without documents, theft of pedal cycles
crops up quite a lot. They are also serial shoplifters. ”
“One of them would tell you that he cannot help himself. You can work
with that but there’s a pretty strong, anti-social, rage-at-the-world
streak in the others. If there’s one identifying feature common to all of them, it’s low
self-esteem. If you can work on that, there’s hope for the future, but,
having said that, there’s lots of children with low self-esteem and they
don’t go around breaking windows, stealing cars or assaulting each
other.”
Youth justice has risen to the top of the political agenda in
Scotland and the Scottish Executive has committed to creating a further
29 secure accommodation places, bringing the total to 125 by 2007 at a
cost of £45m. However, it costs about £150,000 a year for each youth criminal in
detention and police and other groups are concerned that children sent
there simply meet other juvenile delinquents and become worse.
Earlier this month the Executive announced a further £35m would be
spent over two years to extend the new youth court system for serious
offenders, double the number of young people taking part in restorative
justice projects to 6,000 and speed up the children’s hearing process.
Dumfries and Galloway’s Chief Constable David Strang has advocated
targeting children as young as five who are in care or whose parents are
in jail or take drugs to stop them turning into criminals.
Strang, head of youth strategy for the Association of Chief Police
Officers Scotland, said: “There is no magic wand to make this problem go away and I think
that’s probably society’s frustration. These are complex social problems
and there are no quick fixes. We’re doing a mixture of things, promoting
skills and all sorts of things. But that doesn’t solve the problems on
our streets in 2004. One thing I would never do is give them the label
‘superned’. There’s nothing super about them.”
A Scottish Executive spokeswoman said it was now enlisting the help
of schools and other organisations in an attempt to pick up on warning
signs of juvenile delinquency at an early age. “This involves teachers,
social workers, and health professionals working together, and with
other agencies such as the police, to identify problems early and to
support children and families,” she said.
Young offender
Edinburgh is no stranger to youth criminals of particularly tender
years. A nine-year-old boy hit the headlines in July 2001, when it was
revealed that he was behind a mini-crime wave on a housing estate in the
city. He had been arrested for more than 40 crimes in the previous year
—
for offences that included housebreaking, theft and vandalism. The boy, one of seven children in his family, said at the time:
“It’s
not always me. It’s because I am with other laddies and they’re bigger
than me.” However, the boy’s family had a history of trouble with the law. His eldest brother was serving a four-year sentence for rape and his
father admitted to making his living as a shoplifter. “I’m no proud of it, but it’s what I do,” the man said.
“Mind you, I would say that I’m a good father. I never take my kids
out shoplifting and I don’t encourage them to break the law. In fact I’m always telling them it is much harder to get a job when
you have a record.”
The boy’s mother claimed her son was “a typical wee laddie” and
blamed the police for picking on him. “I wish the polis would give him a break, he’s only nine. I can’t
send him down the road to the shops, but they are lifting him,” she
said. “And reading some of the papers, you would think he’s a wee animal. His first crime was taking a fairy cake from a shop, then he got
into trouble for taking a wee laddie’s bike. But the worst thing he has done is breaking a car window. The polis don’t like his faither, but the way I look at it, they
don’t need to take it out on my bairns.”
By Ian Johnston
19 January 2004
http://news.scotsman.com/edinburgh.cfm?id=63682004
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