UK

Young offenders: Prime Minister unveils plans
to monitor children from birth

Children could be monitored from birth to see if they are at risk of becoming criminals under plans announced by Prime Minister Tony Blair last week, which opponents have branded middle-class social engineering.

Universal checks could be carried out throughout a child's development focusing on key stages such as the move from primary to secondary school.

The public policy review Building on Progress: Security, crime and justice suggests children are monitored for "trigger" factors including parents being sent to prison or addicted to drugs.

Shadow home secretary David Davis branded the plans "the nanny state gone mad" and said there is no evidence that early intervention will stop children becoming criminals.

The Department for Education and Skills said it is unlikely the children's information sharing index will be used for this plan because it is prohibited from carrying case information about a child, or the opinions of any workers coming into contact with the child, under the Children Act 2004.

Terri Dowty, a director of Action on Rights for Children, said monitoring children in this way would be hugely impractical and costly and would involve adding more information to the Common Assessment Framework database. "Children are likely to be affected by being branded a future criminal," she said. "This is discriminatory and will pick on children who are from poorer areas. It smacks of the middle classes believing they can create more 'people like us'."

Last week also saw plans to split the Home Office announced. The plans propose a new Ministry of Justice that will oversee youth justice and the courts. The Home Office will remain in charge of anti-social behaviour and immigration policy.

Kathy Evans, policy director at The Children's Society, said the plans were a missed opportunity to put the DfES in charge of youth justice.

Cathy Wallace
4 April 2007

http://www.childrennow.co.uk/news/index.cfm?fuseaction=details&UID=dc41b5b0-8063-44d4-a1c5-30cc6e5401db

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