War on neds is the problem

War on neds is the problem, not the cure

Every time there is grim news about youth-crime figures, that rather embarrassing picture of Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, being given the two-fingered salute by smirking neds gets another airing. This week it was the revelation that the number of persistent young offenders had jumped by 10%, despite the justice department’s pledge to cut the total by 10%. As if to ram home Jamieson’s awesome inability to meet her own targets and get a grip on juvenile delinquency, there were the disrespectful juvenile delinquents again, carrying on behind her back.

In response, Jamieson talked about “redoubling our efforts”, but it wasn’t long before she was blaming everyone but herself. The Scottish executive’s flagship legislation aimed at young offenders has made little difference because local authorities are not making use of its provisions, she claimed. Only five out of 32 councils have used dispersal orders to break up gangs and very few Asbos (antisocial behaviour orders) have been issued.

Jack McConnell, the first minister, has also muscled in on the blame game, castigating councils and police forces for not implementing his antisocial behaviour laws. A week ago he was blaming the police for the booming number of referrals to the children’s hearing system, which is overburdened by a seemingly unstoppable crime wave among the young. Now the panels themselves have come under scrutiny, with veiled threats they will be dismantled and replaced by youth courts in a pre-election crackdown. Those who work in the child justice system are alarmed at where all this is going, and so they should be.

For 35 years Scotland has had a unique and widely admired apparatus for dealing with children in trouble, a welfare-led approach that looks not only at offending children but offended-against children. Then along comes a political administration with its mind on re-election and crime at the centre of its campaign. Ambitious crime-busting targets are set and implausible promises made by politicians with little experience of child justice issues. And two pilot youth courts have been established, in Airdrie and Hamilton, and may be rolled out across the country if ministers are happy with the results.

Without doubt there is a new “war on neds” momentum building ahead of next May’s Scottish elections, as if tough talking will be enough to turn voters’ heads. But it won’t be, especially if the crime figures don’t improve by then — and they certainly won’t improve by abolishing the integrated system of care and justice and reintroducing juvenile courts.

Scotland’s problem is not its children’s panels but the vicious circle of offending that some youngsters get into, which the panels were created to redress. The communities blighted by such offending may well be clamouring for ruthless action on the perpetrators, but there is no evidence that courts are the solution.

The view among the professionals is that “if you feed children into the criminal justice system you lose them for ever”, and the laymen and women recruited to administer the panels quickly subscribe to this view. Few of them fail to be struck by the scales of neglect among the children they see and the predictability with which the victims of offence become offenders.

Hundreds of persistent young offenders — nearly one in four — were known to the children’s hearing system before they were five, because they were at risk rather than because they were a threat to others. The huge upsurge in referrals — up 10% in 2005-2006 on the previous year — is mainly attributed to an increase in the number of “care and protection” cases, which used to account for about one fifth of all the hearing system’s work, but now make up more than half.

In comparison, there has been a fairly “modest” rise in the number of offenders, said Tom Philliben, director of the reporters’ operations at the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA). This may not reassure those affected by youth crime, but it should be taken on board by the target-obsessed Scottish executive. A growing number of children live in what social workers describe as “chaotic” families. An estimated 60,000 have drug-abusing parents and many are vulnerable to alcohol-induced violence.

The correlation between poverty and referrals is stark and when poverty increases so do referrals. The children’s reporters, who decide which children should go before panels, can barely cope with the 55,000 youngsters now referred to them in a year. Only 11% of these end up in front of panels, which suggests that many referrals are inappropriate and could have been dealt with by other agencies The executive was supposed to introduce reforms to the system, encouraging schools and social workers and health visitors to intervene directly in many cases.

But the reforms have been shelved until after the 2007 elections. And a desperate demand from the SCRA for an extra Ł20m over three years to hire more staff has been rejected. Yet the executive thinks nothing of appointing a children’s czar at a cost of nearly Ł2m whose duties, while possibly worthy, cannot have anything like the reach of the SCRA and its panels.

The hearing system is not toothless and its jurisdiction, including sending children to secure accommodation, is considerable. It is nothing if not aware of youth crime; it was the SCRA that first forced the Scottish executive to acknowledge the level of persistent offending in Scotland. Now it should be given extended powers to deal with drug-related offences — testing and treatment orders, as Annabel Goldie, the Tory leader, has advocated.

And with the small but hardcore band of thugs who are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, it must exercise its existing powers to the limit before the executive swoops and takes these away altogether. Punishment in some cases is unavoidable. But it cannot be left to the SCRA and the panels to fix the underlying causes of antisocial behaviour, to reduce deprivation, to improve education, and to bestow hope on children whose lives are a series of unfortunate events. The panels are there to pick up the pieces. They are not there to make politicians look good.

Jenny Hjul
16 July 2006

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2090-2272474,00.html

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