Why are we punishing our most deprived children instead of supporting them?

Amid concerns about rising knife crime amongst young people, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory reported judges were getting fed up sending young people to prison (Young Offender Institutions) because of a lack of alternatives. 

Within days of this, it was reported on BBC news that such were the delays in the court system that people could be spending years on bail, or in prison on remand, without having been convicted of a crime. And yet, although our prisons are bursting at the seams and courts unable to cope, much of reported crime goes unresolved. Detection, not punishment, is the real deterrent and  detection rates are very low and only bolstered by “taken into accounts”.

The UK has areas of deprivation the likes of which have not been seen since the Second World War. There are parents struggling to cope and 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? And given what we know about adolescent behaviour, it is hardly surprising that many young people 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 rather than weeks. 

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

During my social work training my residential placement was in a Remand Home. When boys arrived the others would gather around and ask what they had done, which would usually be greeted by: “Oh, is that all?”. The story would get progressively more serious with each telling. The main conversation amongst the boys was what they were going to do when they got out which was usually crime. 

Even if children were rehabilitated, on arrival back home, the local community would expect them to behave as before, and they would soon be forced back into role. 

There is therefore little wonder that re-offending rates are so high following residential intervention.

During adolescence, youngsters often behave as they believe other people expect them to, and not as they themselves or other people want them to. 

Many children and young people who offend commit their first offence whilst truanting from school because they are already on the wrong side of the law and have been labelled as such. Children should want to go to school and not have to be made to do so. 

Schools should look at what they might do differently to attract the non-attenders. Secondary schools should encourage their children to get involved in organised out-of-school activity and planners ensure there are adequate play areas and recreational facilities in new developments which should incorporate Newman’s Theories of defended space.

Community policing should be exactly that, by reinstating neighbourhood police houses with a local policeman who could be around when children go to primary school in the morning so that the children know him/her and (s)he knows most of the children by sight, if not by name, as happened in the not too distant past. 

In the 1940s, 50s and 60s it was unusual for both parents to work and school hours were from 8.45am to 4.15pm during which children were not allowed off the premises. Children either left school aged 14, 15 or 16 and went into apprenticeships - where they had one-to-one supervision from an adult - or went into sixth-forms, where the same school attendance rules applied and they were often given responsibility as prefects. 

Now it is the norm for both parents to work out of necessity (if they can), and schools turn out at 3pm, or earlier. Older children go to sixth form colleges, where they are not given responsibility for the younger children as prefects or confined to the campus and sometimes only have to go in two or three days per week. 

It is a wonder there is not more anti-social behaviour and vandalism?

So, how should society respond to young people who offend? The answer lies in fully occupying them throughout their waking hours on activities which interest and motivate them, so they grow out of their offending. 

Community-based activities are not cheap and have to be adequately resourced because of the risks involved. They are also very visible and, as such, can lead to criticism of rewarding bad behaviour. 

People are quite happy to spend £130,000 per child per year on YOIs 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. 

Involving young people in environmental projects will give them ownership, so that instead of defacing them they will protect them. A group of boys who regularly played football, damaging flower beds, were involved in the planting of those beds and made sure, without being asked, that in future balls kept clear of their plants. 

Restorative justice, whereby the young person is brought face-to-face with their victim(s) to discuss the consequences of their behaviour, can also bring about lasting change, 

The danger is that courts use their powers to prescribe community activity which is then less effective, as the value is in the young person wanting to take part voluntarily. 

For those young people who are beyond parental control and cannot be supported at home professional, or paid, foster carers have been shown to be effective. 

There is little point holding parents accountable for their children’s behaviour during adolescence. Adolescence is a period of rapid physical and emotional change during which the young person is trying to establish an identity independent of their parents.

It is a time of insecurity when peer group support is essential but can be detrimental due to “egging on”, which is why parents often say their child has got into bad company (no doubt what all the parents of that group of children say). 

Adolescence is also a period of optimism and a sense of immortality which can lead to unacceptable risk-taking. Parents may be responsible for their child’s behaviour but if they have not got a positive relationship with, and the respect of, their child when (s)he reaches adolescence it is too late and they cannot go back and relive the early years. 

The early years are the formative ones when children develop their super ego, or conscience, learn right from wrong and form many of their values, prejudices, behaviours and motivations which will remain with them for life. This is why it is so important to invest in work with the under-fives in the context of their families. Sadly, people working in early years work are grossly undervalued and underpaid given the enormity of responsibility they carry for the future of the human race. 

Perhaps parents could be given more choice and the option of either subsidised childcare or extended maternity/ paternity leave.

Although, not cheap, community-based intervention is cheaper than counter-productive secure residential accommodation and therefore there is money available to redeploy to early intervention and preventative work with families, particularly those with children under five. 

There are now 4.3 million children being brought up in poverty – two-thirds of whom have a parent in work. These parents are no more able to increase their income than are older people who have no earning or borrowing power. 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. 

How can one of the richest countries in the world allow 29 per cent of its children to be brought up in poverty and allow its older citizens to virtually starve to death or die from hyperthermia during the winter? The correlation between income and health is widely known and unless government does something to address the widening income inequality and increasing poverty in our society, the situation can only get worse and the NHS will not keep up with demand.

In the more deprived areas of the UK there is very little for teenagers to do, poor living conditions, and little hope for the future. In consequence they are a breeding ground for gangs and delinquent behaviour. Trickle-down economics and the privatisation of public services have created dozens of millionaires, and turned millionaires into billionaires, while the vast majority are worse off than they were before the 2009 banking crisis. Is levelling up about creating more millionaires in the north, in the hope they will create jobs, or lifting everyone out of poverty? 

Perhaps now is the time to legislate so that the lowest paid in any one organisation is paid an agreed percentage of the highest paid in that organisation – with the backstop of the minimum wage. Those at the top could still have their million-pound salaries provided they paid those on whose hard work they depend proportionately. This might also improve morale, output and productivity. 

For example, what must it do to the motivation of an employee of the National Grid turning out at all hours and in all weathers to restore electricity in the knowledge that his/her chief executive is probably warm and dry with his £6.5 million salary in the bank? Given the global nature of many of the large corporations this would benefit from the backing of the United Nations. There is a positive and significant relationship between directors' pay and employees' average wage in Japan.

As an immediate step government could increase the personal tax free allowance and raise the income tax band thresholds, which have been frozen, at least in line with inflation. 

Recent surveys have demonstrated that a majority of the electorate believe the utilities (gas, electricity and water), NHS, social services and education should be not-for-profit. They need to be managed by people who are motivated by providing the best possible service at the least possible cost, and not by people motivated by profit or greed.

One cannot resolve whole system problems with component level solutions. Income inequality and poverty are the great social evils of our time and affect so much else, as does badly structured and managed systems. The public sector needs radical reform, restructuring and cultural change based upon a whole systems review. It is how we use and distribute our resources which is the big issue. 

Chris Perry is a former director of social services for South Glamorgan County Council, a former director of Age Concern Hampshire, a former non-executive director of the Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust and a former presenter of an award-winning public affairs programme on Express FM.