andyl

The demonisation of youth does nobody any favours, not least those who perceive they are going to be victims of crime committed by young people because of the image they have of them. And, as that Barnardos link points ot the young are actually more likely to be the victims of crime and most do not get into trouble.

There is too little done in terms of preventative measures because of lack of resources. There's a lad in my youngest's class. His mum was a prostitute who was murdered, his dad a child abuser in nick. He lives with his nan (who is ill equipped to look after him) and brother (who's not exactly a good role model). When this kid was 5 the school reported concerns about his welfare (wandering the streets alone etc) to Social Services who said they could not do an assessment for 18 months to 2 years. He's now 9 and there is still no support from the authorities. The lad has good support from us and other families but he needs proper intervention because you can see he's primed to go on a downward spiral. This kid is not to blame for his situation but I can see he will soon be labelled as a 'yob', '****' etc when his life story has been so desperate.