Children damned by crime 'hysteria'

Tony Blair

LONDON - A generation of British children are being "demonised" because of hysteria over teenage crime, says the Government's youth justice tsar.

Professor Rod Morgan, the Government's chief adviser on youth crime, has issued a warning that children as young as 10 have "the mark of Cain on their foreheads" because of the furore over anti-social behaviour.

Calling for a radical rethink on how unruly teenagers are dealt with, Morgan says discretion should be exercised in cases where children are sent to court for offences that would once have earned a slap on the wrist.

His comments will alarm British ministers who have trumpeted the success of their anti-yob policies, claiming that they are ridding areas of teenage gangs as well as bringing respect back to communities.

Prime Minister Tony Blair has said anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) are a successful element of the Government's law and order strategy.

Since their introduction in 1999, more than 2000 Asbos have been issued throughout the country in an effort to tackle offending. But in some cases, young children are given Asbos lasting up to 10 years, covering the whole of their teenage years.

Record numbers of children are being sent to court, although the actual level of youth offending has remained the same over the past decade.

Ten years ago about a third of the 200,000 children in the criminal justice system every year went to court. Today the figure is closer to half.

Morgan said: "There are adverse consequences of fixing a mark of Cain to a child's forehead ... The argument is that if you give a dog a bad name then the dog may live up to the name."

Morgan, chairman of the Youth Justice Board, said children were being sent to court for trivial offences such as swearing in the playground or breaking windows.

Teachers and parents should instead be reprimanding children, rather than police arresting them, and more use should be made of early prevention schemes such as dedicated police officers in schools.

Children's charities are warning that police are also seeing children as "soft targets" to raise their conviction rates. And they blame the widening gulf between adults and children for the fact young people are now feared rather than cherished.

Liberty, the human rights group, is threatening to expose the Government's poor record on how children are treated in Britain when it reports to the UN next year.

Shami Chakrabati, its director, said that criminalising children had become a national "obsession".

"I get more hate mail for sticking up for kids than for terror suspects," she said.

- INDEPENDENT