In the three years up to 2007 violent crimes committed by young people rose by nearly 40 per cent from just over 40,000 offences in 2003-04 to more than 56,000 in 2006-07. Yet the numbers sent to custody are relatively low. From over 50,000 crimes, less than three thousand 10- to 17-year-olds are locked up in children's homes, secure training centres or young offender institutions.
And Frances Done, the new £85,000-a-year head of the government's Youth Justice Board, wants to cut that number even more.
She says that only 6 per cent of youngsters sentenced by the courts end up in custody, and that she is determined to 'drive the numbers down' further. She wants the courts to hand out more community punishments, and for problem children to be sent to "intensive fostering" instead, despite huge public concern over teenage violence in the wake of a string of fatal stabbings and other dreadful crimes - only today newspapers carried reports that a 15-year-old girl has been doused in petrol and set alight because she was alleged to have kissed the wrong boy.
Under the "intensive fostering" régime, a support team is employed to work with an offender and their family for a year. Mrs Done said: "They've never had boundaries in their lives, they've had chaotic existences. They have to learn to get up, they have to learn to eat properly, they have to learn to do things at a time which has been agreed with their carer. It's a very rigorous régime."
It's evident that Mrs.Done is a caring, sharing, thoughtful and mumsy person who has only the best interests of the poor little kiddy-widdies at heart but predictably, opposition spokesmen were scathing. Tory Nick Herbert said: "While ministers advocate tougher sentencing on knife crime, their officials are urging that fewer juveniles are given custodial terms. Once again we see a totally incoherent approach to criminal justice policy from this Government. It is precisely this failure of planning and direction which has led to overcrowded prisons and hopelessly mixed messages being sent to criminals. We need robust community penalties to arrest the escalation of youth crime but we also need effective regimes to rehabilitate those offenders who have to be held in custody. Currently we have neither."
We totally agree with Mrs.Done who, it is rumoured, recently turned down the chance of a part as a hobbit-woman in the forthcoming movie. There is no question that young people need boundaries in their lives to bring order and control to their chaotic existences. They certainly do need to learn to get up, they need to learn to eat properly, they need to learn to do things in an orderly, planned fashion. They could get all those things in a young offenders institution, of course, preferably at the hands of a team of very large ex-servicemen, but no doubt the little darlings will learn even quicker in their own homes under the fluffy, caring eye of a social worker.
Of course, there are lots of other people in our society who have needs as well, and I hope Mrs.Done and her colleagues are thinking of them too. There are all the cancer sufferers who need drugs that will actually prolong their lives, although of course it would be more convenient for the NHS if they just behaved themselves and died quietly.
There are all the elderly people who need somewhere to live and be looked after when they can no longer fend for themselves. There are all the expectant mothers who need to be sure that when they turn up in labour, the hospital won't decide it's too busy and turn them away. There are all the sick people who need a hospital bed, and proper nursing, and an operation they don't have to wait three years for and then give up and pay to have it done in India. There are all the rather less seriously ill people who would like to be able to see a GP who at least knows their name.
There are all the thousands of children who don't keep sticking knives into each other or setting themselves alight. They need a decent education, and they aren't getting it. They need to take examinations that actually mean something to a prospective employer. They need skills and factual knowledge, and when the world is full of non-caring, non-sharing, non-environmentally-aware, callous, competitive Indians, Chinese, Poles etc. who can run rings round the rest of us when it comes to qualifications and proper training, then "being in touch with their own feelings and the susceptibilities of others" just doesn't cut it.
And the rest of us? We just need our bins emptying at regular intervals, please, and we don't need petty officials rooting around in our rubbish or threatening us. And we need to be able to walk down the High Street without someone taking pictures of us at every third step. We need trains that run on time. Or just trains that run would be good.
We need to feel that the police are there to protect us and ensure that we can go about our lawful activities unhindered. We don't need to feel that we have to keep looking over our shoulders in case we might be doing something wrong, we don't need to keep our children indoors because the police don't like them playing in the street, we don't need to know that if someone attacks or robs us the law will support their right to do so and that we run the risk of being prosecuted ourselves if we resist.
You see, Mrs.Done? We've barely scratched the surface, but I know you're a busy lady and don't have time to read all our irrelevant meanderings! Anyway, full marks for caring and having at heart the best interests of your young charges - although you're being rather well paid for it, aren't you?
But so long as the rest of us have such pressing needs of our own that remain un-met, we find it difficult to give a toss about these little sh*ts. We'll start caring about them when they start caring about us. You may be able to afford the luxury of a bleeding heart, at the taxpayer's expense. We can't.
Wanker.
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