Events

Conservative Party Conference

Conservative Fringe - 'From Hoodie to Goodie: Tackling Youth Crime and Anti-Social Behaviour'

Summary

Patrick Mercer MP, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security, today called for the Conservative Party to place more emphasis on prevention of youth crime and concentrate less on punishment.

Speaking at a fringe event organised by Kids Count, the Youth Justice Board and the Damilola Taylor Trust, Mr Mercer called for greater affection and trust to be given to young people and argued that there needs to be greater understanding of why youth crime occurred.

Also speaking at the meeting were Heidi Watson, Chief Executive of the Damilola Taylor Trust, who was joined by Richard Taylor, Kevin Everard, Founder and Director of the Be Safe initiative, and Bob Ashford, Head of Prevention at the Youth Justice Board. The event was chaired by Mike Penning MP, board member of social think tank Kids Count.

Citing the famous case of Tony Martin, Mr Mercer claimed that youth offenders often did not fit the traditional stereotype, and that children of single-parent families living in suburban areas were just as vulnerable to youth crime as those in the inner cities.

Speaking about his constituency of Newark, Mr Mercer described how police officers wore knife-proof vests to protect themselves against youth offenders, claiming that a knife was as dangerous a weapon as a gun. He went on to claim that it was a disgrace that police officers needed to wear such vests in the first place, and called for a crackdown on people who sold knives to young people.

Referring to David Cameron's suggestion that 'hugging a hoodie' was the answer to youth crime, Mr Mercer called for more emotional support to be given to vulnerable children and said that, very often, politicians and the police did not have to answers to the problem of youth crime.

Mr Penning opened the meeting by claiming the aim of the event was to address the problems that faced the youth of today and to highlight the importance of preventative measures in tackling youth crime. He questioned whether punishment always reflected the crime committed and addressed the issue of why children committed crime in the first place.

Mr Mercer and Mr Penning were in agreement that tensions between police and social workers were hampering efforts to prevent and control youth crime.

Mr Mercer suggested that one of the problems was that many children did not come from two-parent families, and that promotion of family values was important.

Mr Penning however claimed that two-parent families living in affluent areas experienced many of the same problems that inner-city families did, and claimed that the UK was facing a 'cultural problem' rather than a single vs. double- parent family divide.

Earlier in the meeting Heidi Watson argued that one of the major reasons for youth crime was the rise of 'outcast' role models and the glorification of ex-gang member celebrities and badly-behaved celebrity sport stars. Ms Watson claimed that famous musicians who had risen to fame from drug-dealing, gang-membership backgrounds provided young people with a false impression of the way the world worked, and encouraged them to think that theft and violent crime were the only ways to get what they wanted.

Ms Watson claimed that young people viewed the police as just another gang and that they failed to see the police as an organisation who were there to 'protect as well as detect' children. She claimed that she wasn't against all custodial sentences and that time in prison was often the right punishment for some people, but called for greater investment in preventative measures.

Kevin Everard focussed his comments on the proliferation of knife crimes, claiming that the knife was a weapon of poverty that everyone had access to. Citing a recent survey of 50,000 school children across the country, Mr Everard claimed that, even in classes of year seven (11 and 12 year olds) pupils, as many as one in three admitted to carrying a knife to school with them. He called for schools to take greater responsibility in educating children about the dangers related to carrying knives, arguing that the schools currently provided children with sex and drug education, and that the same should be true for crime.

Mr Everard finished by claiming that addressing the fear of young people among adults was as important as trying to understand why young people felt the need to arm themselves with knives.

Speaking next, Bob Ashford from the Youth Justice Board claimed that whilst the numbers of youth crimes were actually falling, the number of gangs had risen recently. Mr Ashford agreed with the rest of the panel in claiming that prevention was the best way of dealing with young offenders and that the impact of youth crime on local communities needed to be given greater consideration.

Arguing for 'restorative justice,' Mr Ashford claimed one of the best ways to deal with the issue of re-offending was for the connection between criminal actions and their impact to be made clearer to young people.

Mr Ashford also called for greater emphasis on parenting, and claimed that without strong parent role models, the chances of vulnerable children avoiding crime were less likely. He agreed with Ms Watson in citing the rise of ex-gang member celebrities as one of the reasons for youth offending and claimed that the reason young people looked up to these figures was often due to the lack of a suitable parent figure and regular contact with adults. Mr Ashford finished by claiming that tackling and addressing youth crime was the responsibility of entire communities.

Mr Penning then led a question and answer session, in which the effectiveness of the current government policy of 'naming and shaming' youth offenders was called into question. Ms Watson argued that the policy set young people up to fail in life before they are even old enough to understand the implication of their actions, and that the policy was often counter-productive as some children 'play-up' to the stereotype that being labelled a trouble-maker brings. Mr Ashford, however, highlighted the rights and needs of the local community, who he claimed deserve to be kept informed. He called for local social bodies to engage in preventative measures and work with the police and ASBO teams in tackling youth crime.

Answering a question regarding the role of parenting in assigning responsibility for young people's actions, Ms Watson claimed many parents had no understanding of what their children's lives are like and how dangerous gang culture can be.

She claimed this was partly due to naivety and partly due to irresponsibility. She called for parents to be held more accountable for what happened to their children.

Richard Taylor then said that parents lacked the basic foundation of social education needed to look after the children of today and argued that providing this would help address the problem of parental irresponsibility. He claimed that social services were increasingly playing the role in children's lives that parents should be providing, and that youth crime occurred as children felt they are free to do as they pleased.