Speaking as Shadow Home Secretary in 1993, Tony Blair famously promised to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.
Vigil: the death of Elianne Andam was among 11 killings in Croydon last year; six of those who died were 22 or younger
Thirty years later, being tough on the causes of crime continues to be difficult: 2021 was London’s worst year on record for young people dying because of serious youth violence, when across the city, 30 teenagers died, and five of these deaths occurred in Croydon.
The London figures for 2022 and 2023 were 14 and 21 respectively. Better, but no cause for complacency.
We still don’t know enough about the factors which cause crime. In particular, what is the full context for why some young people kill or maim other young people and put themselves in jeopardy of serious harm.
So, a warm welcome must be given to the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership’s recent report on Serious Youth Violence. Its author is Bridget Griffin, who also co-authored the CSCP Vulnerable Adolescent Review that was published in February 2019.
The recent report is focused on seven young people who were charged in association with the deaths of three children in 2021 (these deaths were not linked).
There are six key lines of enquiry:
- Review of support provided
- Identification of why/where support ceased and any learning outcomes
- Inclusion of the voice of the children, understanding of their daily lives and consideration of reasons why support may not have been accessed or effective
- Learning from families, including the families of the children who died
- Review of current community support provision
- Learning from the experiences of front-line practitioners
The report refers to the seven not as perpetrators but as children/young people. In doing so, we are reminded that four of the seven were legally children at the time of the crimes. Four had themselves been victims of serious youth violence. The full circumstances of the lives of all seven confer on them at least a strong element of victimhood. The words “tragic” and “tragically” recur frequently in the report.
The 2022 and 2019 reports combine to evidence cogently what we already may believe. Most young people who do terrible things have experienced several (not necessarily all) of the following destabilising events:
- Suffering physical or emotional abuse (including abuse of a loved carer)
- Absence of a loved carer owing to the carer’s poor mental health or substance abuse or unexpected death (or combination of these)
- Emotional or physical neglect
- Significant family poverty
- Multiple changes of home and school
- Removals from school arising from exclusion or managed move
All these children have positive attributes as well, such as:
- Academic ability or practical skill
- Career aspiration
- Faith
- Having shown an ability to love and receive love from a carer
- Having had a relationship of trust and respect with at least one teacher, mentor, youth worker or counsellor
Adolescence can be a difficult time for anyone. For those who have suffered numerous adverse childhood experiences, the likelihood of it being violently destructive for self or others is considerable.
I have pulled out from the report just a few of the many important points:
- Having sufficient mental health support workers and speech and language therapists accessible in schools has a clear beneficial effect
- Many teachers have given a big thumbs-up to the introduction of trauma-informed educational practice
- Engagement of vulnerable children with professionals is often superficial. It requires strong and sustained professional commitment to build up trust with children who come with little trust. Continuity of involvement of an adult who has built trust is crucial
- Hugely positive work is being done to divert young people away from gangs by professionals who go well beyond the call of duty
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Significant factors: cuts in council spending and turnover of social work staff are cited as significant factors in the cases of seven teens who became involved in violent crime
The experiences of vulnerable children cause them to present an adult façade. Professionals need to be able to see the insecure child who is sheltering behind
- Many professionals know too little about the experiences of black families, have low expectations of both adult and child family members, make incorrect prejudgements and therefore cannot form the relationships necessary to provide effective support
- Issues of race, gender, multiple deprivation and instability are likely to intersect to exacerbate family problems
- Vulnerable families need to be identified as early as possible so that joined-up social and educational support for them can be speedily mobilised and if necessary sustained throughout a child’s minority
- Spending cuts are causing reduction in teams of professionals who provide key support
- Croydon’s high turnover of social workers hampers provision of effective support to vulnerable children and families
- Exclusion from school and managed moves was a key feature of the lives of six of the seven children featured in the report
The voice of parents and community members is heard in the report. A few examples:
Appreciate that an exclusion from school means that our children’s dreams fade and aspirations for the future get lost
Don’t label a child as bad/not good enough/not achieving/ not capable – these labels stay with the child and influence how a child thinks about themselves and influences how future teachers/schools respond to them
Provide support to parents and take a whole family approach early – before a child is born – break the cycle
Don’t give up – be resilient in providing support to children and families
Focus on youth provision, activities, safe spaces for children and families – detailed mapping of provisionand the offer is needed
Open existing buildings to the community – use what we have and share
The need for forums and spaces where organisations can come together to share experiences of working with children in Croydon and where appropriate co-ordinate which organisation is best to provide support – maximise the expertise
I hope that the development of trauma-informed educational practice proceeds as the author of the report hopes. The report overlooks the fact that some school leaders are extremely sceptical, especially some secondary school leaders, who perceive a possible conflict between going the extra mile to support the most vulnerable and meeting the needs of the majority. It is an issue that social care and educational professionals need to face.
The report implies, but does not expressly set out, the gross mismatch between the need for support services and the funding currently available to provide it. An area perhaps too hot for the report to handle?
Crime scene: but will agencies take action on the causes of youth crime?
But the case for finding the resources to plug the gap needs to be made, and it can be made. The more fractured our society, the greater the number of poorly functioning individuals and families, and the more the lives of the relatively stable and secure are clouded.
We won’t stop troubled young people sometimes doing dreadful things which damage and destroy the lives of others. What the Vulnerable Adolescents Review and Serious Youth Violence show is that with the allocation of sufficient resources we can support children and families to become more secure and stable and to bring about more good outcomes and fewer dreadful ones.
These reports are richly evidenced, contain cogent analysis and point to persuasive and far-reaching conclusions. Both are of national, as well as local, importance, for the issues which they touch extend far beyond our borough boundaries. The lead agencies in the CSCP – the council, the NHS and the police – deserve immense credit for identifying and allocating resources for the commissioning of the report.
We are all agreed that we need even more evidence and data. Question is – will we continue to do very little with it when we get it?
Getting tough on the causes of crime needs to be more than a glib throwaway.
Read more: Youth knife crime review stresses agencies’ powerlessness
Read more: Croydon in 2023: London’s borough with most murder victims
Read more: ‘Our failure can be read on the headstones of dead youth’
- As a Labour councillor, Jerry Fitzpatrick was the chair of a special committee formed to examine inclusion and exclusion from Croydon’s schools, and was the lead author of two important reports published towards the end of the last council, all the recommendations of which were accepted by Labour and Conservative Cabinets in 2022
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