REVEALED: Hundreds of Hampshire youngsters involved in crime
There are a concerns over a rise in offenders with special needs
Around 400 children and young people in Hampshire are involved in the justice system, with a worrying increase in the number of children with special needs committing offences.
Data released from Hampshire Youth Justice Services shows that over the last 12 months, the county council has worked with between 380 and 400 children who entered the criminal justice system.
According to the data, 48.1 per cent of the children were subject to court orders and cautions, 28.5 per cent were subject to a ‘diversionary order’, where they receive an intervention and not a criminal record, and 23.4 per cent were subject to a prevention programme.
This report was presented to Hampshire County Council at a select committee, which was informed that 152 children came as ‘first-time entrants’, committing their first offence between January 2023 and December 2023. Of these, 36 received fines and discharges for motoring offences.
Of the 152, 48 per cent had committed an offence of violence against another person; this includes children who had a weapon, and 24.3 per cent had convictions for motoring offences, usually 17-year-olds committing road traffic offences when they first have a licence.
The proportion of ‘other offence’ types is smaller, with offences of dishonesty such as burglary, theft, and robbery making up 11.2 per cent, with shoplifting increasing “slightly.”
Meanwhile, 4.6 per cent committed public order offences, and the remaining 11.9 per cent mixed nine types of offences, which included things like criminal damage and harmful sexual behaviour.
The report stated that reoffending rates remained consistent over the years. The latest data showed that 288 children reoffended from April 2021 to March 2022.
Of those, 10.1 per cent were children from minority ethnic groups, and 26 per cent were girls, compared with 20 per cent of boys.
Of the 288, 63 per cent were children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) or an education health and care plan (EHCP) which details extra support children need to meet their needs. Also, 80 per cent of the children who reoffended had these needs.
Cllr Tim Davies said that the concerning trend of children with special needs is “alarming” and something needs to be done because “too many children with SEND or EHCP are ending up in the criminal justice system”.
In this aspect, director of children’s services Stuart Ashley said that over-medicalisation – effectively unnecessary medical intervention – of behavioural problems as a result of childhood experiences could be one of the reasons for the high number of children with SEND and EHCP in the care system and the criminal system.
And he added that a national debate about the over-medicalisation of children needs to be addressed.
Mr Ashley said: “I’m pleased to say that a debate has started nationally about the underlying medicalisation of children’s behaviour through special educational needs and education health and care plans.
“I’ve been in this work for a long time and seeing a change where we medicalised what I think is a behavioural issue.
“If you follow that through, then what you will have is children who are labelled as having special education needs whose early childhood experiences and their parenting experiences are poor, and therefore, they have behavioural issues.
“What headteachers keep telling me is that they have over and over again children in school who are getting labelled, but they’ve got behavioural issues.
“So if you follow that through, then to this, if you’ve got those behavioural issues because of parenting experiences, you’re more likely to come into the criminal justice, regardless of that label about having an EHCP and SEND, you’ll have behavioural problems because of your parenting experience as a child, and therefore, you are more likely to end up in the care system.
“If we look at how many children with SEND and EHCP are in the care system, if you then look at the criminal justice system, it follows.
“I think that goes back to an overmedication of behavioural issues, and that’s what we need to address, not as a service but as a country. We need to have an informed debate and decision about, are we medicalising behavioural issues?”