Ankle bracelets for youth offenders

I used to work in a place where we kept young people from offending, or got them back on the straight and narrow. We were very successful because we treated them with respect and saw them as the vulnerable people they were.

Life is no picnic for young people today, and this post just reinforces my opinion that no one cares about them anymore. The unit I worked in got closed down...

Nope, time to reinstitute Early Years provision, family centres, CAHMS support for struggling parents and their children. Invest in the future as so many Scandi countries do, with the result fewer teenage pregnancies, less drug and alcohol abuse and a more supportive policy intervention with adolescents at risk of school exclusion - to start with

I don’t care about them, I care about the people being stabbed and traumatised, some of whom are afraid to go out and have their lives ruined. Hard hearted, maybe. Tough.

Iam64 is quite right but that's a long game. Meanwhile, what to do with these feral youths?

Really need to invest in prevention rather than punishing them which can just turn them into more hardened criminals. It may give some sort of satisfaction seeing them punished more but it may just be making things worse.

Aren't ankle bracelets used in UK already? I don't think putting them on hostile, aggressive teens would achieve much. Who would be monitoring it?
Better to find ways of working with these 'feral' teens and helping them to become decent adults. I taught many such disaffected young people. Some remained so: others became responsible adults. I like to think James Timpson will address this.

Iam64

Nope, time to reinstitute Early Years provision, family centres, CAHMS support for struggling parents and their children. Invest in the future as so many Scandi countries do, with the result fewer teenage pregnancies, less drug and alcohol abuse and a more supportive policy intervention with adolescents at risk of school exclusion - to start with

Exactly this.
You really need to start at the beginning, in my opinion.

Iam64

Nope, time to reinstitute Early Years provision, family centres, CAHMS support for struggling parents and their children. Invest in the future as so many Scandi countries do, with the result fewer teenage pregnancies, less drug and alcohol abuse and a more supportive policy intervention with adolescents at risk of school exclusion - to start with

Iam64 is quite right but that's a long game.

Yes. It's too late for them and the results, even if these measures were instituted now, would be 15+ years in the future.
In the meantime, we have a generation of youths who think they own the streets and it's not fair on the ordinary public, especially other law-abiding youngsters.

15+years in the future the troubled now could be parents then

Surely ankle bracelets (which are tracking devices I think) will be used in conjunction with rules ( such as must be at home by an certain time in the evening) and mandatory meetings, attendances etc. or am I being too hopeful?
Adults I think get recalled to prison if they break the rules of their release.

Iam64

Nope, time to reinstitute Early Years provision, family centres, CAHMS support for struggling parents and their children. Invest in the future as so many Scandi countries do, with the result fewer teenage pregnancies, less drug and alcohol abuse and a more supportive policy intervention with adolescents at risk of school exclusion - to start with

Absolutely!

nanna8

I don’t care about them, I care about the people being stabbed and traumatised, some of whom are afraid to go out and have their lives ruined. Hard hearted, maybe. Tough.

It isn't only young people who do these things.

Yes my favoured approach is a long game. Research tells us the Blair investment in Early Years was effective over long term.
We need multi disciplinary joined up work with young offenders, those either excluded or refusing to go to school. By the time they’re 13 interventions are often ill effective. I’ve been involved with 13 year olds involved in county lines, local drug dealing groups. They might have a social worker from children and families, social worker from youth offending, school exclusion team and more. All to often there’s no co-ordination despite many resources. Yes to ankle tags, to curfews, to the children attending some kind of pupil referral unit 9-4 and sanctions if they don’t.

We can start now in primary schools were by aged 8-9 the dyslexic, the adhd children (to name two groups of many) are often beginning to feel bad about themselves in school. CAMHS, Ed psychologists all hopeless for the majority because their children ‘don’t meet our criteria’

Margiknot

Surely ankle bracelets (which are tracking devices I think) will be used in conjunction with rules ( such as must be at home by an certain time in the evening) and mandatory meetings, attendances etc. or am I being too hopeful?
Adults I think get recalled to prison if they break the rules of their release.

It’s not happening in the real world.
Watch Dispatches, The great Tagging Scandal on channel 4.
No guesses as to who is operating this scandal, non other than Serco. Surprise surprise 😡
A very high proportion of the people tagged aren’t at the address where they are supposed to be.
They have lost track of a murderer and a pedophile.
In one scene a girl that is on tag filmed herself jetting off on holiday. The video then she uploaded the video to her TikTok a/c. She also filmed herself getting drunk despite the fact that she can’t while on tag.
Then she proceeded to demonstrate how she gets her tag off.

My son worked briefly at SERCO servicing these ankle tags and the box of tricks that comes with them. He said some of them were so filthy and stank to high heaven so you can only imagine the squalor they lived in.

keepingquiet

I used to work in a place where we kept young people from offending, or got them back on the straight and narrow. We were very successful because we treated them with respect and saw them as the vulnerable people they were.

Life is no picnic for young people today, and this post just reinforces my opinion that no one cares about them anymore. The unit I worked in got closed down...

I quite agree, I was a child protection social worker & ex foster carer and its amazing what you can achieve just by giving teenagers 3 good meals a day, somewhere clean to live and someone to guide them, & a job or prospect of work and listen to them. Parents have to work so much now children have little guidance.
Life isn't easy for the young but I much prefer the Labour approach to families, works better too

I learned some important skills working there too, spabbygirl. Let's hope things are going to improve for our young people from now on. It does make me angry when people make mindless statements without remembering, we were all children once.