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Journalism of Courage
Troubled teenagers as young as 10 would be hit with anti-social behaviour orders under a government plan unveiled on Tuesday to fight youth crime.
About 1,000 of the country’s ‘most challenging’ children will be forced to sign good behaviour contracts under the 218 million pound program, Children’s Secretary Ed Balls said.
Under the expansion of the Family Intervention Projects, failure to abide by the contract will lead to a criminal record, or a so-called ‘baby ASBO’.
Critics have said such orders do not properly tackle anti-social behaviour, as many teenagers view them as a ‘badge of honour’.
The announcement comes just days after a senior Scotland Yard officer called for a national child DNA database to stamp out youth crime.
The Met’s Forensic Science Director, Gary Pugh, said in The Observer newspaper that the DNA of badly behaved children as young as five should be put on such a database.
