Alex Lloyd

​In the past 18 months, the UK has seen a spike in violent crime. Recent figures released by the Home Office suggest that offences involving knives have increased by two thirds since 2014. The use of these weapons by young people against other young people, in particular, is rising. Although the issue has been addressed by the media and politicians, discussions have focused on criticising police cuts and promoting tougher sentences for individuals caught carrying offensive weapons. This public narrative doesn’t include consideration of how wider social and psychological factors impact the act of committing a crime.
 
When knife crime is reported to the public, the emphasis is almost solely on the incident itself. Media outlets spare no detail recounting the events and condemning the perpetrators for what is seen as a senseless act of violence. In political debates, these incidents of violence have been used to highlight the impact of austerity, including police having reduced capacity to deter and respond to these events. While some journalists have highlighted the closure of youth clubs as a relevant precursor to the upsurge in crime, this consideration of broader context tends to be the exception rather than the norm. For the most part, the media decontextualizes acts of violence from the wider influences on behaviour - the conversations only begin in the moment a crime is committed. The myriad other influencing factors remain in the margins.
 
Yet, there is a large body of evidence to suggest that offending behaviour can have its roots long before the act occurs. Young people who are exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), such as physical, verbal or sexual abuse, or whose parents are in prison or going through divorce are more likely to become involved in crime. And, though we are all susceptible to experiencing ACEs, poverty acts as a risk factor - people living in the most deprived areas report the highest levels of ACEs. The more ACEs a young person has, the more likely they will be criminally involved by the time they reach their teenage years. This evidence shouts loudly that youth violence is influenced by factors that emerge or are present long before the act of crime itself. It is clear that current narratives focusing only on the act of violence itself are ignoring a range of social and psychological factors that are also a part of each young person’s story.

Photo by Emma Goldsmith on Unsplash
Sinead Peacock-Brennan

On August 16, the British Association for Social Workers (BASW) and Psychologists for Social Change (PSC) co-hosted an event to highlight social injustice and inequalities within the child protection and care systems.

I work as a clinical psychologist in a service for people with a learning disability and have been an active member of London PSC for three years. At the event, the audience heard presentations based on research and practical experience of psychologists, social workers and people with lived experience of the care system. I agreed to summarise the points that resonated with me, along with some of my own thoughts. 

After the main presentations small groups discussed what they had heard and came together to think about individual and collective action. I've collated our ideas in part 2 of this blog: "We need to be more 'counter', committed and personal". You can read BASW's Eve Wilson's take on the event here and watch a recording of part of the event here.
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What does the research say?
Professor Anna Gupta discussed her research, alongside that of Paul Bywaters, Andy Bilson and Michal Krumer-Nevo. Professor Gupta explained that a child is ten times more likely to be taken into care if they come from an area of high deprivation compared to an area of low deprivation. (Deprivation refers to a community's access, or lack of access, to important resources such as income, education, employment or health). This is also the case for children on a child protection plan, which is drawn up by the local authority and the family after an investigation to keep a child safe or improve their living conditions.

As local authorities have continued to be hit by austerity, there has been an increase in the numbers of children on protection plans, most often for emotional abuse or neglect (the proportion of children in care for physical or sexual abuse appears to stay the same). Despite this increase, a large proportion of children are not being offered any service after the investigation. So, families are labelled as not providing “good enough” care but not “bad enough” to warrant support, a situation that Professor Gupta suggested has contributed to the relationship between services and families feeling increasingly authoritarian and coercive.

What then is driving these differences in the involvement of child protection services? There is no evidence to suggest that parents in Blackpool (an area of high deprivation) love their children any less than parents in Wokingham (low deprivation). Is it down to the differing levels of deprivation?

Professor Gupta talked about the direct and indirect impacts of poverty on children and families – both of which play a role. A direct impact would be the inability to buy food for your family if you do not have access to money. An indirect impact would be the lack of power that people living in poverty hold, blocking their access to roles, rights and opportunities as well as having an impact on the way professionals interact with them.