YOUNG SCOTS A GENERATION OF CRIMINALS

One In Ten 18-Year-Olds Convicted In Court

CRIME is a young man's game, with a staggering one in ten of all
18-year-old Scottish youths convicted in the courts of serious crime in
1996.

Figures released by the Scottish Office yesterday showed how conviction
rates among 18-year-old males are more than 11 times the rate among men
over 40.

Housebreaking, car theft and the more serious crimes of violence, such as
murder, serious assault and handling offensive weapons, were nearly twice
as prevalent among young men under 21 as among older criminals.

Young women are also at their most likely to have a charge proved against
them when aged 18 - but they are convicted at a rate ten times lower than
their male counterparts.

Despite increasing use of longer sentences in young offenders institutions,
the rate of re-offending among young men after release remains at an
estimated 80 to 90 per cent.

In 1996, offenders under 21 were the most likely to be reconvicted of any
age group, according to the statistics revealed in the Scottish Office
report Criminal Proceedings in Scottish Courts, 1996.

Rather than responding to the efforts of the state to reform them, young
men tend to drift out of offending as they get into their twenties, get
married and find steady jobs.

The shocking conviction rates released yesterday refer only to the courts -
they do not include the growing numbers of youngsters aged up to 18 who are
being referred to the children's hearings system because of crime. In
total, youth crime costs Scotland 730 million a year.

The Scottish Liberal Democrat spokesman on crime and prisons, Sir Robert
Smith, said that the statistics proved that justice was failing in Scotland.

"I am particularly concerned at the levels of conviction among young
people. Liberal Democrats believe that this crisis demands a radical
overhaul of the entire criminal justice system in Scotland."

At their conference in Inverness last week, the Scottish Lib Dems agreed a
policy document for root-and-branch reform, including setting up a Ministry
for Justice in the Scottish Parliament, and outlawing prison as a
punishment for criminals under 18.

The report, Young People and Society, calls for earlier action to stop
children as young as eight or nine going off the rails, and wider use of
intervention schemes like Barnardo's Freagarrach project, which uses
intensive one-to-one working to help reform very serious young offenders.

"One thing is clear - hard action is what is needed from the government,
not the easy words they gave us when they were in opposition," said Sir
Robert.

Jan Murray, a spokeswoman for Barnardo's Scotland, said that prison was
clearly not working and that more help was needed for families at an
earlier age to prevent youngsters turning to crime.

The Freagarrach project has a 60 per cent success in seriously reducing
offending or stopping it altogether among the young people it works with.

"Youth crime is costing Scotland around 730 million a year," said Ms
Murray. "If we were to invest a fraction of that at a younger age there
would be less likelihood of these youngsters re-offending. Sending them to
secure accommodation doesn't seem to be tackling the issues and merely
sending them back out more hardened young criminals.

"Preventative work is very important. It is definitely possible to be
better at identifying young children who are displaying difficult
behaviour, and may go on to offend as they get older, and at working with
them and their families to prevent this happening."

Kathleen Marshall, a Glasgow University expert on young people and the law,
said it was a well-known phenomenon that there was a bulge in offending in
the mid-to-late teens. Scotland had pioneered the hearings system in order
that teenagers should not be needlessly criminalised - or turned into
heroes among their friends - by being tried in adult courts.

Yesterday's report follows criticism by the Chief Inspector of Prisons that
young offenders institutions are failing to rehabilitate young people, who
were found in prison surveys to be "more full of rage" than adult prisoners
in the maximum security Shotts unit where the minimum sentence being served
is 10 years.