CHILD PANELS TO IDENTIFY 'CRIMINALS OF THE FUTURE'

The Government's chief adviser on youth crime outlined what he admitted
were "controversial" plans yesterday to identify potential criminals among
eight-year-olds.

Lord Warner, chairman of the Youth Justice Board, said he accepted there
would be fears that the children would become "stigmatised" but he claimed
parents of unruly youngsters would welcome the idea.

Children aged between eight and 13 would be identified by panels of
professionals for displaying signs of problematic behaviour, including
drugs use, poor mental health and family difficulties, he said.

They and their families would then be given voluntary referral to the
panel, directed to relevant services and allocated a key worker.

Details of the plan emerged yesterday as the Government claimed that
evaluation of an existing programme to give parenting classes to the
mothers and fathers of unruly children had led to a fall in offending.

In the 18 months to last December, the courts issued 2,194 Parenting
Orders, under which parents of prolific offenders aged between 10 and 17
can be required to attend evening classes where they receive professional
support and group therapy.

Results from 34 projects involving 3,000 parents " a sixth of whom had
been sent by the courts " showed that despite "initial reluctance by
many", 90 per cent of parents would recommend the programme to others, said
Lord Warner.

"It shows that once parents are on the courses they eagerly sought help
with dealing with their child's difficult behaviour, with providing
parental discipline, and with encouraging their children to go to school,"
he said.

Convictions of children whose parents attended the courses fell by about a
third in the year after the programmes, while the number of offences
recorded fell by a half in the same period, compared with the previous year.

Lord Warner told the Association of Chief Police Officers' youth justice
conference in Bristol yesterday that support would be extended to parents
of even younger children.

He said new Youth Inclusion and Support Panels, which will aim to identify
potential serious offenders among eight to 13-year-olds, would be set up in
the Government's 10 street crime hotspots.

Lord Warner said: "It has to be acknowledged that there has been some
controversy about these proposals.

"There are those who fear that by targeting younger children we will be
stigmatising or labelling them. But it is the strong view of the board that
this is not about labelling young people but 'de-labelling' them."

He added: "It is my experience that many families would welcome support
with their children if only it was available at an earlier stage and before
problems escalate."

The panels will be made up of a range of experts including officers from
local youth offending teams, police and representatives from schools,
health and social services.

Oliver Letwin, the shadow Home Secretary, said he welcomed proposals to
"intervene at an early stage" but said children should be targeted when
they began attending school at the ages of four and five. "The problems
have already often become intractable by the age of eight," he said.

The Home Office minister John Denham will tell the same conference today
that social services staff, teachers and youth workers are not doing enough
to tackle the problem of teenage gangs, leaving police to shoulder too much
of the burden.