STEPHEN LEWIS speaks to the author of a worrying new report on juvenile offending

IT'S not - whatever the headlines might have you believe - the end of society as we know it. OK, so almost half the secondary school students in England, Scotland and Wales admit to having broken the law, according to a new survey founded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

That isn't the same as saying almost half of all youngsters are criminals. When you think about it, there are very few of us who haven't, at one time or another, broken the law.

"I'm not terribly surprised to find that 48.5 per cent of kids say they have done something illegal," says David Utting, one of the authors of the report Youth At Risk? produced for the Communities That Care organisation.

"You only have to think back to yourself and your friends at school to see why this might be possible!"

One of the main conclusions the report drew, after confidentially questioning a representative sample of almost 15,000 11-16 year-olds, was that most young people are behaving themselves pretty well most of the time.

Nevertheless, even though it may only be a small minority of young people who are going off the rails, the report reveals much that is worrying.

What most shocked him, admits Mr Utting, was the fact one in four young men aged 15/16 said they had carried a knife or other weapon during the previous year - and one in five admitted attacking someone with the intention of seriously hurting them.

Violence, the report concluded, is now an "acknowledged part of life for a significant minority of young people".

That goes hand-in-hand with a worrying increase in 'binge drinking'. A quarter of all 13 and 14-year-olds who completed the questionnaires admitted they had 'recently' downed five or more alcoholic drinks in a single session - rising to more than half of all 15 and 16-year-olds.

"There is no doubt that binge drinking has been getting worse in recent years," says Mr Utting.

That may, he believes, be largely down to social factors - most of us view drinking as socially acceptable and so tend to turn a blind eye when our children drink even if they are under age. "We've learned not to drink and drive," he says. "Maybe now we need to learn a bit more about what is appropriate for kids who are under age to be drinking."

What the new report is really about, however, is looking at practical ways of tackling youth crime.

It identifies 'risk factors' associated with juvenile crime - and suggests that if these can be dealt with, and young people can be caught early before they get sucked into habitual crime, real progress can be made.

"It's a bit like heart disease," says Mr Utting. "You cannot say that smoking causes heart disease, but it is a very important risk factor. If you can get a lot of people to reduce exposure to risk, you can bring down the incidence of heart disease."

The juvenile crime 'risk factors' identified by the Rowntree report fall into four broad categories; family (eg parents who were offenders themselves or who abuse their children); poverty and poor housing; schooling; and 'neighbourhood' factors such as whether there is a local problem with drugs or crime or hooliganism.

The important thing, Mr Utting says, is that these risk factors are not the same across the country. What is vital is that local communities be able to identify what their own particular risk factors are - and then do something to tackle them.

It's an approach that is, to some extent, already working in York. Despite incidents such as the spate of attacks on York buses, the Safer York Partnership points out youth offending in the city is already falling.

But there is no room for complacency. A host of local initiatives have either begun or are about to begin, all aimed at getting to young people at risk of being sucked into a life of crime early, before it is too late.

David Poole of the York Youth Offending Team says these include referral orders, where a young person caught offending for the first time can be referred to a 'panel' of local people, including possibly the victim, who will decide on an appropriate punishment; a 'final warning' programme where youngsters who offend a second time will be referred to the youth offending team, who will 'tailor' a package of support to help them; and a system, yet to be introduced, for trying to identify as early as possible youngsters who might be at risk of being drawn into a spiral of crime.

That, Mr Poole says, will involve agencies across the board - police, health care and social services - being alert to possible local risk factors such as alcohol or substance abuse, truancy and so-on.

He agrees with David Utting about the importance of local information. "There may be a particular drug problem in a particular street," he says. "Or there may be one or two ringleaders who are dragging other young people into a particular type of behaviour.

"It is about very local solutions."

Updated: 10:35 Tuesday, April 09, 2002