Staff will be asked to contribute to what the Action Programme describes as 'the development and co-ordination of databases to identify, at an early stage, children and young people who are at risk of offending.' The databases are to be held by multi-agency youth offending teams set up in every local authority over the past year.
The Scottish Executive is also currently assessing the need for training materials, such as booklets and CD-Roms, which would spell out the factors that put children at risk from an early age of turning into criminals. A Scottish Executive spokesperson said that these might include displays of aggressive anti-social behaviour and hyperactivity; harsh or neglectful parenting; separation from parenting and offending by parents and siblings.
The move is part of the Executive's drive to reduce referrals to children's hearings by ten per cent by 2004 and address the problem of persistent serial offenders. According to the latest figures, children and young people referred to the children's panel who had committed ten or more offences rose by 20 per cent to 890 in one year.
But the plans have been met with an angry reaction in both the early education and criminology fields. Peter Lee, director of the Scottish Early Years and Family Network, said, 'Instead of identifying constant troublemakers early on, we should be talking about a whole approach to early childhood education and care in which all children are helped to reach their full potential.'
He added, 'It is an amazingly difficult task to identify a child early on as a potential delinquent. There are so many variables in a child's life that could lead him down one path or another.'
David Smith, professor of criminology at the University of Edinburgh, said, 'There are ethical questions about making early predictions about criminal potential. Any action you take based on them has the effect of stigmatising the child. Anything that has the potential of harming a child is unjustifiable, and should be strongly resisted.'
He said that there was some evidence to support the Executive's plans. 'Research has shown that predictions of criminality can be made when a child is as young as three. Children who go on to be persistent offenders are rarely missed. But the trouble is that many children identified with such potential do not, in fact, go on to offend.'
