Professional perceptions of the care-crime connection: Risk, marketisation and a failing system

Abstract

Reporting the findings from an English study of practitioners working within multi-agency settings, this article will explore their perceptions of the factors that contribute to the criminalisation of children in care. The findings support the contention that children get into trouble as a consequence of a number of system level deficiencies, along with a defensive, risk averse approach to practice which permeates throughout children’s social care and criminal justice agencies. The impact of an under-confident and transient residential care workforce is discussed, along with the privatisation of children’s home provision. Yet while residential care was confirmed as being the more problematic environment, children in foster care were not immune to unnecessary criminalisation. Unchanged, this will continue to produce negative outcomes in terms of criminalisation, the longer term effects of which will impact the life-chances of young people for years to come.