The parish of the Rev. Rose Hudson Wilkin is one of the poorest parts of the UK despite being a stone's throw from the super-rich City of London. Her Hackney parishioners suffer low earnings, high unemployment, single parenthood and high crime rates. Rose has had to officiate at too many funerals of young men who have fallen victim to violent crime, the latest for Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, who was stabbed to death last October.

Rose believes that youth crime has flourished because adults are abdicating their responsibility to intervene when they see children and youths misbehaving. Changes to child protection laws, following rare but high profile child murders and cases involving paedophiles, have made matters worse by giving children too many rights and making it harder for adults to interact with children who are not their own. She argues that all adults need to feel empowered to step in when they see young people behaving badly; if children are used to adults doing this from an early age then they will accept the boundaries set by adult society for their behaviour.

Former teacher, John Jones, explains how teachers are hampered by over-restrictive rules and regulations affecting innocent contact with their pupils. Youth worker, Yufu Niazi, talks to Rose about the difficulties he faces in getting volunteers to help out at his youth centre because of the lengthy criminal records checking process. Rules which discourage these normal human interactions between adults and young children deprive children of the care and attention they need. Children ignored by adult society are more likely to turn to gangs and crime.

Former young offender, Jason Grant, explains how this happened to him. Let down by the adults he came into contact with, he turned to a gang for companionship and support. He told Rose: "There needs to be more communication between adults and children. I didn't get the guidance and assistance on a daily basis. I suppose I felt my place in society was to be like one of these bad people on the streets. All I really wanted was to be accepted, to be part of something, and that's what gangs, for me, provided."

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