Government pre-teen crime crackdown
Updated on 18 March 2008
Children as young as 10 who are in danger of drifting into crime are to be asked to sign good behaviour contracts.
About 1,000 children will be expected to go along with the orders or risk criminal records.
They'll be given one-to-one support and receive help with problems like drug abuse.
Clearly the secretary of state for schools didn't spend enough time in youth centres playing pool as a teenager.
Yet this morning Ed Balls came to a club in east London to launch his new youth taskforce.
Last year he said anti-social behaviour orders were not right but now effectively he wants to bring the ASBO regime to children as young as 10.
This taskforce will spend £218m on 20 intensive intervention projects.
Children will be made to sign good behaviour contracts, which if broken could land them with a criminal record or a grown up ASBO.
All this is an extension of existing family intervention schemes.
The Campbell family from east London took part in such a project, not because of anything 10-year-old Daniel did but because they were having problems in the community and needed support.
