Doomed Youth: why so many offend in Jersey

A staggering 84 in 1,000 offences are committed by young people in Jersey – and those offences are generally carried out by a handful of youngsters with an astonishing number of similarities.

In the first of a series of special reports Hannah Collier tells us just who those young offenders are, and has been finding out what can be done to stop them reoffending.

Young people hanging out is not an uncommon sight – but being seen as a nuisance and being a criminal are two very different things.

So how do young people go from messing around to breaking the law?

At La Moye prison some of the young offenders explained how they came to break the law.

Stefan Carrel, 20, said: “It was when I first went into a children’s home then got in with a group, started robbing bikes and it just led from there; I got a buzz from it.”

Jordon Crespell said: “It’s just the buzz I guess, there isn’t much to do over here apart from commit crime, I can’t even get a job these days, I have got nothing else to do.”

When comparing Jersey to Swansea in Wales – a coastal town which shows similarities in environment and lifestyle to here – we do not fare well. Although parish hall enquiries deal with far less serious youth crime, there is still a larger number of offences by young people compared to Swansea.

Here, 84 offences in 1,000 are committed by young people, compared to 29 in the UK.

And that appears to be because some offences which would be ignored in the UK are picked up here.

In Jersey, there are a handful of faces who continually make an appearance in the youth court, many already have a string of offences under their belts.

And the worst ten offenders all have things in common:

Nine out of the ten of the youngsters are Jersey-born to English-speaking parents.

All of them have lived in and around St Helier and they have all been suspended from school and played truant.

Each child has a problematic family life – with stressed-out mums and limited or no contact with their dads.

In addition, their parents have alcohol or drug problems, and many of the youngsters have also abused alcohol themselves.

And many of the children suffer from mental health problems and anger issues – some even self-harm.

All have been in contact with social services and they have all had at least one stint in care.

Brian Heath, Chief Probation Officer, said: “Of course there are lots of children who have very difficult family circumstances and personal circumstances who don’t get in trouble with the law, but I think what it shows is to expect the criminal justice system alone to solve the problems of that group of young people is completely unrealistic; offending is not the major problem in their lives – it is a feature of their lives – but it’s not the major problem.”

But with hardships in their lives is the States letting these young offenders down?

Minister for Home Affairs, Senator Ian Le Marquand, said: “Let’s be honest about this; if things go seriously wrong in families in early ages, there are going to be difficulties and all the best one can do is try and pick up the difficulties early to try and avoid them, to try and work with the youngsters from an early age – but there will be difficulties; no system in the world has solved this.”

Stefan has been in and out of prison since he was 15. He’s now 20.

He said: “They should hit kids at any age with the fact of jail and maybe that would sort them out a bit and they should give young offenders more of a chance in the court room than just banging them up constantly.”

He added: “I don’t think I should have been sent to jail.”

The probation service say custody should be a last resort because it can cause a whole range of problems.