Huge Rise In Calls For Social Work Reports On Offenders

The number of background reports sought for young offenders in Scotland’s biggest city has doubled in just two years. The rising workload in Glasgow comes as one of the clearest signs yet of just how many children are causing serious concern to authorities.

Social workers in the city were asked to draw up 1114 papers on some of the country’s most troubled and troubling children in 2005-06. The figure, up from just 546 two years before, rose after a substantial increase in police action against child offenders, including teenage gangfighters, in recent years.

The reports were requested by reporters to the children’s hearing system, who only do so when they suspect a child may require compulsory supervision, anything from additional social work support to placement in a secure unit. Nationwide reporters sought a total of 6703 background reports in 2005-06, compared with 5635 two years before. That increase was just 19%, compared with Glasgow’s 104%.

City officials acknowledge something is happening in Glasgow, especially as the number of reports requested by reporters is increasing quickly just as the total number of offence referrals dips. A council spokesman said: “There has been a rapid rise in the number of offence-based reports in recent years but Glasgow has coped very well.”

Glasgow has traditionally had some of the biggest problems in Scotland with underage crime. The rise in reports, however, appears to coincide with the introduction of measures to tackle it, including Operation Tag to crack down on teenage territorial gangs on the city’s south-side and the introduction of CCTV.

One senior city source said: “If you have more cameras or more police on the streets you are going to increase the number of young people caught offending and the number of reports requested. In the past if there was a report of gang fighting, the police would come and everybody would run away, except for one boy who wasn’t very fast and he would get referred. Now police are investigating CCTV coverage and identifying more of these young people and that is contributing to the increase.”

There are, however, other factors. The number of reports requested rose despite a slight downturn in referrals from the police to the children’s hearing system in Glasgow. Some insiders suspect reporters at the Scottish Children’s Reporters Administration (SCRA) may have started seeking more background reports because councils now have more resources to provide them and to support the young people cited in them.

An SCRA spokeswoman said: “Every referral to the children’s reporter arises from a concern for the child or children involved. The role of the reporter is to assess these concerns, and decide whether there is a need to intervene on a compulsory basis by referring them to a Children’s Hearing. The reporter then carries out an appropriate investigation prior to making this decision. Reports on the child and their background are received from a number of agencies, and as you can see from these figures, with the majority coming from social work.”

Reporters can request more than one report on an individual child in the course of a year.

Tagging Turned My Life Around’

Some time last year, after years of gangfighting, drinking and drugs, Calvin finally lost it. Coming around in a hospital bed, he lashed out at the nurses trying to help him. Calvin was 13. The attack, the latest of many, cost him dearly. “I got the jail for racial abuse,” he said.”But I don’t really remember what happened.”

He wasn’t enjoying telling the story. A few minutes earlier he had been sitting talking with his case worker at Glasgow’s Intensive Support and Monitoring Service or ISMS, the frontline programme for the city’s most disturbed and disturbing children.

Calvin, still a relatively confident 14-year-old, said: “The hospital was the worst. I blacked out and woke up there. I had tanned my drink. I just wolf it down. Now I have realised I have got to stop.”

When Calvin landed in hospital he was what the Scottish Executive regarded as a persistent young offender. The last executive came up with a new weapon against persistent offenders like Calvin: tagging. Seven councils were to pioneer the scheme.

The local authorities who ran the scheme, however, were criticised for not using tags enough. In Glasgow there have only been 13 orders.

Calvin couldn’t be happier with his ankle bracelet, hidden under his tracksuit bottoms. It’s only ever gone off by accident, even though he knows there are ways of beating it. After barely attending any kind of secondary education, Calvin is about to start a vocational course. “It’s because of the tag,” he said yesterday.

His case worker disagrees. “You have to give yourself credit too,” she said. “You’ve turned your life around.”