Scheme aims to exploit ‘teachable moment’, when someone is wavering between criminality and turning their back on violence
A scheme aiming to turn children arrested for violence away from crime has claimed staggering success, with up to nine out of 10 diverted from further offending, according to a report.
Under the scheme, which is funded by London’s Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), special youth workers are placed in police custody centres across the capital.
Continue reading...Girl’s lawyer tells police misconduct hearing that she felt ‘physically violated’ by incident at her London school
A black schoolgirl suffered mental harm and felt “physically violated” when she was strip-searched at school by police, a misconduct hearing for three officers has been told.
The girl, who was 15 at the time and has been known as Child Q, was strip-searched in December 2020 at her school in Hackney, east London, while menstruating, having been wrongly accused of possessing cannabis.
Continue reading...Families share incidents of sons being slashed and afraid to leave their cells at HMP Swinfen Hall
Young offenders at a troubled prison in the Midlands have been stabbed, “dehumanised” and are “becoming more violent” in order to survive, mothers of prisoners have told the Guardian.
HMP Swinfen Hall, near Lichfield, Staffordshire, has seen a growing number of disturbances, including the intervention of riot officers. The prison officers union last month called for the Ministry of Justice to intervene and clear the place of weapons after several staff members were attacked.
Continue reading...Officials draft declaration to help tackle ‘fluctuations’ in world economy
The UK is offering the EU a “new strategic partnership” aimed at bolstering trade and presenting a united European front when Donald Trump is threatening to upend decades of transatlantic alignment.
A draft declaration being drawn up by London and Brussels ahead of a UK-EU summit on 19 May points to a “common understanding” on a number of shared interests.
Continue reading...Study shows women today are happier being women – but getting up to go to work remains as punishing as ever
The mundane tasks of everyday life, such as homework after school and household chores at the weekend, may not have changed in the past 80 years, but societal attitudes towards them could not be more different.
A study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London (KCL), comparing public attitudes now and in the 1930s and 40s, reveals how significantly views on everyday life in Britain have shifted over the decades.
Continue reading...Head of National Education Union calls for statutory ban on phones in schools and social media ban for under-16s
Almost all schools in England have banned mobile phone use by pupils, according to the first national survey conducted, as the leader of the largest teaching union called for a statutory ban owing to the “damaging impact” on young people.
The national survey, ordered by Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, showed that headteachers have swiftly instituted bans on smartphone use during school hours. The survey of more than 15,000 schools found that 99.8% of primary schools and 90% of secondary schools have some form of ban.
Continue reading...Young people whose debts outweigh their assets are at risk of experiencing blighted earnings, and even poorer health
Gen Z and young millennials are battling a “negative wealth” problem due to growing debt burdens that limit their life chances, according to a new analysis from the Fairness Foundation.
The thinktank says negative wealth, where debts outweigh assets, is linked to lower wages and worse health in later life, and that ministers should reintroduce the Child Trust Fund to give young people a greater stake in society.
Continue reading...More health-conscious young people take total to 11.5m memberships, report finds, as experts cite social aspect alongside fitness
Record numbers of Britons are going to the gym, as the desire of many gen Zers to socialise while getting fit instead of drinking in the pub drives an unprecedented surge in membership, a report shows.
In all, 11.5 million people aged 16 and over– a new high – now belong to a gym in the UK, a rise of 1.6 million from 2022. It means one in six people have taken out a membership.
Continue reading...National Crime Agency says such groups are fuelling crimes including fraud, violence and child sexual abuse
Teenage boys are joining online gangs where they share sadistic and misogynistic material that fuels crimes including fraud, violence and child sexual abuse, the director general of the National Crime Agency has warned.
Offenders in online communities collaborate and compete to cause harm online and offline through cyber-attacks such as launching malware, ransomware or executing data breaches; fraud; extremism; grooming and blackmailing; serious violence; and child sexual abuse, according to the NCA, which leads the UK’s fight to cut serious and organised crime.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Royal Australasian College of General Practitioners urges Albanese government to increase range of medicines they can prescribe
Every three months, Suzanne Grobke makes an eight-hour round-trip to access the ADHD medicine her 12-year-old daughter depends on.
“My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD when she was three and we see a paediatrician in Sydney because it was up to a two-year wait to see someone regionally,” she said.
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Continue reading...Proposed changes, which include scrapping principle of remand as ‘last resort’ for youth, condemned as ‘backwards step’
Legal, human rights and First Nations groups have condemned the Victorian government’s overhaul of the state’s bail laws, which will force the courts to treat children accused of serious crimes like adults when deciding whether to remand them or release them into the community.
The premier, Jacinta Allan, on Wednesday announced proposed changes to the Bail Act that would result in more unsentenced people who have not been convicted of a crime being remanded in custody.
Continue reading...UN-commissioned study in UK, US, Ireland, Australia, Canada and New Zealand finds satisfaction rises with age
For more than half a century, the midlife crisis has been a feature of western society. Fast cars, impulsive decisions, and peak misery between the age of 40 and 50. But all that is changing, according to experts.
In a new paper commissioned by the UN, the leading academics Jean Twenge and David Blanchflower warn that a burgeoning youth mental health crisis in six English-speaking countries worldwide is upending the traditional pattern of happiness across our lifetimes.
Continue reading...Visceral videos of people playing with slime or braiding hair soothe those who feel overwhelmed by in-person contact
Younger adults are increasingly overwhelmed by in-person interaction and soothing themselves instead with sensory online content, according to a report on the wildly popular online content known as ASMR.
ASMR – autonomous sensory meridian response – describes a particular sensory phenomenon that is triggered by specific sights or sounds, which usually begins with a tingling sensation across the scalp and results in feelings of deep calm and relaxation.
47% of those aged 25-34 said they felt overwhelmed in noisy or busy places such as shopping centres or train stations, compared with 35% of those aged 55-64.
39% of those aged 18-24 felt the need to shut out noise, for example using noise-cancelling headphones in public, compared with only 21% of those age 45-54.
Younger age groups were also more likely to prefer chatting to people online rather than face to face and to prefer to work alone rather than around other people.
Continue reading...Criminal justice specialists call for new approach to identify emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions
The rise of “0 to 100” killers who go from watching torture, mutilation and beheading videos in their bedrooms to committing murder suggests there could be a link between extreme violence online and in real life, experts have said.
Criminal justice experts advocated a new approach, inspired by counter-terrorism, to identify an emerging type of murderer with no prior convictions, after cases such as Nicholas Prosper, who killed his mother and siblings and planned a primary school massacre.
Continue reading...Charities across the country highlight the rising demand for emergency accommodation as costs spiral to care for those most in need
Holly Udobang is packing the last bag: a sleeping mat, gloves, woolly hat, waterproof poncho, hand warmers. It’s the sort of kit that teenagers might need for a Duke of Edinburgh trip.
But this bag is for young homeless people, to give them a fighting chance of getting some sleep on the streets of London. Holly and her colleagues at the New Horizon Youth Centre are packing them to give to the young people they now have to turn away every day, as an increasing number of emergency shelters shut their doors.
Continue reading...Platform cites ‘legal requirements around when we remove data’ after lawsuit filed over deaths of children attempting ‘blackout challenge’
Four British parents who are suing TikTok for the alleged wrongful deaths of their children say they are “suspicious” about the social media platform’s claim to have deleted their children’s data.
The parents have filed a lawsuit in the US that claims that their four children died in 2022 as a result of attempting the “blackout challenge”, a viral trend that circulated on social media in 2021.
Continue reading...New raft of measures labelled Ronan’s law include tougher sentences for those caught selling blades to under-18s
Retailers will be required to report suspicious or bulk purchases of knives, and those caught selling blades to under-18s will face tougher sentences under a new raft of measures to clamp down on young people’s access to weapons labelled Ronan’s law.
Named after Ronan Kanda, the 16-year-old killed in Wolverhampton in 2022 by a teenager carrying a 22in ninja blade he had ordered online, the new laws are part of a raft of anti-knife crime plans announced by the government on Wednesday.
Continue reading...Hundreds of teenagers have been given an IN10 police endorsement since 2020, says road safety charity
Electric scooters have been blamed for a surge in the number of children being penalised for driving without insurance.
Since the start of 2020 almost 800 children aged between 13 and 16 have been given an IN10 endorsement – the code used by the police for “using a vehicle uninsured against third party risks” – according to data obtained by a road safety charity.
Continue reading...Women are traditionally expected to buy chocolates for male colleagues on Valentine’s Day but teenage boys are shunning the one-sided custom
It has been several years since Japanese women first signalled their contempt for the long tradition of showering male colleagues with chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Now the country’s young people are slaying another sacred cow associated with Friday’s orgy of commercialised romance: one-sided gift giving.
Traditionally, women are expected to buy gift-wrapped chocolates for the men in their working lives, usually senior colleagues and others to whom they feel indebted – a tradition called giri choco, literally “obligation chocolates”.
Continue reading...Figures show practice continues eight years after pledge to end it, potentially impeding young people’s recovery
Children and young people in England with serious mental health problems are still being sent for treatment many miles away from their homes because bed shortages in some areas remain so severe, despite a pledge to end such practices eight years ago.
NHS England promised in 2017 to stop forcing highly troubled under-18s to leave family and friends after some received care more than 300 miles from where they lived.
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