As part of the National Evaluation of the On Track programme, school surveys
were conducted amongst children who were likely to come from On Track areas.
These are 24 high deprivation, high crime areas within England and Wales. In
total self report data were collected from over 30,000 young people, aged 7-16,
relating to their experiences of family, schools, neighbourhoods, and friendship
groups, together with details of their involvement in a range of problem behaviours.
Whilst not nationally representative, the findings will be of interest to policy
makers and practitioners who have responsibility for developing and delivering
interventions for children and young people who are most likely to offend.
KEY FINDINGS
Overall, 52%
of Secondary School children in these On Track areas reported involvement
in offending in the last 12 months (55% of boys and 49% of girls).
The most commonly
reported types of offending were vandalism, stealing and receiving stolen
goods. The main contributory factors to these types of offences were high
risk on friends’ involvement in problem behaviour and high risk on holding
conflictual attitudes.
Girls (32%)
were as likely to commit acts of vandalism as boys (33%) and there was only
a small difference in the proportion of boys (29%) reporting stealing compared
with girls (25%).
Three-quarters
of children reported that drugs were moderately or easily available within
their communities.
The risk domains
of community and particularly individual/peer factors were found to be the
most important for addressing criminality amongst Secondary School pupils.