Vulnerable young people in care who assault staff or damage property will not automatically be arrested by police or charged, under proposals intended to reduce the excessive criminalisation of looked-after children.
A government review will examine how children in state care who exhibit challenging behaviour can be offered targeted support such as trauma counselling rather than being punished through the criminal justice system.
The aim is to restrict the “over-policing” of looked-after young people and reduce disproportionate numbers who offend while in care. Children in care are 10 times as likely to receive a caution or conviction than those not in care.
The review, expected to report in the spring, aims to tighten an existing protocol introduced by the previous government in 2018. The protocal said police should not be used for what it called “low-level behaviour management or matters a reasonable parent would not have called the police over”.
David Lammy, the deputy prime minister, said: “Strengthening the protocol will mean these children are treated as children, rather than criminals. Ensuring they get proper help and support means we can change the path they’re on, stop them turning to lives of crime and give them a more positive future.
The children’s commissioner for England, Rachel de Souza, said her office regularly saw cases where traumatised children taken into care after being exploited, abused or groomed by adults subsequently found themselves subjected to heavy-handed criminal punishment and retribution rather than care and support.
She said: “Children with complex needs or disabilities whose behaviours require significant care from expert professionals, are criminalised for lashing out and damaging property. My case workers tell me time and time again about instances of children’s homes calling the police because a child breaks something.
“For any other child, these would not be ‘incidents’ documented in writing. There would be no report, no police involvement. They would usually be handled by parents or other caregivers in private, where children are allowed to be children.”
In one case cited by de Souza, Jimmy, a boy with autism and significant emotional and behavioural difficulties, was effectively contained in an illegal children’s home under 24-hour supervision, unable to play outside or go to school.
“One day Jimmy threw something that hit one of these staff members. They were not seriously injured but the police were called. Jimmy was charged and then convicted. He, a disabled child, had to pay a fine.”
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Research published by the children’s commissioner on Monday found that children in care were more likely than those not in care to commit an offence of common assault and battery, or criminal damage under the value of £5,000, or assaulting a police office. They were less likely to commit drug or knife offences.
The research said that while it was impossible to generalise about the nature of the offences, it was notable that many of the incidents such as violence towards carers and damage to homes “get a police response which would not happen in a family home, which can in turn escalate to violence towards those police officers”.
It adds: “This analysis of first offences of children appears to support the idea that for many children who come into care, they are being brought into the criminal justice system by the very people who should be protecting them from it.”
