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WHILST I think the claim that the ‘No Wrong Door’ approach, quoted by someone speaking for Rochdale Council in the original report by Nick Statham, as being ‘highly effective’, might be ready for some reappraisal after the report by Ofsted which resulted in yet another entry for the town in Private Eye’s Rotten Boroughs column, I am not unsympathetic to the problems that any town will face in trying to care for recalcitrant teenagers.
It should be noted that no one at this home, or any other, has the power to detain these children against their will. When the ‘grooming scandal’ came to light there were claims that at least one parent had been unable to control his daughter’s movements and had felt it necessary to approach Social Services for assistance. It is by no means impossible that had the parent exercised the control he thought necessary to protect his daughter, Social Services would have been expected to intervene to protect her from deprivation of her liberty by her father.
As a society we demand two sometimes incompatible things; that young people up to the age of 18 be treated as ‘children’, which by definition implies that they be given special protection, and that young people always be treated as independent agents able to make rational choices. As the case highlighted demonstrates a tension exists between what we expect and what we will allow.
Until we as a society find a satisfactory way of resolving this tension we will continue to read of many more cases like this.
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The article by Nick Statham to which I made reference was published by Rochdale Online on 18 February. I believe similar coverage appeared in the Rochdale Observer. However the problem I discussed has a much wider significance than this particular case which happened to be in Rochdale.
The question of how we define a ‘child’ is a legal minefield. At what age does a ‘child’ become capable of committing a crime? Does the nature of the crime influence that decision? In the sexual realm it becomes even more problematic. A sixteen to eighteen years old girl can indulge in sexual activity to her heart’s content. It she takes pictures of herself in sexually explicit poses and sends them by e-mail to her boyfriend, both she and he are committing an offence, as would any adult who views them. If an adult had confiscated cigarettes from a child in the home concerned to prevent them smoking in the bedroom would it have been considered theft or an infringement of the child’s ‘rights’?
Dealing with young people who, depending on your point of view, have or are ‘problems’ is always going to be difficult. Unless you have a clear answer to how the questions it raises I suggest it would be a good idea not to seek to claim the moral high ground. The present remedies do not seem to work very well. The problem is to find better ones.
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