A new report by the National Children's Bureau for the Prison Reform Trust indicates that the term "looked after" may be a misnomer for some children in care. The Report is "Care a stepping stone to custody: the views of children in care on the links between care, offending and custody" by Rachel Blades, Di Hart, Joanna Lea and Natasha Willmott.
Most children are taken into care because they have been abused, neglected or experienced family breakdown. The state is supposed to look after them and protect them from further harm. Yet looked after children are far more likely to be convicted of a crime and end up in custody than other children - fewer than 1% of all children in England were looked after at 31st March 2011 yet the 2010-11 annual survey of 15-18 year olds in prison found that more than a quarter of boys (27%), and over half of girls (55%), had been in care at some point before being sentenced to custody.
Published December 2011
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/careasteppingstonetocustody.pdf [PDF 2MB]
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