A 45% increase in spending on youth justice has done nothing to decrease rates of reoffending, according to a recent report by King’s College’s Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Despite the government’s diversion of vast extra resources to the problem, and the implementation of a continuing stream of new initiatives, the numbers of children and young people entering or re-entering the court system have remained stubbornly high, as has the use of the sanction of last resort: custody.

 But why is the issue proving so intractable? As someone who frequently works in the youth courts, I find it difficult to point to a part of the system that is manifestly failing. Youth Offending Teams, introduced in 1998 to guide, support and divert juvenile offenders at an early stage, are almost always represented by knowledgeable and dedicated staff and are clearly making a positive contribution despite their large workload. Court procedures are easily comprehensible, magistrates and district judges specially qualified for youth work, sentencing options flexible and usually constructive.

At some point then, we must confront the reality that reoffending amongst juveniles owes more to powerful social forces than to a flawed legal system; and it is here that government policy loses its coherence. Every identifiable factor tending to put a child at risk of offending is one to which today’s political class seems oblivious.

To take one example, it is obvious to anyone who has had contact with significant numbers of juvenile offenders that family breakdown has a huge influence on behaviour. Specifically, out of the overwhelming majority of juvenile offenders who are boys, a disproportionate number lack the support, discipline and guidance of a father figure. Yet our lawmakers think so little of fathers that yesterday they voted to abolish the need to even consider their role when taking decisions on IVF.

Education is also a critical consideration for young people, but the continual sapping of the authority of teachers, whose power to expel disruptive pupils is now circumscribed and reversible by an appeals body, undermines its value. As a result, children learn the perverse lesson that misbehaviour is a powerful weapon at their disposal, and one against which authority has limited recourse.

Finally, the implementation of 24-hour drinking and the failure to outlaw irresponsible cut-price alcohol promotions send out a totally counterproductive message at a time when health professionals are desperately trying to turn the tide against what is one of Europe’s worst underage drinking records.

Until politicians realise the damaging impact of their own ideologically-driven undermining of fatherhood and school discipline, and the importance of adopting a clear and consistent policy towards alcohol, the really positive steps taken within the youth justice system will not be able to achieve their full potential or yield more significant results in the reduction of juvenile crime.