9
Dec
2014
By Calvin at 10:58 GMT, 11 years ago
On BBC news this morning an MP (I think it was Sarah Champion) was being interviewed about a new report from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Victims and Witnesses of Crime and Victim Support concerning the underreporting of crime by children. The report has found that only 1 in 20 crimes of violence against children are being reported by them. It suggests a number of reasons why children are underreporting including not knowing they’ve been the victim of crime, being hesitant about going to the police and putting it down to being ‘part of growing up’.
I don’t think the interview told us anything that we didn’t already know, but research like this will reveal the true extent of the problem and help us decide what to do to improve things.
The MP wasn’t finger pointing, but she did suggest that things that constitute a crime and crime prevention should be taught in schools.
Now call me old-fashioned, but I know for a certain fact that specialist police officers used to pay regular visits to schools and teach children about ‘what crime is’ and what do if a victim, so what happened?
Like me, I suspect you’ll remember being at the wrong end of a fist at school and doing nothing about it and it seemed to me back then that is was very much part of one’s passage through life’s formative years! Attitudes have changed now (I’m pleased about that) and so I welcome the report and am looking forward to reading it. As soon as I find it I’ll post up the link here.
