On National Child Criminal Exploitation Awareness Day (March 18, 2021) the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice presented a webinar featuring justice academics Professor Sean Redmond (University of Limerick) and Dr Paul Rigby (University of Stirling), who discussed child protection responses to Child Criminal Exploitation, Serious and Organised Crime and child trafficking in Ireland, Scotland and internationally.
The Greentown Programme Ireland – How we lifted the lid on the exploitation of children by local crime networks and what we intend to do about it Professor Sean Redmond, Adjunct Professor of Youth Justice, University of Limerick
The Greentown Programme research, first published in 2016 and then 2021, provided the first detailed scientific examination of the lives of children involved in serious crime in Ireland. In 2020 the Greentown Programme was allocated €4.2 million to trial a programme to reduce network influence on children and to provide realistic routes out of network activity for children already embedded.
Professor Redmond outlined the key developments in the Greentown Programme, including how it created means to provide detailed narratives of the lives of children involved in crime networks, progress in the development of the trial programmes and issues of interest to colleagues in Scotland.
Child Criminal Exploitation – where is the child protection response? Dr Paul Rigby, Lecturer in Social Work, University of Stirling
Children and young people who are involved with serious offending can be both high risk case management for offending and also a child protection issue. Dr Rigby’s talk focused on the absence of a comprehensive child protection response for these children and young people, who are both ‘at risk’ and ‘risky’. He drew on international guidelines for juvenile justice, with reference to his work on child protection, child trafficking, and child protection/exploitation.
Event resources
Coming up…
Join us on Thursday, May 13, at 1pm, to hear from Stuart Allardyce (Director, Stop it Now! Scotland) on ‘Technology Assisted Harmful Sexual Behaviour and Children and Young People’. Sign up here.