Each year a minority of serious offences in Scotland are committed by children and young people under the age of 18. Although relatively uncommon in relation to overall reported crime, the social cost of such offending is significantly high with regards to its impact upon victims, their families and their communities.
This paper has been written by Stuart Allardyce (Barnado’s) and Jill McAfee (SCRA) to help professionals navigate some of the issues further to a young person being charged with a serious offence and to promote robust child centred practice with this challenging service user group.