David Porteous

‘Nobody should feel alone.’ Re-introducing socially excluded, cultural and ethnic minority children and young people to educational and vocational opportunity

This article reports on some of the findings from a five-nation study of projects working to re-introduce cultural and ethnic minority children and young people to educational training and work. It focuses upon the work of independent mediators in Anderlecht (Brussels) and Den Helder (Holland) in facilitating communication and collaboration between students, families, welfare and criminal justice agencies, schools and colleges and employers. In particular it considers the mediators role in bringing together the ‘minimum sufficient network’ of professionals and resources necessary to make an ‘intelligent’ response to a problematic situation and the consequent emergence of new forms of ‘meta-professionalism’.

Insiders? The Experiences and Perspectives of Long-Term, Regular Cannabis Users

Much research on the use of illicit drugs begins with questions about lifetime use, intended to estimate the number of people who have ever used drugs (i.e., once or more) in their lifetime. By contrast the research described in this article describes the experience and perspective of “insiders” (as opposed to the “outsiders” of Beckers (1963) famous study): people who have used a class B drug, cannabis, throughout their lifetime. Interviews were thus conducted with cannabis users who were over 35 years of age, had been using cannabis for at least 15 years, and who continued to use on at least a weekly basis. In total, 23 interviews were conducted: 13 of these were face-to-face interviews and a further 10 came from a modest utilization of Internet research methods. Findings suggest that the lifelong, regular users of cannabis that we interviewed did not follow traditional narratives of addiction, but instead participated in responsible and controlled consumption. Furthermore, the perceived health benefits of using cannabis were as important motivations for use as the pursuit of pleasure, and the most damaging aspects of use appeared to stem from the criminality of cannabis rather than any inherent properties of the drug itself.

Averting ghettoisation: the role of educational services in reducing crime and victimisation in the ethnic minority community in Anderlecht, Brussels

A successful multi‐level intervention in a high crime low income, innercity Brussels neighbourhood, with a large minority ethnic community, has important implications for how educational and community safety initiatives might be brought together to achieve the goals set out in Every Child Matters, Youth Matters and Narrowing the Justice Gap.

‘Risky Places’ — Young People’s Experiences of Crime and Victimisation at School and in the Community

Schools have often been data-gathering sites for studies about victimisation. As we have seen in other chapters, bullying surveys have been around since the early 1990s (see Smith and Sharp, 1994) and a number of Home Office (Graham and Bowling, 1995; Roe and Ashe, 2008) and Youth Justice Board (YJB) surveys (see, for example, MORI, 2000; YJB, 2009a) have added information about offending behaviour and victimisation in this age group. Ongoing academic research on youth transitions and crime tracks a cohort of over 4000 secondary school children in one city (Edinburgh, Scotland) (Smith and McVie, 2003). However, some surveys have mixed up behaviours that are clearly against the law, with behaviours that may not be. Furthermore, some surveys do not always make clear where the offending behaviour took place. It is relatively rare to have research that provides us with a clear picture of offending behaviour on the school site.

Young victims of street crime in an East London borough

In 2007, seven young people were murdered in London alone, four of them under 16, so there is a pressing need to find out from young people about their experiences and fears in respect of crime as well as their views on how their personal safety can be enhanced. This article discusses the findings of a study of victimisation among young people in an East London borough. Although modest and not necessarily representative, the findings of this study are important because of the relative absence of research into children and young people as victims of crime.