New Light on Delinquency and Its Treatment: A Read-Me.Org Reader's Guide
by Graeme R. Newman and Claude

Why does one child in a family become delinquent while a brother or sister, raised under the same roof in the same neighborhood, does not? In 1936 William Healy and Augusta F. Bronner, pioneers of the American child guidance movement, set out to answer that question in a landmark study for Yale's Institute of Human Relations. Working with 133 families in Boston, New Haven, and Detroit, they compared delinquents with their own non-delinquent siblings, treated the family rather than the child as the unit of care, and followed the results for years afterward. Their conclusion was that serious delinquency almost always grows out of frustrated needs for affection, recognition, and security within the family. It shaped juvenile justice and social work for a generation.

This Reader's Guide is an independent commentary organized around the questions a thoughtful reader might ask:

• how the research was designed and what it found;

• what delinquency means to the young person who commits it;

• which offenders responded to treatment, and which did not.

It also places the book in its time, alongside Shaw and McKay, Sutherland, and the Gluecks, and weighs its findings against later research on attachment, hyperactivity, risk assessment, and family-based treatment. Review questions, a glossary, a timeline, and suggestions for further reading make it suitable for students, reading groups, and practitioners.

The original 1936 work remains under copyright. This guide does not reproduce its text, tables, or case histories. Read the original book online

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.48

William Healy’s The Individual Delinquent, first published in 1915, is a landmark in the development of modern criminology, juvenile justice, and the scientific study of offenders. Based on five years of intensive research with more than a thousand young repeat offenders at Chicago’s Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Healy challenged the prevailing search for a single explanation of criminal behavior. Instead, he argued that delinquency could be understood only by examining the individual offender and the complex interaction of psychological, physical, developmental, family, and environmental factors.

Healy’s central question remains strikingly contemporary: not simply what crime was committed, but why did this particular person commit it? His approach combined family and developmental histories, medical examinations, psychological testing, investigation of home and social environments, and extensive personal interviews. He emphasized diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and follow-up rather than reliance upon punishment or abstract theories of criminality.

This Read-Me.Org Modernized-Classic makes Healy’s massive original work accessible to contemporary readers. The original volume of more than 800 pages has been abridged to approximately one-quarter of its length while retaining Healy’s organization and central arguments. The text has been rendered in modern English, representative case histories have been condensed, and editorial notes identify obsolete terminology and historically limited assumptions. Review and discussion questions make the volume particularly suitable for students and classroom use.

Both a historical document and a surprisingly modern argument for individualized justice, The Individual Delinquent illuminates the emergence of psychological and clinical approaches to crime and demonstrates why understanding the person behind the offense became a fundamental concern of twentieth-century criminology. Download the original book here.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.114.

by Wiliam Healy and Graeme Newman

Mental Conflicts and Misconduct is a pioneering work in the history of psychology, criminology, and juvenile justice. First published in 1917, physician and juvenile court reformer William Healy challenged the prevailing belief that young offenders were simply bad, immoral, or mentally defective. Drawing on dozens of real-life case studies, Healy argued that many acts of delinquency arise from hidden emotional conflicts rooted in childhood experiences, secrets, fears, and unresolved traumas.

Working with young people who stole, ran away, lied, fought, or repeatedly broke the law, Healy uncovered a striking pattern. Beneath seemingly senseless misconduct often lay painful memories, disturbing knowledge, family secrets, or experiences that children felt unable to discuss with trusted adults. These buried conflicts, he believed, could exert a powerful influence on behavior long after the original events had been forgotten or repressed.

This modernized and abridged Read-Me.Org edition makes Healy's landmark study accessible to contemporary readers while preserving all forty of his remarkable case histories and the core of his argument. The book reveals the origins of ideas that would later influence child guidance clinics, trauma-informed care, psychological treatment, and modern approaches to juvenile justice.

Although some of Healy's assumptions reflect the limitations of his era, many of his insights remain surprisingly relevant. His emphasis on listening to children, understanding individual circumstances, and addressing underlying causes rather than relying solely on punishment anticipated developments that continue to shape psychology and criminal justice today.

Part historical document, part psychological investigation, and part humanitarian appeal, Mental Conflicts and Misconduct remains an important classic for students of psychology, criminology, social work, education, and anyone interested in the complex relationship between childhood experience and human behavior. Download the original book here.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.168

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author), Eleanor Glueck

Why do some children in a family, or on the same street, turn to delinquency while their brothers, sisters and neighbors do not?

In Family Environment and Delinquency (1962), Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck, the most celebrated husband-and-wife team in the history of criminology, set out to answer one of the oldest and most stubborn questions in the study of crime. Drawing on their landmark comparison of 500 persistent delinquents and 500 matched non-delinquents from the poor neighborhoods of Boston, they traced how the home, what they called the "under-the-roof culture," shapes children's traits, and how those traits and family conditions combine to push some boys over the edge.

Their answer was startling for its time and remains compelling today: the family environment works selectively. A drunken father, a chaotic household, harsh or erratic discipline, chronic poverty: none of these alone reliably produces a delinquent. What matters is the meeting of a particular pressure with a particular child. The Gluecks called it "differential contamination," which depends "not merely on exposure but also on susceptibility." It is an idea that anticipates today's research on gene-environment interaction and differential susceptibility.

The original book is dense with thousands of statistical tables. This Mini-Classic sets out its argument clearly and concisely, chapter by chapter. It includes an introduction to the book and its central ideas; a profile of Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck and their four-decade research partnership; the historical context of Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency, Physique and Delinquency, and the Gluecks' battle with differential association theory; a clear summary of every chapter, from the origins of traits to the practical management of delinquency; a chapter on modern relevance, from Sampson and Laub's rediscovery of the Glueck files to today's family-based prevention programs, with a frank account of what has not survived; and twenty review questions for students and discussion groups.

Ideal for students of criminology, sociology, psychology and social work, for practitioners working with young people and families, and for anyone interested in the enduring question of Nature and Nurture.

Read-Me.Org Mini-Classics make the landmark works of social science accessible to modern readers in brief, readable editions. Download the original book here.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.67.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author), Eleanor Glueck

What makes a boy a persistent delinquent? A reader's guide to one of criminology's great matched-comparison studies.

In 1939, Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck of Harvard stopped asking what happens to offenders after they are caught and asked a harder question: why do some boys from the same poor neighborhoods become persistent delinquents while others do not?

Their answer, Unraveling Juvenile Delinquency (1950), compared 500 delinquent boys with 500 non-delinquents, matched pair by pair on age, intelligence, ethnic origin and neighborhood. They examined family life, schooling, health, body build, intelligence, personality and temperament. Then they built "prediction tables" meant to spot at-risk children when they start school.

The book is long, technical and dated in its language. This Reader's Guide makes it accessible without replacing it. It explains how the study was designed, what it found, and how far its evidence can be trusted, and it connects the Gluecks to the research that followed.

INSIDE THIS GUIDE

• A reading plan and a chapter-by-chapter map of the original

• How the two groups were built, and what the design can and cannot show

• The findings on family, school, the street, health, physique, intelligence and temperament, explained in plain language

• The prediction tables, with a worked example that shows why "79 chances in a hundred" can mean something quite different in real life

• Five common misreadings of the book

• What has changed since 1950, including later reanalyses of the Gluecks' data, and what has not

• A primer on statistics, a glossary, an annotated reading list, an FAQ, 26 discussion questions and classroom activities

WHO IT'S FOR: Students of criminology, sociology, psychology, social work and law; teachers and reading groups; and general readers who want to understand a landmark study and the debates it started, from risk assessment to the role of the family.

Part of the Read-Me.Org Reader's Guide series, bringing back landmark out-of-print works in criminology and social science..

NOTE: This is an independent guide, not an abridgment or edition of the Gluecks' book. It does not reproduce the original's text or tables and is not endorsed by the authors' heirs or the original publisher. It is meant to be read alongside the original. Written by Graeme R. Newman with the assistance of Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. The AI-generated content is disclosed in accordance with Read-Me.Org policy. Read the Original Book online.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.67.

by Graeme Newman (Author), Sheldon Glueck (Author), Eleanor Glueck

Does the shape of a body shape a life?

In 1956, Harvard criminologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck published one of the most provocative findings in the history of criminology: among the 500 persistent juvenile delinquents at the heart of their landmark study, six in ten were built like athletes — solid, muscular, "mesomorphic" — compared to fewer than one in three of the matched non-delinquent boys from the very same streets. Boys of slight, fragile build were strikingly rare among the delinquents. Matched for age, intelligence, ethnicity, and neighborhood, the two groups differed sharply in one thing neither had chosen: the body they were born with.

Physique and Delinquency is the Gluecks' full investigation of what that difference meant — and what it didn't. Carefully, methodically, and explicitly rejecting the old "born criminal" theories of the nineteenth century, the Gluecks set out to show that physical constitution is not destiny. Instead, they found something more nuanced and more interesting: the very same trait, and the very same troubled home, can push a sturdy, energetic boy toward trouble while leaving a more sensitive, delicately built boy untouched — and can devastate that same sensitive boy when the pressures at home turn severe.

This Read-Me.Org Mini-Classic distills the Gluecks' densely tabulated 1956 original into a compact, readable narrative — every chapter, every major finding, and the six theoretical hypotheses that close the book — while leaving the statistical tables and technical appendixes to specialists and to the full edition. It's an ideal introduction for students of criminology, psychology, and the history of science, and for anyone curious about a study that remains as influential as it is uncomfortable, nearly seventy years after it first raised the question.

Includes a new introductory essay situating the book in its historical context, and a set of review and discussion questions suited to classroom or book-club use.

Part of the Read-Me.Org Mini-Classics series — short, careful introductions to landmark and forgotten works of criminology, sociology, and social history.

This edition was prepared with AI assistance used to condense and adapt the source text under human editorial review; abridgment choices and framing are the editor's own. Published under Creative Commons licensing. Read online the original book.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2026. p.80.

By David Muhammad, Mikaela Rabinowitz, and Vincent Schiraldi. Research and contributions from Patricia Garcia Iruegas and Jeremy Page

Over the past two decades, the United States has made historic progress in reducing youth incarceration and juvenile justice system involvement. Youth detention has declined by approximately 75% since 2000, as juvenile arrests have fallen sharply and research has made clear that incarceration can cause lasting harm to young people. Despite these gains, a very small subset of youth remain involved in serious and violent conduct and are difficult to engage in traditional services. These youth who are High Risk and Hard to Reach (HR2), pose a disproportionate challenge to youth justice systems and reform efforts. HR2 youth often experience multiple, compounding risk factors, including chronic trauma, family instability, community violence, school disengagement, mental health and substance use issues, and repeated justice system contact. While the overall number of youth in the system has declined, a growing share of those who remain have higher levels of need and more complex circumstances. Highly publicized offenses committed by a small number of HR2 youth have fueled misperceptions that youth crime is widespread, threatening to undermine decades of reform and prompting calls for punitive responses that are ineffective and harmful. This group of young people, often numbering no more than 25 in a mid-sized city, stymie juvenile justice officials and community-based organizations. HR2 youth can exhaust system resources and evade even the best programs. The outsized attention they receive can also thwart justice reform efforts, with elected officials and community members mistakenly believing the group is larger in size and therefore increased incarceration is necessary. In some jurisdictions, responses to this population are threatening to roll back the enormous gains made in the youth justice field. Existing evidence shows that community-based, trauma-informed, and relationship-centered interventions can reduce recidivism, but many established models struggle to meet the needs of HR2 youth. In response, a growing number of programs have adapted credible messenger and intensive life-coaching models, often combined with cognitive behavioral approaches and wraparound supports. A few programs highlighted in this brief demonstrate promising outcomes, including significant reductions in violent reoffending, improved school engagement, and increased accountability without reliance on incarceration. At the same time, these initiatives reveal persistent gaps in knowledge and practice. Key challenges include determining how to respond to unsafe or unstable home environments and adapting adult-focused violence intervention models to the developmental realities of youth. There is also a need to better understand which combinations of services – life coaching, cognitive behavioral interventions, family support, group work, and incentives – are most effective, for whom, at what duration, and under what circumstances. This brief argues that the next phase of youth justice reform must focus on intentionally and effectively serving HR2 youth. Doing so will require moving beyond strict replication of existing evidence-based programs toward innovation informed by data, transparency, and rigorous evaluation embedded in practice. Policymakers and practitioners must invest in specialized, culturally grounded interventions, support sustained research-practice partnerships, and center the lived experiences of HR2 youth and their families.

Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2026. 20p.

By Kansas Appleseed

In 2016, the Kansas Legislature enacted Senate Bill 367, a comprehensive overhaul of the state’s juvenile justice system. SB 367 aimed to reserve youth incarceration to only high-risk individuals, improve outcomes, and use evidence-based practices to revamp intervention. SB 367 limited the length of court jurisdiction and probation terms, depending on offense severity and risk assessment. Further, probation and detention limits were implemented for most offenses. Rather than relying on secure confinement and punishment, SB 367 shifted Kansas toward community-based sentencing alternatives by expanding immediate intervention programs. It required the use of risk and needs assessments and established graduated sanctions for probation violations with non-custodial responses when possible. It mandated interagency collaboration and required reintegration planning for youth who had been removed from their homes. These amendments to the Kansas Juvenile Justice Code and the Code for Care of Children help to avoid youth reincarceration. SB 367 created the Kansas Juvenile Justice Oversight Committee to sustain the reforms. The Committee was established to monitor implementation, measure outcomes, and recommend improvements. A dedicated Evidence Based Programs Account was established, funded through projected savings from reduced incarceration, to support community programs, prevention efforts, and evidence-based services. The bill also mandated statewide training for practitioners, emphasized collaboration between agencies, and invested in data systems to track outcomes across the state. The intent of SB 367 was to ensure that Kansas’s juvenile justice system emphasized rehabilitation over punishment. The bill reserved out-of-home placement for only the most serious offenders and directed state resources toward interventions that addressed the root causes of delinquency. When enacted, it was a reform that other states looked to as a guide when evaluating their own youth justice systems. This report looks at the impact of SB 367 in Kansas a decade after its passage. It examines the rationale and research behind SB 367, its successes, the areas that still need reform in the youth justice system, the attacks on the bill since passage that have limited its effectiveness, and finally recommendations for future action to ensure the promises of SB 367 are realized. The purpose is to remind the state of the importance of these reforms for the success of Kansas children and communities. 

Lawrence KS: Kansas Appleseed, 2025. 31p.

By The Gault Ctr. & Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly)

Part I of our report summarizes youth perspectives on juvenile probation based on 25 interviews with youth across the country who experienced probation firsthand and examines the historical roots of juvenile probation to inform the transformation of probation moving forward. This report highlights youth perspectives on juvenile probation, finding that young people are experiencing probation as surveillance, control, and punishment, negatively impacting their mental health and wellbeing. This report also walks through the historical lineage of probation as a form of racialized social control to challenge dominant narratives that probation is a benign act of benevolence on behalf of youth. Part II of this report will be released in summer 2026, highlighting concrete steps to transform local probation practices and policies and spotlighting examples of successful practices already underway.

By Philadelphia: The Gault Ctr. & Youth Empowerment for Advancement Hangout (YEAH Philly), 2026. 23p.

By ASHLEY JOHNSON

Protecting children from online harms requires a careful balance between ensuring safety and safeguarding free speech, user privacy, and parents’ rights. The most effective approach would split responsibility between the government, parents, and online services. KEY TAKEAWAYS  Debates over how best to protect children are much older than the Internet, and the harms children face online are many of the same harms children face in the physical world.  Existing federal legislation outlaws child sexual exploitation in both the physical and digital worlds and protects the privacy of children under age 13, while states have more recently passed laws imposing specific requirements on online services.  Many of the current proposals to protect children online do not strike the right balance, overburdening parents or businesses or trampling on users’ rights in the name of safety.  A more effective approach requires regulation in areas such as privacy, digital identification, and child labor combined with industry led efforts to give parents and children more control over their online experience.

Washington, DC: INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY & INNOVATION FOUNDATION | , 2024. 32p.

By Leslie M. Barnard, Sophie Rosenberg, Ashley Brooks-Russell, Marian E. Betz & Joseph P. Schacht

Firearms are the leading cause of death for U.S. children under 18 years of age, driven by their use in suicide attempts. Alcohol use is a risk factor for suicide, and approximately 22% of U.S. high school students reported recent alcohol use. We used data from a population-based health survey of high school students in Colorado, weighted to be representative of public high school students, to examine the association of alcohol use and suicide risk, and access to firearms using weighted frequencies and Rao–Scott chi–square tests. One-fifth (20.3%) of the students reported drinking alcohol in the past 30 days. Compared to non-drinkers, students who reported drinking in the past 30 days were significantly more likely to report that they seriously considered attempting suicide (20.4% vs 8.9%, p < 0.001), made a plan to attempt suicide (17.0% vs 7.4%, p < 0.001), had actually attempted suicide (11.1% vs 3.9%, p < 0.001) and indicated that they could obtain and be ready to fire a loaded gun, regardless of adults' permission (29.0% vs 16.9%, p < 0.001). Given the distinct and combined risks of alcohol use and firearm access, the intersection is an important point for suicide prevention. Parents and guardians of youth may constitute an important population for safety training.

Cogent Mental Health, 5:1, 2607769, DOI: 10.1080/28324765.2025.2607769

By Leander Andres, Stefan Bauernschuster, Gordon B. Dahl, Helmut Rainer, Simone Schüller:

Abstract:

This paper studies the impact of birthright citizenship on youth crime. We leverage a reform which automatically granted birthright citizenship to eligible immigrant children born in Germany after January 1, 2000 and administrative crime data from three federal states. Immigrant youth who acquired citizenship at birth are substantially less likely to engage in criminal activity, with estimates indicating a 70% reduction. These results are particularly relevant in light of ongoing debates in the U.S. about abolishing birthright citizenship. Our findings suggest that inclusive citizenship policies can reduce crime and its associated costs, which in turn could strengthen social cohesion.

Bonn: Institute of Labor Economics, 2026. 13p.

By Jade Farrell, Angela Collins, Kam Kaur, Scarlett Whitford-Webb, and Ashna Devaprasad

This exploratory study aimed to examine police safeguarding practices, referral pathways, multi-agency collaboration, and diversionary support provided by Youth Justice Services (YJSs) and other agencies for children within the criminal justice system in England and Wales. Defining children - For the purpose of this report, when saying ‘children,’ we are referring to children (10-17 years old) that are considered vulnerable (Davis, 2022) and have been given an Out-of-Court Resolution (OOCR). These children may have been arrested in the course of this process. They can be either informal (non-statutory) or formal (statutory) and don’t involve a decision made through a court process (Centre for Justice Innovation, 2025; Youth Justice Board (YJB), 2024a). This project included a four-phase, mixed method approach to understand ‘breadth’ of practice through national insights, as well as ‘depth’ through deep dive insights across a number of local contexts

Youth Endowment Fund, 2025. 136p.

By Karen Graham and Claudia Vince

Being Young Inside explores what it means to receive and serve a long prison sentence at the point of transition into adulthood. Drawing on in-person consultations with 41 young men serving sentences of 10 years or more across four prisons in England and Wales, alongside written contributions and existing evidence, this report examines how young adults experience the shock of sentencing, adapt to life in custody and attempt to build a future while growing up behind bars.

London: Prison Reform Trust, 2026. 32p

By Jack Chung , Carmen C. W. Lim , Janni Leung , Daniel Stjepanović , Vivian Chiu

Objective:

The use of electronic vaporizers to deliver cannabis (“cannabis vaping”) has increased rapidly among young people. This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to summarize current evidence on the psychosocial characteristics of adolescents and young adults who vape cannabis.

Method:

PubMed, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Web of Science were searched for original publications since 2003. We summarized and meta-analyzed studies on adolescents (12–18 years) and young adults (19–34 years) that reported sociodemographic, mental health, and other substance use correlates of cannabis vaping.

Results:

Thirty-one studies from the United States, Canada, England, New Zealand, and Switzerland met the eligibility criteria (n = 568,304): 26 focused on adolescents (12–18 years; n = 554,934), and 5 on young adults (19–34 years; n = 13,370). Among adolescents who currently used cannabis (n = 114,595), the odds of cannabis vaping were significantly higher in males than females (7 studies; pooled odds ratio [OR] = 1.79, 95% CI [1.38, 2.34]), in older than younger adolescents (3 studies; pooled OR = 1.26, 95% CI [1.07, 1.50]), and in adolescents who currently use tobacco (3 studies; pooled OR = 1.62, 95% CI [1.11, 2.36]) or alcohol (3 studies; pooled OR = 2.52, 95% CI [1.27, 5.01]), but significantly lower in non-Hispanic Blacks than Whites (4 studies; pooled OR = 0.55, 95% CI [0.39, 0.77]). The relationship between adolescent cannabis vaping and mental health, and factors among young adults, was inconclusive because of an insufficient number of studies.

Conclusions:

Adolescents who were male, older, non-Hispanic White, and currently using alcohol or tobacco had higher odds of vaping cannabis. Findings highlighted the need to tailor prevention initiatives for these populations and to conduct further research on the association between cannabis vaping and mental health disorders.

Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 87(2), 249–273 (2026).

By Kristina Kersey

The confidentiality of the juvenile court, while laudable in protection of the children charged, often means that people, in general, have little understanding of the inner workings of the court. One of the opaquest practices in juvenile court is how, when, and under which circumstances youth are prosecuted as adults. The cases that do reach the headlines are the most salacious, which leads to a confirmation bias on both the need and the appropriateness of the practice of transfer. Many scholars have discussed the undeniable impact of adolescent development research on juvenile legal jurisprudence and a general reimaging of diminished culpability for youth with criminal offending behavior. The United States Supreme Court, through Roper v. Simmons and its progeny, has declared that youth under age eighteen will no longer face the death penalty or mandatory life in prison sentences, meaning that more individuals who were sentenced in criminal court as children to lengthy prison sentences and grew up in prison will return, decades later, to a changed world. This adoption of adolescent development research by the Supreme Court cases which addressed cruel and unusual punishment for youth has led to state legislative changes, driving campaigns around raising the minimum age of prosecution, against the use of solitary confinement and indiscriminate shackling, and amending procedures in police interrogation. This research has led to isolated changes in transfer practice, yet little attention has been dedicated to considering whether youth should be tried as adults full stop. Advocates that ground transfer abolition conversations in adolescent development have earned isolated and hard-fought victories on aspects such as minimum age, elimination of mandatory transfer, or enhanced due process protections in the process of transfer decisions. However, high profile cases involving youth offending behavior or perceived upticks in crime frequently place these victories in jeopardy of retrenchment to more permissive transfer practices. Regardless of the role that adolescent developmentshould play in significantly limiting or abolishing transfer, no state seems poised currently to end the practice entirely. And indeed, most scholars assume that some form of transfer must, should, or will continue to exist, likely because it always has existed.

Nevada Law Journal 6 Nev. L.J. 465 (2026).

By Adriana Gerdellaj 

This thesis is a qualitative scoping review study aimed to explore the recruitment of children and youth into criminal gangs in Sweden, focusing on understanding reasons for why children and youth become involved in criminal gangs, risk factors and effects from gang involvement, the role of social work in preventing such recruitment and lessons learned from other European countries. The study employed a scoping review for mapping of existing literature and conducted a thematic reflexive analysis to identify patterns and themes in the data to eleven selected studies.

Key findings are that gangs are very accessible to children as they often are located in disadvantaged neighborhoods, parents’ lack of support, school systems lack of resources to children who need extra help and friends creating peer pressure for children to join gangs. The effects of children in gangs are both psychological and physical, social workers are involved by trying to steer away children and youth from getting associated with gangs and from international insights it is known that children should be offered school and recreational activities. Conclusions drawn are that the issue of criminal gangs could have its roots from the segregations created by the Million project, where thousands of apartments were built during a short timespan, and that these disadvantaged neighborhoods have with time gotten heightened crime rates, as gangs expand and start to include children. The children are severely affected socially, psychologically and physically due to the gang presence, something social workers together with other actors such as the police and school can take collaborative measures to prevent by offering children a positive alternative.  

By Katharina Tollin, Henrik Angerbrandt and Anna Jonsson

This report presents a study focused on the way children and youth become involved in criminal networks. The study examines the offences that these young people typically engage in and what opportunities they have to leave criminal networks.

By Ciara Molloy

In October 1978, a detention centre known as Loughan House opened near Blacklion, Co. Cavan for young offenders between twelve and sixteen years of age. The history of this episode survives in folk memory as a disproportionate reaction to a perceived social crisis surrounding juvenile crime in 1970s Ireland. In order to assess the accuracy of this existing narrative, this article examines the episode through the lens of moral panic theory [MPT]. It argues that Loughan House, though not necessarily a punitive response in rhetoric or reality, nevertheless represented a failure of political imagination. This episode is particularly useful in highlighting the limitations of MPT, especially surrounding the concepts of disproportionality and punitiveness. Nevertheless, in spite of these limitations, the article contends that MPT remains valuable on both conceptual and affective levels. En octobre 1978, un centre de détention pour les jeunes délinquants âgés de douze à seize ans, Loughan House, ouvre près de Blacklion, dans le comté de Cavan (Irlande). L’histoire de cet épisode survit dans la mémoire populaire et est lié à une réaction disproportionnée à une crise sociale générée, dans l’Irlande des années 1970, par les perceptions de la criminalité juvénile. Afin d’évaluer la robustesse de ce récit, cet article examine l’épisode au travers du prisme de la théorie de la panique morale [TPM]. Il soutient que Loughan House, bien que ne relevant pas nécessairement d’une réponse punitive, ni dans la rhétorique mobilisée ni dans ses mises en œuvre, représente néanmoins un échec de l’imagination politique. Cet épisode est particulièrement utile pour souligner les limites de la TPM, notamment en ce qui concerne les concepts de disproportionnalité et de punitivité. Néanmoins, en dépit de ces limites, l’article soutient que le cadre théorie de la panique morale demeure pertinent tant sur le plan conceptuel qu’émotionnel:.

Crime, History & Societies, 26:2 (2022), pp. 101–128.

By Madeline Rolfe, Beth Mooney, Teresa Hulme, Millie Paine and Sophie Davis.

Fraud is the most commonly experienced crime in England and Wales, making up around 41% of all crime against households and people aged 16 and over. Data suggests that the scale of fraud is increasing, with fraud incidents rising by 19% between 2023 to 2024 across the whole population. Fraud causes significant harm to individuals and the economy. It also represents a national threat: fraud is a form of serious and organised crime. One study found two thirds of serious and organised crime groups committing fraud were also involved in other criminal activity. In some cases, proceeds from fraud were used to fund other illegal activity. Tackling fraud is a strategic priority for policing and is included in the Strategic Policing Requirement. The government has also underlined a commitment to tackling fraud in the Fraud Strategy. This is an opportune time to generate insight around how best to tackle fraud. Previous Crest research found initial evidence to suggest that the risk of young people being exposed to and experiencing fraud is disproportionately growing compared to elderly people as the internet increasingly becomes part of their daily lives. However, research to understand children and young people’s (CYP) experiences of fraud is lacking. This research is the first to specifically focus on fraud committed against CYP. It examines reporting data from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau (NFIB), interviews with CYP, and nationally representative surveys with both CYP and parents and guardians. Findings from these sources have been triangulated to build a comprehensive picture of fraud experienced by CYP. A wider range of fraud experts have also been engaged throughout this project to ensure our research is cutting edge and informs action in this sector. This research is well timed given Fraud Minister David Hanson’s announcement at the Global Anti-Scam Summit in March 2025 that an expanded fraud strategy is to be developed and published later this year Key findings Scale and nature of fraud against children and young people 1. Most CYP have been targeted by fraudsters within the last year. According to our survey, 88% of CYP aged 13-21 had been targeted by fraud in the last year. Only 1% of children and young people (CYP) have never encountered fraud. 2. Nearly a third (29%) of CYP have been a victim of fraud. Some CYP are more likely to experience fraud victimisation, including older CYP (aged 18-21) and CYP with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND). 3. Milestones where CYP gained new or increased financial independence coincided with fraud victimisation. For example, some of our interviewees experienced fraud after opening their first bank account or getting their first job. There was also evidence of victimisation after CYP received a lump sum of money e.g. the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund. 4. The most commonly experienced types of fraud by CYP are advance fee fraud, banking and credit fraud, financial investment fraud, cyber fraud, and identity theft and fraud. Available data suggests that, on average, CYP lose the most money from financial investment fraud. 5. Advance fee fraud is the most commonly recorded fraud against CYP, it accounted for the majority of CYP reports to professionals and was commonly experienced CYP interview participants 6. CYP are more likely to experience fraud on certain online platforms. These were Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. Interestingly, these platforms are not where they spend most of their time. Children and young people reporting fraud 1. Nearly two-thirds of CYP told someone about their experience of fraud. The most common person to tell was a parent/guardian, with over half (59%) of survey respondents telling their parent/guardian about their experience. Reporting the fraud to the bank (35%) and Action Fraud (22%) was less common. 2. The most common barrier to reporting fraud was due to feeling that nothing would happen, with 27% stating this reason. Impact of fraud on children and young people 1. CYP reported significant emotional impact as a result of fraud victimisation. Almost half (47%) of survey respondents reported feeling strong emotions such as anger, sadness, fear, frustration as a result of their victimisation; and over a quarter (27%) of survey respondents stated that being a victim of fraud impacted their mental health. 2. Fraud victimisation leads to CYP changing their behaviour. Changing internet use and online activity was a common impact of fraud victimisation amongst CYP, this ranged from being more cautious online with emails, websites and privacy settings to stopping a particular online activity altogether, such as online shopping or online banking.

London: Crest Advisory, 2025. 88p.