Do we only care about children when they are in the news?

There has been the usual performative public outcry over the past few weeks about children being involved in rioting. Last month, a 7-year-old was involved in the rioting on Donegal Road. This morning’s news reports that an eleven-year-old boy has been charged due to that rioting. 

Not to be outdone by the big smoke, the Derry weeans were out in force at the weekend rioting with police. Again, children as young as 7 were involved, and SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood branded it as ‘Child Abuse’. There was the usual hullabaloo on yesterday’s Nolan Show that ‘something needs to be done!’ Arrest them! Send in social services! Take them off their parents! What they need is a good hiding! All the usual knee-jerk bollocks you get in these situations.

Don’t get me wrong. Obviously, children involved in rioting is bad. I think we can all agree on that. But it does grind my gears somewhat that we only seem to care about these children when they are in the news. The other 364 days of the year they get indifference.

The brutal truth is a massive percentage of children in Northern Ireland live pretty chaotic lives. The stats are very depressing:

• Child Poverty: Around 24% of children in Northern Ireland live in relative poverty, and 21% live in absolute poverty. This equates to approximately 107,000 and 92,000 children, respectively. Child poverty in Northern Ireland remains a significant issue, with the numbers being higher than the UK average​ (FactCheckNI).
• Mental Health: Mental health issues are prevalent among Northern Ireland’s youth. About 12.6% of children and young people suffer from mood disorders like anxiety and depression, which is roughly 25% higher than in other parts of the UK. Factors contributing to these mental health challenges include family trauma, poor health, and socio-economic difficulties​ ( Ulster University).
• Child Protection: As of 2023, there are significant numbers of children in need of social care. For instance, over 2,400 children were on the Child Protection Register, and around 3,500 were in care, reflecting ongoing concerns about child safety and welfare​ (Health).
• Obesity: Approximately 27% of children in Northern Ireland are classified as overweight or obese by the time they start primary school. This figure increases as children get older.
• Suicide Rates: Northern Ireland has higher rates of suicide among young people compared to other regions of the UK. NISRA
• Educational Attainment: The educational attainment gap between children from low-income families and their more affluent peers remains significant. For example, only about 50% of students eligible for free school meals achieve 5 GCSEs (including English and Maths) compared to 75% of their more affluent peers.
• School Attendance: since 2021 30% of pupils had absence rates which were classed as “chronic” or “severe chronic”. Source

There are several factors at play here. Poverty, the knock-on effects of Covid, Phones and social media, loneliness, drug and alcohol abuse, broken families and stressed parents. Like most things, the situation is very complex and multifaceted.

So what about sending in the social workers? Yeah, this sounds good in theory, but social services, like everything else, are a breaking point in Northern Ireland. They are under massive pressure dealing with their existing caseload. Talk to any social worker, and they will tell you their every day is endless cases of extreme dysfunction, mainly due to drug addiction.

As for the peelers, dealing with kids is a nightmare. No longer can you give them a ‘talking to down the station’. There need to be social workers present, solicitors, and endless time-consuming paperwork. Plus older kids are well aware of their ‘rights’ and know the system better than the best barristers. There is also the fact that getting young kids involved with the criminal justice system is horrendously expensive, with terrible outcomes for the children. From the BBC:

Nine out of 10 children in Northern Ireland who serve a custodial sentence after breaking the law re-offend within a year of being released.

A report by the Audit Office , externalalso reveals that it costs £324,000 a year to keep a young person in custody.

The report says repeat offenders are responsible for 72% of all youth crime and disorder.

To quote Brendan Behan, ‘I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn’t make it worse’.

So what will happen? F*ck all that’s what.

The peelers will make noises about greater ‘community policing’. The politicians will will say how terrible it all is. Social work bosses will ask for more resources and will be ignored. We will continue to remove funding from the things that actually improve this issue like education, youth projects, afterschool clubs, summer schemes, youth clubs, youth sports, etc. More young people will overdose or kill themselves.

And we will react with a shrug because it’s not our kids at risk. It’s the kids in the housing estates, those emaciated kids behind the hoodies, the ones we cross the street to avoid, the ones we tell our kids not to mix with.

And when these forgotten children inevitably make the headlines again, we’ll ask ourselves how we let it happen—all while knowing exactly how we did.

And so the wheel keeps turning, grinding down another generation, while we pretend we don’t see it happening right before our eyes.

I help to manage Slugger by taking care of the site as well as running our live events. My background is in business, marketing and IT. My politics tend towards middle-of-the-road pragmatism, I am not a member of any political party. Oddly for a member of the Slugger team, I am not that interested in daily politics, preferring to write about big ideas in society. When not stuck in front of a screen, I am a parkrun Run Director.