At risk youths talking about crime and the police

Recent media and government reports claim that
youth offending is on the increase. The media in
particular has run a number of stories claiming
that there is a ‘yob culture’ and the government
has responded by looking at strategies for
decreasing the incidence of youth offending.
These have ranged from tougher penalties for
repeat offenders, custodial sentences and
electronic tagging. Traditional work in to youth
offending has focused on a set of factors which
are deemed to signify whether youths are likely to
engage in offending behaviour. These include low
economic status, high levels of truancy and an
unstable family background. What previous
research has tended to ignore when drawing their
conclusions is the accounts of young people
whether they are offending or ‘at risk’ of
offending. This paper looks at groups of youths
who are deemed to be ‘at risk’ of slipping in to
offending behaviour. The youths attended a Youth
Group where many of the children are either
involved in offending behaviour or deemed to be
‘at risk’ of offending. Using unstructured
interviews with small groups from the centre, the
talk was analysed using a discursive
psychological approach. The talk focused on the
youths’ constructions of the police force in
relation to themselves and their identities. In
addition they considered their role within the
wider community and the effects that offending
behaviour may have on people within the
community. This paper forms part of a larger
project in to young people and offending
behaviour