A missed opportunity.

Lipscombe, Jo

Young People in Care and Criminal Behaviour Claire Taylor Jessica Kingsley Publishers 2006 208 pages 19.99 [pounds sterling]

The relationship between being in care and involvement in offending behaviour is complex and multi-faceted. Many of the factors that are associated with becoming looked after, such as negative early childhood experiences or inconsistent parenting, are also associated with the onset of offending. Furthermore, once taken into care, looked after children may be influenced by peers also in care, have poor educational attainment, and be stigmatised and discriminated against by the public, police, magistrates and others working within the youth justice system, thus exacerbating any potential involvement in criminal behaviour. However, much to their credit, many children who are looked after do not become involved in crime. Drawing on retrospective interviews with 39 young people who had experienced either residential and/or foster care, Taylor attempts to demonstrate how positive care experiences can mitigate against offending behaviour, while negative care experiences may exacerbate a young person's involvement in crime.

Following a brief and rather dated overview of the literature on the care system and the links with criminal behaviour, Taylor provides a concise outline of the contradictory policies and political approaches to children in care and children involved in offending behaviour. She then discusses the different interpretations of attachment theory in the context of the care system and within criminology, and begins to draw together the two theoretical frameworks. These frameworks are used to create a foundation for the research study, namely the premise that a secure attachment to one or more adults can promote resilience and reduce the likelihood that a young person will become involved in offending behaviour.

The findings of Taylor's research should be, as is claimed on the cover, essential reading for policy-makers, practitioners and students in the fields of child care, criminology and social work, as it is based on a significantly under-researched area. Sadly, the book fails to live up to expectations. Taylor herself acknowledges that her methodological approach has a number of flaws: the sampling framework employed led to a biased sample, both in terms of gender and of care experience, and there is a lack of quantifiable 'evidence' (which could perhaps have been extracted from case-file records) that could have added weight to the conclusions. Alternatively, providing more detail from the interviews, perhaps presenting a fuller 'story' of each young person, could have clarified the links between their experiences and their involvement or otherwise in offending behaviour.

The theoretical argument also falters: while the early chapters are clearly located within an attachment theory framework, the later chapters on education and leaving care are not. Indeed, the links between educational experience, leaving care and offending behaviour are implied rather than made explicit. Taylor insists that the book should not be seen as a foster care versus residential care debate, yet this is often how it appears. Due to the sampling bias, the more negative aspects of residential care are compared with the positive aspects of foster care--the beneficial elements of residential care and disadvantageous aspects of foster care are somewhat overlooked. Taylor does note the critical issue that foster placements may break down because the carers and young people become too attached to each other, but she does not discuss this further; this is a crucial omission if foster care is to be promoted as a way of developing resilience through positive attachments.

The above criticisms aside, Taylor has obvious compassion for and empathy with her research participants and gives detailed insight into the experience of being in care. Hearing young people's own views on how becoming looked after influenced their involvement in criminal behaviour provides powerful messages that should be acted upon by politicians and policy-makers. Taylor highlights some of the implications for policy and practice--for example, reducing the turnover of staff in residential care to enable positive attachments to be made between staff and young people--and puts forward some suggestions for achieving change.

The findings of Taylor's research are particularly timely in light of Every Child Matters and the Green Paper on looked after children, Care Matters. While there are drawbacks to the study itself, these should not detract from the importance of Taylor's research in trying to understand some of the associations between being in care and becoming involved in offending behaviour.

Jo Lipscombe is an independent criminal justice consultant and author of Care or Control? Foster care for young people on remand (BAAF, 2006)