Nearly all UK children are crime victims: survey

By Peter Griffiths

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Nearly every British child has fallen victim to crime at least once, although most don't bother reporting it to the police, according to a survey.

Assault, theft and racist taunts were among the most common offences reported by 3,000 children aged between 10 and 15, polled by Britain's Howard League for Penal Reform.

The charity said 95 percent of those questioned had suffered some sort of crime, typically minor offences, but only a third reported the incident to a teacher or the police.

Director Frances Crook said many of the crimes were "low-level" playground incidents, but she stressed that it would be dangerous to ignore them.

"These crimes are often not reported as children think adults will not listen to them or the crime will be viewed as too small to bother with," she said.

"The majority of incidents of victimization in this report are indeed low-level crimes taking place in schools and playgrounds. To children, however, in a child-sized world, these crimes are serious enough and do matter."

Among the charity's key findings were:

* Three-quarters of children polled had been assaulted

* Nearly half had experienced racist abuse

* Half had had property stolen at school

While headlines focus on fears about gang culture among young people, many of those polled said they were often wrongly labeled as criminals when they were really victims.

"They told us they felt vulnerable and scared," the charity said. "They felt adults demonized them."

The Howard League said it was important to steer children away from low-level crime to avoid the problem from escalating.

"The danger here is that adults become concerned only when incidents become more serious, or break out from being child-on-child to child-on-adult," Crook said.

The charity urged schools to expand programs that teach children about conflict resolution, mediation and taking responsibility for their actions.