The Psychology of Adolescent Criminality. Introduction. Rethinking Youth Crime

A single word can change a child’s life: criminal. Once that label lands, adults often stop asking “what led to this?” and start deciding “what should happen to them?” I’m Kim Lee, a child and adolescent psychotherapist, and this series begins by slowing the conversation down so we can understand what adolescent criminality actually means and why that definition matters before we talk about blame, punishment, or risk.

We walk through the youth justice system in England and Wales, including the age of criminal responsibility at 10 and what can happen after an arrest. I break down the wide range of youth offending, from shoplifting and assault to drug offences, carrying weapons, online harassment, and more serious violence. We also look at patterns in who enters the system and why the cases that do reach it can be more complex, including emerging concerns like knife-related offences and exploitation through organized crime networks such as county lines.

Then we shift from law to psychology. I hold one principle throughout: behavior is never random, it communicates something that hasn’t yet been seen. We start naming what often sits underneath offending, including adolescent brain development, attachment and early experience, shame and identity, and the deep human need to belong. If you’ve ever worried your child is “getting in with the wrong crowd,” we reframe that phrase and ask what need the group is meeting that life at home or school is not.

If you care about prevention, early intervention, and seeing the child before they are defined by what they’ve done, listen and share this with someone who works with teens. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell me what questions you want answered as the series continues.

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Series

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, this is Kim Lee, child and adolescent psychotherapist. I want to welcome you to this next podcast series, which is partly prompted by my seeing more and more young people who have entered the juvenile justice system are or are on the verge of just that due to criminal activity of some kind.

The Weight Of The Word Criminal

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Now I think what's important for us to do, and this is this is the introductory episode to the series, is to understand what we mean by adolescent criminality. Now, there is a word that carries weight and a word that changes how we see someone often instantly. And that word is criminal. It's a word that closes things down and it suggests intent, responsibility, consequence, and when that word becomes attached to a child, something else happens. We stop asking certain questions and we begin asking others what have they done, what should happen to them. But rarely do we ask what has led to this. This is a series about adolescent criminality, but not in the way it's usually spoken about, because before we can understand behavior, we need to understand what we're actually referring to.

What Counts As Youth Offending

SPEAKER_00 1:41

When we use the word criminal behavior in young people, we're not referring only to a serious or extreme act. Criminality in legal terms includes a wide range of behaviors such as theft, shoplifting, criminal damage, assault, including common assault, possession of drugs, carrying weapons, public order offences, online offences, including harassment or distribution of images. And in some cases, more serious acts such as robbery, serious violence, and sexual offences. Now, what's important to understand is that many of these behaviors do not begin as criminal identity. They begin as moments, impulses, reactions that cross a legal threshold.

Age Ten And Youth Courts

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Now in England and Wales, the age of criminal responsibility is ten years old. This means that from the age of ten, a child can be arrested, interviewed under caution, charged, be charged with a criminal offense, and brought before a court. Now this often comes as a surprise because developmentally a ten-year-old is still very much a child, and yet, legally, they are accountable. Young people aged 10 to 17 are dealt with through the youth justice system, which is designed, at least in principle, to balance accountability, rehabilitation, and protection of the public. And most cases are heard in youth court, and these are less formal than an adult court. They're closed to the public, and they're focused on the child's welfare alongside the offence. However, more serious offences can be heard in the Crown Court, even for young people. Each year in England and Wales, tens of thousands of children are arrested. Around 13 to 15,000 receive formal cautions or convictions annually. Many are aged between 14 and 17, with 15 to 17 year olds forming the largest group. There has been a reduction in first-time entrants into the system over the past decade. But those who do enter are often involved in more serious or repeated offences.

Trends And Rising Serious Violence

SPEAKER_00 4:18

So what we are seeing is not simply less crime, we're seeing fewer children entering, but greater complexity and severity amongst those who do. Types of offending most commonly seen, theft-related offences like shoplifting, taking vehicles, burglary, then there's violence against the person, which can be common assault, actual bodily harm, and group-based violence. Then, of course, there's drug-related offences, which are things like possession and supply, and in more serious cases, including county lines activity. Then we have criminal damage, which is vandalism, destruction of property. But the emerging concerns over the recent years is that we've seen an increasing number of knife-related offences, serious youth violence, and exploitation through organized crime networks. Now these aren't abstract categories, they are lived realities.

Diversion And Sentences After Arrest

SPEAKER_00 5:26

When a young person is arrested, several pathways are possible, and not all of them lead to court. There are informal outcomes and community resolutions, and that means these things are used for lower level offences. They may involve apology reparation or agreement. And it may include conditions like attending programs, avoiding certain areas, etc. If it goes to court proceedings, then outcomes can include a referral order, which is common for first-time offenders who plead guilty, and that involves working with a youth offending team. There can be more of a focus on understanding behaviour and making amends. There can be a youth rehabilitation order, which is a structured community-based sentence, and that may include supervision, curfews, and certain activity requirements, mental health and/or substance misuse support. Now, in more serious cases, detention and training orders can be applied to those between the ages of twelve to seventeen. And this combines custody with supervised release. Now there can be extended or longer detention for serious violence or persistent offending. These are significant interventions. They shape not only behaviour but identity and life. Even where sentences are designed to rehabilitate, the experience of being arrested, interviewed, charged, seen

Behavior Communicates Hidden Needs

SPEAKER_00 7:18

in court can have a profound psychological impact. And the central question is this it's where we begin to move from law and into psychology because the system asks, what has the young person done? But inside the consulting room, we ask something else. We hold one principle in mind. Behavior is never random, it is always communicating something that hasn't yet been seen. And what we aren't what we want to do is understand, we want to see and understand. So across the series, we'll explore what sits beneath the behavior, how the adolescent brain contributes to risk, the role of attachment and early experience, the impact of shame and identity, the influence, the significant influence of family environments, and importantly, what makes change possible. It's so easy to look at a young person who's broken the law and see only the act. But the act is never the whole story. It's a moment, a threshold, a point at which something internal has moved forward. If we only look at behavior, we will see what's happened. But if we're willing to look more closely, we may begin to understand why. Now that understanding is really important because something then becomes possible. Not an excuse, not avoidance, but something far more useful. The possibility of seeing the

Spotting Trajectories Before Reoffending

SPEAKER_00 9:04

child before they are fully defined by what they've done. This is such an important series, because there will be those who listen who will wonder is my child or young person on that trajectory? It is possible. The numbers bear that out. And I have seen at first hand how these things can develop, how offending and then re-offending have a predictable outcome. And these things happen in a context where the services who one would hope would intervene are stretched beyond belief. And it seems to me that the task here, and certainly my sense of my task, is to try and help parents to really understand what may be going on, what the early signs are before the act of criminality. Because if you think about any of those documentaries you've ever watched about adult prisoners, and the prisons are full of them, how many times do you see people who come from a charmed background who've never experienced any kind of hardship? Yes, there are the white-collar workers, but they represent a very, very tiny minority. The majority of people who are incarcerated, who are repeat offenders, come from backgrounds which explain why they are there. And by using the word explain, I must again say not excuse. But we have to explain. Because if we explain, then we can understand. And if we can understand, we can join the dots and intervene and prevent the possibility of creating an habitual offender and everything that goes with that. So my very sincere hope is that this sometimes hard-hitting series will help people to

Belonging And The So Called Wrong Crowd

SPEAKER_00 11:24

see the trajectories. The same is true in you know for mental health and to understand how these things are put together. What are the kinds of things that happen? When young people are described as having gotten in with the wrong crowd, well, that wasn't an accident. That's because something in their familial environment, something in their histories, has repeatedly put them in a position where they don't feel contained, attached, or they belong. Adolescence is a time when needing to belong is really important. And so such children will join groups of others who feel they don't belong. They're apparently the wrong crowd. Well, I put it slightly differently. This is more likely to be a group of disenfranchised young people who all need very similar things but have just never had it.

Episode One Coming Soon

SPEAKER_00 12:35

I look forward to welcoming you to episode one, which is coming shortly. Thank you for listening.