An Inspection of child criminal exploitation in Northern Ireland

What is child criminal exploitation?

Child criminal exploitation is child abuse.  It happens when children are used to engage in criminal activity or commit any type of crime.  It can take many forms, but this type of abuse results in children being harmed and facing long‑term consequences for their physical and mental health, education, employment and future potential.

In our community children are being exploited to steal, transport drugs, get involved in public disorder and other crimes.  It is not a recent issue but is of increasing concern.

How can child criminal exploitation be tackled?

Child criminal exploitation is not something the criminal justice system can address on its own. It requires co-ordinated work from Government Departments and service delivery and voluntary and community sector organisations to safeguard children and bring perpetrators to justice. It requires a child‑centred approach that ensures the voice of the child is effectively heard, and their experience, needs and circumstances are considered.

Key findings of the Inspection

Inconsistent and in some cases, inadequate responses.

The Inspection Team found that the response to child criminal exploitation across the criminal justice system was inconsistent and more needed to be done to protect children from this type of abuse.

There were no mechanisms available to understand the scale and nature of child criminal exploitation in Northern Ireland and the absence of markers or flags for child criminal exploitation on prosecution and police case record system resulted in missed opportunities to identify and respond to exploitation risks.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland needed to establish a clear delivery model for the identification, response and disruption of child criminal exploitation across Northern Ireland, including arrangements to improve the organisation’s recording, monitoring and response to missing children.

Inspectors also highlighted the need to improve training and awareness of child criminal exploitation among frontline Police Officers and staff and develop a holistic approach to identify, investigate and disrupt offenders.

The Department of Justice, in partnership with the Department of Health and criminal justice organisations were not working with an established framework to assess their responses to child criminal exploitation or to monitor the impact of those responses.

National Referral Mechanism awareness

There was very limited awareness across the criminal justice system about the National Referral Mechanism and its application, which affected how it could be used to safeguard children.

Some pockets of positive practice

There were some pockets of good practice identified by Inspectors, especially in relation to multi-agency support hubs and targeted interventions, which resulted in positive outcomes for children.  However, these were not consistently implemented.

Inspectors highlighted and recognised the daily efforts of Police Officers in the Public Protection Branch Team in the Police Service of Northern Ireland, who work with children in highly complex and challenging situations.

Conclusion

Inspectors concluded that based on the evidence gathered and considered during this inspection, outcomes for children who had experienced or were at risk of child criminal exploitation were not good. 

The two Strategic and two Operational recommendations made in this Inspection Report aim to improve outcomes for children who had experienced or were at risk of criminal exploitation, enable responses to be assessed and monitored, inform practice and help identify gaps that could improve the system’s effectiveness to adequately support and safeguard children and to disrupt perpetrators who are exploiting them.