Policies to reduce juvenile crime should help families to rear their children instead of punishing parents, a child care conference was told yesterday.
Funding the child care services provided for in the Child care Act was the most important step the Government could take towards reducing juvenile crime, Mr Eoin O'Sullivan, a research fellow in the Department of Social Studies of Trinity College Dublin, said.
The criminal justice system should have no involvement with children under 14, he told the annual conference of the Support Network for Professionals in Child Protection, meeting in Temple Street Children's Hospital in Dublin.
