Children’s Reporters’ Attitudes toward Young Offenders

Abstract

Children’s reporters are Scottish Government officials. They decide whether a child is in need of compulsory measures of care. Their role is regulated by the Children’s Hearing (Scotland) Act 2011. The present study aimed to explore children’s reporters’ attitudes toward young offenders and whether or not they hold classical views toward the causes, prevention and treatment of crime. The methodology used was based on a quantitative methods design. Two measures, the Attitudes towards Prisoners scale (ATP) and the Attitudes towards Crime scale (ACS) were administered. The responses of a population sample of 102 out of 194 children’s reporters were examined. The analysis involved the use of statistical tests between variables. Three major findings emerged from the analysis: (1) a significant difference was found in relation to children’s reporters’ attitudes towards the prevention of crime by qualification; (2) statistically significant differences were found in relation to children’s reporters’ attitudes towards the prevention and treatment of crime by experience; and (3) years of experience in the job was found to predict children’s reporters’ attitudes towards the prevention of crime. Overall, children’s reporters’ subgroups were found to hold similar attitudes in terms of the scaled variables, which demonstrates that by large, children’s reporters do not hold classical attitudes toward young offenders and crime.