Nothing Is Ever Too Bad: Boys and the Adults Who Don’t Give Up with Professor Seán Redmond

0:05Hello and welcome to To Be A Boy. Today we are interviewing Professor Seán Redmond, who is the leading expert on youth justice and one of the most important researchers working on how children get drawn into criminal networks. An adjunct professor at the University of Limerick School of Law, he leads a project which works directly with the Department of Justice to build the evidence base for youth crime policy in Ireland. He is best known for leading the landmark Greentown study which produced the first scientific evidence of how criminal networks in Ireland systematically recruit, groom and retain children, some as young as 11, using promises of money and status before trapping them through debt, obligation and fear.

0:55The study won first place at the European Crime Prevention Awards. Before moving into research, Sean spent over 25 years working directly with young people in the justice system. Sean, welcome to the podcast. Hi, I'm delighted to be here. We're thrilled to have you. So firstly, I am fascinated as to what got you into this work. Well, you know, like sometimes it's difficult to look back and think, well, yeah, there was a kind of clear trajectory from one point to another. But I think from when I was a kid, I had a genuine interest in people. I was always kind of, you know, kind of curious and just interested in people.

1:42And, you know, even though I'm based in Ireland and I've been here for 30 years, I was actually born in the Midlands in England, in Stoke-on-Trent. And I think my experiences there kind of really ignited an interest in, you know, other people and ultimately wanted to work with other people as well. So, I mean, I can tell you a bit about it if you're interested. Yeah, well, yeah, do, because you did tell me a little bit on email and you were saying that you were born in Stoke-on-Trent and you had a youth work in yourself, which is partly what led you to get into this work. Tell us a bit about that.

2:24Sure thing. Yeah. So for anybody who knows Stoke-on-Trent, it's a fantastic city. And I was born in a place called Boothin, which would have been quite a tough neighborhood in Stoke-on-Trent. And we had very little, really. We used to kind of play out in the street. There were very few kind of facilities and amenities for kids. I was just really, really lucky. When I was about 10 or 12, this youth worker came into the community and it was really, really striking. You know, this was part of his kind of, you know, the curiosity around him. And so this guy was, he was a biker and he was about six foot six and his name was Kevin.

3:07One of the things that I think is like really important about this relationship with the youth worker who came in is that I'm 60 years of age. now and um kevin is 85 and i still stay in touch with him he had such an influence on my life um so when i was about 10 to 12 um he kind of ran the youth club in the local neighborhood we had absolutely nothing he ran it out of this kind of this old shed and all the young people used to go there and we'd kind of uh you know just do various things like you know um but when i got to about 17 or 18, he really kind of encouraged me. He must have seen something in me, but he really encouraged me to get involved in the play schemes in other places around Stoke-on-Trent.

3:54So, you know, first of all, I kind of volunteered working with really small children in play schemes during the summer. And then he kind of encouraged me then to go to college and to follow the interest. And as I say, he spotted a talent in me. Not only that, though, you know, I got into a lot of scrapes when I was a kid and would have been thrown out of school, failed my kind of GCSEs, O level and A level. And only, you know, after that, when he kind of pulled me out and got me through all those scrapes, did I kind of get any clear blue water so that I could get to college and do something different.

4:33um so you ask me why uh um I think that um reflecting on it I think I had an interest in this type of work from when I was very young but also had a lot of well a lot of help as well you know that's I mean what a story and we really want to get into talking about the importance of youth workers and youth clubs because we've talked about it quite a bit on this podcast and I hear it so often from parents there's just so little for kids to do now that there's this feels like there's this big gap and it's being filled by other things that are problematic we I recently asked a large group of mothers of boys what their biggest concerns were about raising boys in the UK and the numbers that said antisocial behavior were extraordinary and it's certainly something I'm a mother of two boys is certainly something that I worry about a lot when you look at the data on youth offending right now what is it telling us are things actually getting worse well first of all I think being a parent I'm a parent to three young people young adults now um and um you know you're kind of constantly worried that you're doing your best for them and uh you know how they going to kind of work out um what the data shows is is that things haven't shifted really i mean you know people have been concerned about the antics of young people since time immemorial you know they used to write about it in the classics shakespeare writes about it as well so there's always been this kind of fear that uh young people are uh that that's the way that they present means that everything is degenerating.

6:24So in some senses, you know, what we're experiencing today is no different than it's ever been. I mean, some of the external environment is different, and perhaps we'll talk about that a little later. But in terms of how adults perceive young people, some things haven't changed. You asked me about the data. I mean, what the data shows is that, you know, lots of young people do things that when they were adults, they perhaps wish they hadn't done but at the time they do it because they're young people and young people don't comply with the norms they don't comply with the rules um some of those things that they do are kind of harmful to other people as well and they're kind of criminal offenses as well what we have very hard data on is that um there's this thing called an age crime curve and what it basically shows is that um quite a few young people as i say do things that it might be classed as antisocial behavior it kind of peaks at around 19 or 20 but by the time that they get to uh 20 21 22 um that that age crime curve drops off completely whether you do anything with those young people or not they just tend to grow out of it now the science kind of uh isn't conclusive around it you know some people say it's around brain development some people say it's around taking on responsibilities when you're an adult.

7:47But the data is really, really clear that most kids, even if they get into trouble, by the time they get into young adulthood, then they tend to grow out of it. And the consequence of that, I think, for a society, whether you're looking at this as somebody who's very conscious about how taxpayers' money is spent or whether you're a parent, the consequences are that it's really important to take a light touch with those young people. And by that, I mean, you know, do hold them accountable for their behavior. Do kind of try and help make things better, you know, if there's been a victim at the end of somebody's offended behavior.

8:31But the worst thing you can do is come down really heavy-handed to put kids in prison because we know that that simply doesn't work. so you know if you if you want to help young people through to adulthood with as few scrapes as possible you know a light policy touch where you do hold your young people accountable for their behavior but also where you don't kind of contaminate them with the criminal justice system is probably the best way to go now. Interesting so you would say sorry to interrupt but you would say then if you have a group of young people who are potentially causing problems in your neighborhood that contacting the police and getting the police involved would be a bad would be a bad way to go is that no no not necessarily I mean like you know it's important that young people are accountable for their behavior and what you'll find with the police nowadays um here in ireland but also in the uk um is that they are kind of committed to the science you know that the criminal justice system for young people tends where possible to kind of take a light touch just to just to be absolutely clear when i say light touch it doesn't mean not making young people accountable for the behavior but what it means is not sending them to prison.

9:57You know, it's only kind of recently in the last 50 years or so that we weren't jailing kind of hundreds and thousands of young people to no benefit. But now, as I say, I mean, this kind of light touch, hold young people accountable for the behaviour, try and put things right, try and restore the relationships between the young people and the people that we've offended against. But, you know, if at all possible, I can keep them out of their full criminal justice system. It's probably helpful if we give a definition of antisocial behavior. What would you, what's the definition of it? Well, it's a really good one.

10:34I think it kind of depends where in the kind of the kind of social clash you are. Antisocial behavior could be anything that harms other people. So it can be kind of violent offending, it can be rowdy behavior, it can be drunken behavior, it can be criminal damage. But the reason why I say it can depend on where you are in the community or within the social class system is what we call antisocial behavior for kids from poor communities, which might be breaking a window or breaking a bush shelter, might be seen as kind of useful hijinks if you're from more prosperous areas, you know, and that things get dealt with informally.

11:12And the consequence of that is that it means that all young people get involved in this type of behavior it isn't linked to socioeconomic disadvantage all young people are involved in um you know behavior which is potentially harmful to other people to themselves as well it's just that sometimes kids from more disadvantaged areas are more likely to get caught because they're more likely to be surveilled oh that's really interesting i moved from manchester to york and i moved away from manchester because there were too many guns there were too many stabbings it was it got a bit frightening and I have two boys and I thought I don't go out on my own on night so I don't think I can raise two boys around here so we moved to York because York felt like it was a safer area I mean there is a there is a lot of antisocial behavior actually where I live but I was so surprised when I first moved here how furious people were at knock-a-door run you know you call it different things in different areas don't you but the kids around here often play knock-a-door run and the people where i live are absolutely livid about it and some call the police off the back of kids doing knock-a-door run and like you know coming from manchester where it was like oh there's been a stabbing oh there's been somebody shot it just seems completely bananas to me that people will get that upset about knock-a-door run.

12:41I've been that soldier, Jolie. I've been the knock-a-door runner. So, yeah, I know about all of that kind of stuff. And it is interesting, isn't it, that the kind of tolerance threshold for these kind of things is different in different areas. And, you know, one of the things that I think is that sometimes in poorer communities they suffer from uh higher levels of surveillance um but but you know sometimes some of the environmental issues that lead to the stuff that i'm interested in around criminal networks um is that you know the state doesn't manage to support those communities to rid themselves of of crime networks so you do not have these kind of different levels of tolerance i just wish as a state sometimes we'd have higher levels of non-tolerance for a really serious criminal behavior oh yeah yeah and very interesting um is a boy is more at risk of this so statistically yes and it may be that it's because boys tend to get involved in more overt types of behavior so the stuff that you can see is the stuff that gets caught you know so um i mentioned kind of public order crime so you know young people who may have been consuming alcohol or drugs are involved in kind of, you know, loutish behavior, stuff which, you know, really scares people just because it's, you know, in your face.

14:12Because that's kind of overt and measurable, observable, it tends to be more boys who are involved in that kind of stuff. And statistically, you know, boys are, you know, more involved in crime than girls, crime and antisocial behavior than girls. what I would say though is that there is a kind of a trend now where even though girls were outnumbered it used to be around kind of you know one to nine one to ten is that that number is creeping up now for girls oh yeah that's also chiming with them what I'm seeing around here and actually out my son's secondary school when we went for parents evening one of the teachers said to me it's not the boys that are a problem this year it's the girls that are causing some of the many of the issues your your greentown research found criminal networks recruiting children as young as 11 how does that process start what does grooming by a criminal network actually look like i'm not sure there's ever a kind of start point to it um i think that um So I'm going to try to paint you a picture, if that's okay, of just what the research is about.

15:30I mentioned to you that most young people who are involved in crime tend to grow out of it. And that's for the vast majority of kids who do this kind of over antisocial behavior tend to grow out of it. So best with those kids to have a light touch. There are a small number of kids within that kind of age crime curve who are involved in much more kind of serious crime. And that's what really my study was about. We kind of, in Ireland, we were kind of really interested why it was that some young people went down a different kind of crime trajectory. And it was particularly young people who were involved in burglaries and also drugs for sale and supply.

16:11So those kind of drugs networks. And what you find with that type of crime is that young people don't co-offend with other young people. Or they do, but it's not simply with other young people. So it's not this idea of youth gangs. It's not simply like that. What you tend to find is that there are adult accomplices as well. And it kind of makes sense, really, because if you're involved in a burglary, then sometimes you might need intelligence about where to go and burgle. Or you might need a conveyance. You might need some vehicle to get there or to get back. And you'll certainly need some help in fencing the goods.

16:47And with drugs for sale and supply, you know, kids tend to be involved in the retail end, you know, in local communities. They don't go to South America. So they rely then on adults to provide them with. I just wanted to kind of paint that kind of picture because one of the kind of key things that's different from the young people who are involved in this type of crime is that adult relationship. it because what comes with that is lots of other stuff in terms of influential controls and levers so you asked about how it kind of starts it I don't think it kind of it doesn't doesn't have a start point it's not like having a HR department where you kind of recruit kids into into gangs it often happens in kind of certainly in our experience anyway in backwater estates which are kind of ripe for young people kind of rubbing shoulders with other adults who are involved in serious kind of criminal activity.

17:44So there's a kind of process of osmosis. Sometimes that is kind of maybe even more normal if, you know, an older brother is involved in the criminal gang, or parents might be, you know, there may be clients of the criminal gang if they're drugs users as well. So there's not this kind of, it's not like in a recruitment process. It kind of, It just tends to happen because of the proximity. And there would be, there are some kind of situations where there is active grooming. And I kind of split into the three kind of different degrees. The first one's kind of transactional. And what I mean by that is, you know, you see young people who become attracted to the kind of the bling lifestyle, you know, the training shoes, the tracksuits, you know, the kind of Canada use.

18:35kind of coats. Also the kind of the trappings that come with that as well, like the kind of social capital you get from being part of the group. I call that kind of transactional and that's what you might mean by recruitment. But then there's also a kind of an emotive element to some young people as well. And I think this one is much more stronger actually. So this is one where young people want to be part of something. So if you're from a kind of a disadvantaged community and everything else is taken away from you in terms of you know legitimate routes to improvement then you want to be part of something that's kind of that that is important and it fulfills a need to belong to something and you know if you think about it you know whether it's to do with crime or not crime that's something that all young people kind of wants they want to be part of something and then the last one I would say is almost where the involvement in the crime gang is by default so these are the young people where the dice is completely loaded against them so they're born into a family that has an established relationship with the crime gang either because they've been jointly involved in enterprises with them where they live where they operate in kind of groups where all the other young people are involved in the crime gang as well so it tends to develop these kind of insular kind of networks where you have norms which are are different than the norms outside of that group you live in kind of communities then which are fearful of the crime gang so if you think about this in terms of almost like concentric circles you have this kind of bubble where young people really sometimes you question uh how and why they ever get out of it because it's just so it's like a pressure cooker you know so i i don't know if that answers your question uh jolly but um i think there are different kind of routes and it's not necessarily always a start point and some of it is very transactional some of it is emotive and some of it is it just happens you know are those networks growing are you seeing them becoming more formed and substantial i don't know the answer to that um and that's not to evade the question it's just that we're only starting to kind of understand the way that these things tick um I would say they're still pretty minority activities, but where they do occur, they're really, really serious.

21:02And for the young people who are involved, they can be absolutely devastating. Interestingly, the understanding how these networks operate, how they run, how they kind of sustain themselves is really important. And one of the things that I've found, for instance, is that you can have networks which are, you know, maybe drug users who are involved and also kind of selling drugs as well. They tend to be quite kind of quite vulnerable and weak themselves because they're quite chaotic. You know, at the other end of the spectrum, you have networks which are based around family and kinship networks where the links are really, really strong and really difficult to intervene in or interrupt.

21:48So I can't answer the question around whether they are kind of growing. My sense is that it's still a minority area of crime, but it's at the really, really serious end. And the thing around the network says it's not so much the number, but the kids who are involved in networks are involved in a hugely more prolific offending than kids who are not involved in them. Yeah, okay. I wondered whether, you know, we talk a lot about masculinity influences online, and some people say it's about kids wanting to belong to something, that's why they gravitate towards influences the most well-known, obviously being Andrew Tate, and whether, you know, this sort of breakdown of community that we've seen happen and space for people to build communities, whether that is then feeding into boys gravitating towards masculinity influences, but also towards criminal networks, which is why I asked the question, whether you envisage there being a link there.

22:51Yeah, it's really interesting. It's a really interesting kind of proposition. I mean, what we know from kind of psychology, not just from kind of criminology, but we know that when young males get together in groups, they tend to take more risks you know they that's that's what they do do you know and whether that's kind of um you know kind of egging each other on to elevate the risk taking or whether it's the this kind of bubble that's created when you are involved in a closed group with other friends i'm not entirely sure but there's something there i mean and the evidence shows that when young young males get together they do tend to elevate their elevate their risk taking i'm sure as well in the kind of community situation and this is where it kind of links with with with masculinity that at that transactional level the kind of FOMO of not being involved also has an influence as well so I think the kind of the messaging around masculinity is really important and you know we don't get enough opportunities for instance to talk about what it means to be a boy or to be a male adolescent and enough safe spaces to do it.

24:03So all we can do is look at the actions of them. So I do think there is some kind of relationship there. You asked about the online influences as well. And, you know, I find I really, you know, it sticks in my craw with people like Andrew Tate and others who take advantage of their kind of, their airtime to put out poisonous stuff, you know, about women. and in other ways and what I think are kind of perverse kind of iterations of what it means to be a man as well. But I think that the way that the online thing kind of works, and this is emerging evidence as well, the way that the online thing works in relation to organized crime, for example, is it happens at that kind of transactional, emotional and default level as well.

24:52So at the transactional level, people use online techniques to share opportunities, If you do want to get involved in doing things, also communication routes for kids involved in crime networks and also to give out orders or opportunities. I've come across less of that in my work. I know there's evidence of it kind of creeping up in Europe and it's something that they're particularly kind of concerned about. I do think that at the emotional level, the likes of Tate and others do the same thing as I was talking about in relation to crime networks, is that young people are craving a sense of belonging, craving some sense of identity.

25:35And, you know, they want to kind of latch onto something. And the worry with this is that, you know, one of the things that is normal in young people and young men is, you know, that we tend to act kind of impulsively. And, you know, the use of online kind of media to be opportunistic around things when there are certain incidents, you know, and I'm thinking now more around kind of racist, where people peddle racist kind of myths online in relation to a certain incident that can kind of connect with young people and lead to things like civil unrest as well in local areas. But that kind of impulsivity and that reactive behavior is kind of normal in young people.

26:20But the use of the social media to actually capitalize on that is really kind of quite worrying. And then you have the young people who are online more or less all the time. Their lives are kind of online and it's their kind of their default kind of go to. and those are young people who you know you will be particularly worried about you know in in some ways they've lost that sense of relational distance between themselves and other human beings of it and that can you know that can lead to really quite perverse kind of views around you know particularly young women and and you know other races and ethnicities when we look at people that go on like the Tommy Robinson marches for example there is some data now that shows many of the people that are going on those marches have criminal records are they are they linked is there a link here between criminal networks and things like racist marches yeah I mean undoubtedly you know a lot of the individuals who participate in those kind of activities are very kind of checkered histories.

27:32The way that those networks can influence young people is by providing opportunities. And the reason I say that is, you know, in recent kind of situations that we've seen in Ireland in relation to civil unrest around, particularly where they've been organised by people who have racist tendencies, is that most of the young people see it as an opportunity to kind of act out. You know, they're not ideologically kind of committed. The adults are ideologically committed and have a, you know, a high degree of responsibility and should be held accountable for it. But, you know, it really depends on how the young people kind of connect, I think, with the messages that are coming through.

28:16Certainly from speaking to frontline professionals here in Ireland, that young people who get involved in those kind of things are doing it for the event itself and doing it for the kind of the sense of excitement. Now, the problem is that that's of absolutely no comfort to the individual people on the other end of the behavior who, you know, the nuance around how and why and what motivates people to become involved is of less interest to them. But, you know, in terms of, you know, in terms of whether that kind of poison is seeping into lots of other young people's DNA, you know, I don't know if that's the case.

28:56So I think that a lot of young people see it as an opportunity for excitement, to be honest. Okay, thank you. If you're a parent of a child and you're really concerned that your child is getting involved in these criminal networks, because as we've outlined, there are risk factors, but there are kids that get involved in criminal networks that you wouldn't expect. They don't necessarily have parents who are drug users or older brothers that have got into lots of trouble or hanging around in these types of groups. What would you say to parents to look out for if they're worried? Well, you know, I'm only just out of it.

29:39And, you know, there have been kind of lessons for me in terms of being a father, being a dad. I think sometimes you have to be a little less on transmit and more on receive. By that I mean not be kind of giving out orders and start listening a little bit more. And I'm not saying that, I'm not trying to be Georgie there. I think parenting teenagers is really, really wearing on both the young people but also for parents as well. And sometimes it's a skill in survival getting through to the other end. you know um but what i would say is that um if it's possible i think what young people need is some degree of psychological safety um and what that means i think is that they need to feel it's okay that nothing's too bad ever to be able to talk about it now i'm kind of talking i'm kind of um you know suggesting something which can be really really difficult because you know there's loads of things that can accumulate accumulate that can create distance or create friction between parents and young people but really you know as they say we're the parent we're the adult you know and so i think you know listen be patient try not to judge and try to think about kind of how you build trust as well and think about the two things i think um which are really important is as i say nothing is ever too bad to discuss and things are always fixable and i mentioned to you at the start about the youth worker that i worked with i had my my father was fantastic i don't think i could have had this conversation with him though in terms of the you know kind of scrapes that i got into but um i think the two things that i took from that relationship with the with the youth worker in our community was that nothing was ever too bad to talk to and things were always fixable And sometimes you need the help of an adult to help you fix stuff.

31:35And I think if you can do that, it becomes a self-reinforcing loop because you kind of, you have good experiences of things, things which were bad. You know, there are resolutions and it's possible to do that about, you know, how things can get fixed together. Yeah, so really those are the kind of the key messages. But the important thing about it is this is happening at a time when it can be really exhausting as a parent as well. So, you know, sometimes you have to really dig deep and sometimes you have to kind of reach out and get your own network as well of other parents who are going through the same stuff.

32:13Do you think it would be a good idea to talk to teenagers about your own scrapes? I had a checkered time when I was a teenager as well and got myself in multiple very difficult situations. I just wonder from your experience of raising kids as well, do you think talking about that opens a door and enables them to talk about risks that they're seeing in their day-to-day life? I can only speak about my own kind of personal experience um and a personal experience of somebody who didn't get it right all the time by any means at all do you know but I think the thing that guided me was that you know I'd been judicious about sharing you know because like you have to be kind of careful that you're not giving the kind of wrong messages that being harmful to other people is okay you know now i have different conversations my i'm you know i have a 25 year old a 23 year old and a 21 year old i have slightly different conversations now in terms of um you know looking back on my kind of uh um my childhood and adolescence um but i think at the time you know i always tried without being kind of hypocritical always try and kind of draw a line um because i think now think thinking thinking back um you know there are things that i would have been involved in that i wasn't particularly not particularly proud of and i think delivering a message to say that's okay uh or you know um at the time when your your kids are at that age you know i i i personally didn't didn't do that you know um but by the same token um i was never judgy about you know, things that they may have done.

33:58And as I said, I can only talk about what I tried to do, which was to try and model behavior on their relationships that I've done with my dad and with the youth worker who is really important to me as well, which is that nothing is, you know, too difficult to talk about. And, you know, even if you do something really bad, let's go and try and fix it. And do you know something, Jolie, is that we're quick to kind of reprimand young people but you know we rarely help them to um make things right and i i've been really surprised because like one of the things i did here in the village that i live in is i volunteered as a youth club to run a youth club you know inspired by my kind of experience and you know i i found that your people when they get the opportunity to be altruistic they do it you know you know we've run breakfast clubs for the older people in the community and the old people jump to it you know um but you also find as well and i think this is possibly something to do with that age crime curve we were talking about is that um as we kind of develop empathy um you know and the you know thinking about the effects of our behavior on other people some people don't never learn that you know they never learn it but you know in a kind of uh in in a normal sense where you do start understanding how your behavior can affect others good and bad um that's part of your development as well so you know as adults we can help that I think it's amazing that you wanted to be a youth worker at the local youth club as I said at the top of this interview we talked a lot about youth clubs on this podcast and the lack of youth clubs because we've lost so many across the UK what role do you think they play in preventing criminal networks developing and preventing on to social behavior i i um i suppose i have a different i have a different take on it you know um i i don't think about youth clubs as being you know a way of preventing something uh happening i i'd look at um young people as young citizens you know who have rights the same as i do you know um and i think that they have a right to um their own space their own voice um i think they have a right to congregate in places which are not pubs you know so we want to try and keep kids off alcohol and you know in some places um there's nowhere to go other than hang around in uh places where everybody's shooing them off you know where the weather might be bad you know they're hanging around in bush shelters um so i think i think you know my my kind of gut tells me that we should be doing this for young people anyway you know uh that they have a right for the state to enable them to kind of mature and to grow.

36:45Now, the fact of the matter is that, you know, if you're in a youth club and engaged in something which is pro-social, you are less likely to become involved in anti-social behavior. If you have a connection and you feel socially connected to pro-social influences, you're less likely to get involved in anti-social influences as well. And if you do become involved in anti-social influences, you have this opportunity then to try and put things right as well so there is a kind of a strong scientific argument for you know the provision of youth clubs but that wouldn't be my start point what would be your start point my start point would be that young people should be entitled to the the state should provide places for young people to congregate yeah yeah I love that and I think we do forget that actually when we're talking about young people and anti-social behavior that children should have rights and And I know when I was younger, like you're just constantly looking for places to go to hang out, to be a teenager with other teenagers where you're not, you haven't got prying eyes on you.

37:50You haven't got adults wagging their fingers at you. And, you know, we have an issue around here of a group of kids who are what the adults were classed as trouble. They, you know, break things. They burgle some of the houses. they torment some of the younger kids and the only policy that's been implemented is how we can move them on not not how we can give them the support that they need how we can create a space you know I suggested a youth club and somebody said well they'll just trash it and I said well let them trash it yeah you know so I see I don't I don't buy that I don't I don't buy that at all and it's not been my experience either you know i think that um well a couple of things like youth clubs in some kind of senses is about kind of playing pool about playing you know table tennis or you know whatever you know having coffee and but you know they're also like a way that um young people kind of guided by adults who really give a damn about them um mature and where you can have kind of conversations that you might not be comfortable having at home but also I did a lot of my learning when I was a young person from those kind of conversations which is like Sean how do you think they might have felt from what you did you know they're quite kind of sophisticated what they call restorative conversations but the only way sometimes you kind of develop that kind of nuanced characteristics is by somebody prompting them it's about social learning and youth clubs can be a really important part of that um you know and so if if like you know if like you're a youth worker and you know you're working with a kid who um is impulsive you say well look you know why don't you let somebody else have a turn now and and make it kind of a normal part of the conversation or if it's somebody who you know or you might say to them well you know why don't you let me win you can kind of um have these kind of really educative conversations when you're when when you have these kind of intentional relationships.

39:57So if you worked for the Department for Justice, if you were the minister, would youth clubs be one of the first things that you did? More youth clubs, more youth workers, paid properly with really great facilities? Yeah, well, first of all, I wouldn't care which department funded it. But I think as part of any kind of social fabric in any community, you know, we need to provide for children and the old people. and also involve them in the design of it as well. So, you know, in response to the person who told you that young people would trash the place, you know, where you involve young people in the design and the fit out and all of those kind of things with your clubs, you'll find very rarely do they trash it.

40:41They wouldn't be very tolerant of other young people involved in trash and stuff either. And so I think that every sizable community needs facilities for young people that they are involved in the design of. What else would you do? So that kind of magic wand question, I'd love to be in a situation where we had some kind of charter with young people as well, where we really pull out the stops across education, health, employment, young people kind of realizing their dreams as well. I think whenever the science fails me, I always just look at what the posh people do. And what the posh people do is that they really do try and find out where their young people's talents are.

41:31They have really small kind of teaching ratios and young people get an opportunity to do loads of different activities as well. So let's do it the posh way. I don't have a chip on my shoulder about any of those kind of things. I just think that we should aspire to the same things for all kids. short of that what I would like to see and I think this is doable is that every young person gets the opportunity to have a relationship with an adult who really really cares about them and will pull out all the stops for them that was my experience and as I say you know at 60 years of age I still stay in touch with the guy who I call Big Kev who's 85 now Big Kev big up big kev um thank you that that was brilliant and you touched on schools there we'd love obviously to reduce class sizes and to have more opportunities for pastoral care in school i think you know those roles are certainly getting cut around where we live is there anything that you think schools get really right or anything you think they get really wrong with this i don't i don't think you can generalize so i don't think you can generalize in relation to different regimes of different schools, you know, and I don't think you can generalize in terms of the neighborhoods and the communities that school find themselves in or the populations of the kids that they work with either.

42:57Sometimes while schools have to satisfy those kind of national standards and national structures, so they have different audiences, their parents to kind of deal with, their boards of management to deal with, their government standards to deal with as well. But outside of that, where they can find, you know, creative space, I think what we want as a society is young people who are engaged in a learning process. So the question then for me is how do you engage them and how creative can you be in engaging them? And I think the, you know, that kind of posh algorithm is a really good one. Why don't we model our educational relationships in the way that they do in the best schools?