A new study has revealed that Scotland’s criminal justice system punishes poorer people and makes it difficult for them to escape poverty.
The findings from the Edinburgh Study of Youth Transitions and Crime, by the University of Edinburgh’s School of Law also showed that children from deprived backgrounds were twice as likely to face police action than better off children who commit the same crime.
Poorer young people were also about five times more likely to be placed on statutory supervision than their better-off counterparts, the study said.
Meanwhile, “people who lived in extreme poverty were much more likely to be the victims – and perpetrators – of crime,” the study found.
The academics in the University of Edinburgh’s School of Law also identified gender as one of the most powerful predictors of violence, with boys being three times more likely than girls on average to engage in violent acts.
The study tracked 4,300 young people in Edinburgh since 1998 to better understand changes in their behaviour and lifestyles.