David Lammy hopes the Youth Justice White Paper will "tackle the drivers of offending so fewer young people become trapped in cycles of crime".

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For anyone who cares deeply about young people, this may sound positive. But we must never lose sight of the realities on the ground, and how such proposals - that often make calls to be ‘tougher’ – never improve the already tough conditions that our young people are living through.

At Kids of Colour, a Manchester-based youth work organisation, we support young people whose lives have existed only through the age of austerity measures: a form of state violence. Whilst Lammy speaks to the importance of ‘early interventions’ for children, we remain enraged that this way of thinking is always driven through the criminal justice system, meaning no matter how it is wrapped up, it is always about punishment and blame.

For those of us working with young people on the ground, the only ‘early intervention’ we want to hear about is an intensive, radical effort to make the conditions of young people’s lives better.

Currently, children across this country live in food insecurity and........

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