Stella Creasy, Labour MP for Walthamstow, has called for teachers to be given the power to remove free Oyster cards from persistent truants. Creasy’s statement comes hot on the heels of David Lammy, the Labour MP for Tottenham, calling for a rethink of the laws on smacking children.

Creasy said that “giving schools the ability to use removal of free travel cards as a sanction for persistent truancy… [would help in] overcoming the impact of cuts to Educational Welfare officers which will leave only the police rounding up kids missing from schools.”

Labour’s position on youth crime appears to be focused on tough sounding soundbites around measures that will have little to no impact on crime but do help to further stigmatise some of the most marginalised youngsters in London. While it was easy to mock Lammy’s assertion that the riots were caused by kids not being introduced to violence early enough Creasy’s solution appears to be little better.

To remove a truant’s Oyster card making it harder for them to get to school would appear to be an excellent example of the war against joined up thinking. It’s particularly strange to give these powers to teachers meaning that the one time a truant does go to school they get punished for it. Surely we should be thinking of ways to make it easier for persistent truants to return to the education system?

One question Creasy leaves unanswered is how a teacher actually confiscates an Oyster card from the most troubled teenager in their class. Do they wrestle them to the ground? Rather than welcoming the truant back with open arms like the prodigal son the truant can expect their first day back at school to be one of needless confrontations and accusations. This seems to be a recipe for turning a kid on the edge of the education system into a child outside of it altogether.

Far from tackling anti-social behaviour we see, once again, a ‘solution’ that would deepen the problem.

Creasy told the Evening Standard that “I’m very struck that there are 30,000 kids in London who are persistent truants,” she said. “There is a connection between truancy and exclusion, and antisocial behaviour and crime.”

This is quite true. There is a connection between exclusion and anti-social behaviour. That is why further exclusion does not work and this soundbite culture focused on punishing children rather than building communities is part of the problem, not the solution.

 

 

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