Cambridge University study finds that just 4% of under 17 year-olds responsible for half of youth crime

Findings of Cambridge University Professor Per-Olof Wikstrom’s research study ‘Peterborough Adolescent and Young Adult Development Study’ (PADS+) are discussed today in The Independent.

The five year study of 700 people aged 12 to 16 has found that it is a small minority of these young people that are committing most of the crime and it is a lack of understanding about right and wrong that is the main cause, rather than their social background or the opportunity to commit crime. Teenagers who avoided crime did so because they saw it as wrong and a full third of teenagers did nothing wrong over the five years of the study.

Read the full article by The Independent’s reporter Emily Dugan here