During the panel debate at the annual YoungMinds lecture, Mark Johnson, founder of charity User Voice and a former offender, said the biggest problem in tackling youth violence is a lack of therapeutic intervention for young people.
"I had one year of residential treatment, and in that year I got rid of every single deluded thought I had about myself," he said. "It didn’t involve a glitzy, short-term, box-ticking environment. It involved a couple of crusty chairs, a room where the wallpaper was peeling and someone who actually understood the nature of my problem."
Johnson said that longevity of support, a form of confinement and the location where help was delivered were key to breaking a young person’s cycle of violence.
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