They were gregarious, and impressively articulate in describing what had happened to them. And, given the debate about antisocial behaviour and "respect", I became even more interested in their stories when it turned out that all three had been sentenced to detention and training orders - in part for breach of antisocial behaviour orders.
I do not intend to defend their criminal behaviour, but I have no reason to disbelieve them. They strike me as symptomatic of the challenges in the youth justice debate. What they had done was against the law. Yet it might be considered as typically youthful transgressions that would, in the past, have been dealt with outside the criminal justice system.
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