The plans, revealed by Ian Blair, deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, will be pioneered in 11 London boroughs from March before being expanded nationally. They grew out of the investigation last year into the murder of ten-year-old Damilola Taylor in Peckham, London.
In a speech on the role of the police in preventing youth crime given to the Youth Board annual convention last month, Mr Blair said, 'With partners in those 11 boroughs, we intend to create an intelligence nexus which will hold sensitive information about large numbers of children, many of whom have not yet and probably will not actually drift into active criminality.
'This is pretty revolutionary stuff. There will be lots of worries but as long as it is understood that the purpose of holding the information is to ensure we collectively intervene to prevent children becoming criminals, a partnership approach could succeed.'
He said a police inquiry team working in Southwark had found 'evidence of children who had been abused at home, subject to bullying and theft at school and in the immediate surroundings of their home - children who had, Fagin-like, been coerced and taught to steal, who rose to prominence within their peer group by dint of theft and violence.
'It is not an exaggeration to note that, for some of these children, street gangs provided a safer and more caring environment than their homes or classrooms,' he added.
But the Forum on Children and Violence, which is affiliated to the National Children's Bureau and was formed after the murder of toddler James Bulger by two schoolboys in 1993, said the emphasis was wrong. Forum co-ordinator Will McMahon said, 'We welcome any focus by the police on prevention, but it must be led by education and health concerns rather than criminal justice ones. It's by focusing on health and well-being in their early years that you can prevent troubled children becoming troubling children.' The independent voluntary organisation the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders also voiced concern about the plan. A NACRO spokesman said, 'Children who get into trouble are often troubled children. Interventions into their lives should be benevolent and based on concerns for their welfare, rather than being ones rooted in the criminal justice system.
'Consideration needs to be given to the wider context of why children and young people commit crimes rather than simply focusing on individual children and their families. This means addressing wider issues of community regeneration.'
However, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Police said the proposals were still at an 'exploratory stage' and it 'would be unhelpful to speculate about what form they would take at this time'.
