Jesus’ insights on public order included advice about rebuke, repentance and forgiveness

I was 11 years old the day I stepped out of a Woolworth’s store in 1963, with my pockets stuffed with stolen paraphernalia, and felt a hand on my shoulder. Petty theft had become a quiet compulsion – even though I had been a church boy all my life.

The next few hours flew by in a remorseful haze of events. The frog-march to the security office. The metallic thud of the cell door. My devastated mother appearing at the police station.

And a 1-year probation order.

It’s now clearer with hindsight. It wasn’t just that I belonged to a poor 1-parent family. It was dealing with the stigma of free school meals, peer group pressure, and the oddity of being one of 5 black pupils in a school of eleven hundred boys. Temporarily, the positive influences in my life were inadequate.

Even at that age, a criminal record in addition, seemed an odd way to improve things.

So I was really pleased to learn yesterday, that child arrests have been halved as police are relying less on targets. According to the Howard League for Penal Reform, 112 ,000 under 17s were arrested last year, compared to over 245,000 in 2010. A 54% decrease.

Clearly, we cannot dismiss the serious offences our children commit. My subsequent encounters with crime - as a probation officer in the 1970s and 80s - made it clear that tough responses will always be inevitable.

But the politics of targeting youngsters for petty crimes, can be a form of societal impatience which has the potential of putting a stumbling block before the futures of our misguided youth.

Children do not grow up in moral vacuums, and, at times our collective failure to provide positive values to live by, can create stumbling blocks for them.

As Jesus would have said, ‘Things that cause people to stumble will come, but woe to anyone through whom they come….’ Jesus had the strongest condemnation for people who, as he put it, ‘cause one of these little ones to stumble.’

Crucially, Jesus’ insights on public order included advice about rebuke, repentance and forgiveness.

In other words: policies of redemption.

This year the National Police Chiefs’ Council said it wanted to ‘explore other options’ before custody, ensuring that people enter custody for the right reason and at the right time.

This lowers the stumbling blocks and opens up the possibilities of redemption. And as a Christian - and a former probation officer – I believe redemption is always possible.