Minister McEntee and Minister Browne welcome commencement of legislation targeting those who groom children to commit crime

The Minister for Justice Helen McEntee and the Minister of State with responsibility for Youth Justice James Browne have welcomed the coming into effect of legislation criminalising adults who draw children into crime.

Minister McEntee has this morning commenced the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Act 2024, which makes it an offence for an adult to either force or encourage children to engage in any criminal activity.

Those found guilty of the new offences may face imprisonment of up to 12 months on summary conviction and up to five years on indictment.

The legislation recognises the life-long impact and harm done to a child by drawing them into criminal activity, and is one of a set of holistic measures being progressed by the Department of Justice and Minister Browne under the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027 to address youth offending.

Under that Strategy, the Department has established an intensive intervention pilot called the Greentown Programme, which is specifically focused on disrupting organised crime groups who lure children into crime, and improving outcomes for children at risk or already engaged in criminal networks.

Minister McEntee recently extended that programme for a further three years so that the learnings for best practice can be formalised and disseminated to the entire network of youth justice initiatives.

Speaking today, Minister McEntee said:

“This important legislation will criminalise adults who are ruining young people’s lives and blighting their communities by forcing or enticing them into criminal lifestyles. While offending might start small, it often snowballs into something more serious and suddenly there is no way out for a young person whose life can become plagued by debts, fear and intimidation.

It will be an important tool in the arsenal of Gardaí to disrupt criminal networks and pursue those who use vulnerable young people to keep their own hands clean, complementing the holistic intervention work already underway through the Greentown Programme.

We must pursue those who do the harm, but also work to undo the harm – the Greentown Programme provides intensive wraparound supports and interventions for young people either at risk of or already influenced by criminal networks. It provides intensive supports for the positive development and diversion of the affected children, as well as their family members.

I would like to thank my colleague Minister Browne for his work in developing this legislation and seeing it through the Houses. I look forward to seeing its impact.”

Welcoming the commencement of the Act, Minister Browne said:

“Seeing this legislation over the line has been a key priority for me given its centrality to the Youth Justice Strategy. To really change and reduce youth offending, we need a holistic approach – criminalising those who induce children into criminal activity, creating pro-social opportunities for young people at risk, and intensive interventions for those who are already involved in criminality to improve their long-term outcomes.

The reality is that some children are dealt a losing hand when they have people in their lives – it could be a parent, a cousin, a sibling, a neighbour – who actively exploit them. These people do immeasurable harm to the life of a young person and this legislation recognises that.

Young people may be coerced, forced or enticed by promises of wealth and social status, but what may seem like a quick way to make money or even as something glamourous or cool, very typically turns sour.

A criminal conviction can seriously affect young people’s opportunities to travel abroad, to gain access to education or work, all of which can set people onto worse paths.

This legislation will help to prevent the next generation from being used and abused by criminal gangs, and will contribute to the building of safer, stronger communities. ”

This meets objectives contained in both the Programme for Government and the Youth Justice Strategy 2021-2027.

A key objective in handling youth crime is to try to keep young people out of the criminal justice system as far as possible. The provisions in this legislation limit liability for the offences to adults in order to avoid further consequences for children who are already victims of crime themselves and who may also have been groomed.

The Government is committed to supporting youth justice services in every way possible. In Budget 2024, a further €2.9 million in funding was allocated to youth justice services, increasing the total budget allocation for the youth diversion measures to over €33 million.

This new legislation has been informed by the Greentown Programme, which is being implemented by the University of Limerick in partnership with the Department of Justice and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, and was recognised at the 2020 European Crime Prevention Awards. The aim of the Programme is to investigate the involvement of children in criminality and to establish interventions to tackle the problem.

ENDS../

Notes to the Editor:

• The Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Act 2024 can be found here - https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2024/act/8/enacted/en/html

• To note, the General Scheme of the Criminal Justice (Exploitation of Children in the Commission of Offences) Bill 2020 was approved by Government in 2020. As advised by the Office of the Attorney General, the name of the Bill was changed during drafting to the Criminal Justice (Engagement of Children in Criminal Activity) Bill 2023.

• Greentown Programme: Funding was announced on 26 January 2024 to extend the Greentown Programme for another three years so that the learnings for best practice can be formalised and disseminated to the entire network of youth justice initiatives.

• The first Greentown Report showed that criminal networks in many areas operate coercive control over young children. As well as analysing how criminal networks recruit and control often vulnerable children, the Greentown Programme has attempted to identify the scale of the problem in the State and the resulting National Prevalence Report established that this issue is widespread across the country, in both rural and urban settings.

• The Youth Justice Strategy 2021- 2027 was launched in April 2021 and recognises that young people in conflict with the law should be treated as children first, with due respect for their rights, in a way that strengthens their capacity for positive participation in community life, and reinforces respect for the human rights and freedoms of others. One of the actions of the Strategy was to review the legislation surrounding grooming of children by adults for the purposes of committing criminal acts.

• The Garda Youth Diversion Programme is a statutory programme provided for in the Children Act 2001. A key support to the programme comes from Youth Diversion Projects (YDPs), which are community-based, multi-agency crime prevention initiatives that seek to divert young people who have become involved in crime or anti-social behaviour, and to support wider preventative work in the community and with families at risk.

• Funding for YDPs is provided by the Department of Justice and co-financed by the European Union under ESF+.