Mental health problems in childhood cast a long shadow. They can often persist into adulthood with adverse consequences for many aspects of people’s lives. The most common childhood mental health difficulties are conduct problems. A very high proportion of those who have the most serious conduct problems during childhood will go on to become involved in criminal activity. Effective help for parents and families to prevent and manage conduct problems is extremely good value for public money and should be offered routinely across the UK.
This paper examines the links between early conduct problems and subsequent offending. It makes the case for greatly increased investment in evidence-based programmes to reduce the prevalence and severity of conduct problems in childhood. It shows that, in addition to improvements in the quality of life for many individuals and their families, the potential long-term benefits to society as a whole are enormous, particularly in terms of crime prevention. Over time, nothing would have a bigger impact on crime than making these programmes much more widely available than is presently the case.
