Introduction

Britain has the resources to ensure that all of its children and young people have ample opportunities to flourish, and are protected effectively from significant harm. For too many, this is not the reality. In this chapter we bring together the conceptual lenses of the previous two chapters, exploring the extent and nature of particularly prominent social harms in the lives of young people in Britain, and the effects that these harms have, particularly on their sense of mattering.

We believe that analysing some of the most damaging social harms affecting young people – and in particular those which can be described as structural harms – is valuable for a number of reasons. First of all, it helps to put interpersonal violence between young people in perspective. As illustrated in Chapter 1, it is a relatively small number of young people who are affected by violence from a peer. We will go on to see in this chapter how, compared to those who experience this specific kind of interpersonal harm, there is a far larger proportion of young people who are affected by the deeply injurious effects of other social harms. To emphasize again: this is not to suggest that violence between young people is not important – as we explained at length in our Introduction, and will go on to explore further in Chapter 5, interpersonal physical violence is a devastating form of harm which requires far more effective societal responses. It is to suggest, however, that if we are invested in the improvement of young people’s lives, we will not be helped by a myopic, tunnel-visioned focus on street-based violence between young people: we must attend to the myriad other forms of social harm which damage and diminish young lives, particularly those structural harms which result from the nature of various policies, systems and institutions in this country.

Secondly, and moreover, the social harms discussed in this chapter connect in significant ways with the problem of violence between young people.