Young people

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Young offenders institutions are to be allowed to continue using pain-inflicting restraint techniques following a government review published yesterday.

The review was set up following inquests last year into the deaths of 14-year-old Adam Rickwood and 15-year-old Gareth Myatt in privately-run secure training centres in 2004.

Clare Coatman (London, oD): In an attempt to engage young people with the formal political process, the Youth Citizenship Commission (YCC) - a body set up this summer as part of the Governance of Britain agenda to "examine ways of developing young people's understanding of citizenship and increase their participation in politics" - is beginning a three month consultation on lowering the voting age to sixteen - the first of a range of proposals. The consultation paper (pdf) includes information on where we fit in internationally, the current legal picture (what rights and responsibilities come into effect at what ages) and the implications of both leaving the law untouched and reforming it. 

Sixteen-year-olds can get married, have children and join the army. They are among those who will feel the long term impact of global warming, our foreign policy and the recent financial crisis. They will face major challenges from rising unemployment and will feel the full effects of our education policy.

Celia Hannon (London, Demos): In April 2007 charlieissocoollike, a 16 year-old vlogger from Bath joined YouTube. So did the British Prime Minister. Since then Charlie has amassed 70,000 subscribers. The Prime Minister has 5,000. These figures betray a very naked truth - young people are not flocking to listen to their presidents and Prime Ministers when they talk to them via internet videos. Instead, they are seizing power for themselves; taking on roles as reporters, distributors, commentators and artists. It seems that while their parents and grandparents won their freedoms by challenging governments, this generation of young people would rather find their ‘route-around’ existing institutions and forms of media.

Jon Bright (London, OK): The Telegraph reports today that 5,000 children are being added to the UK's DNA database a month, around 25% of the total number of new additions. A Home Office spokesman explained that, as under 18s made up roughly 25% of arrests, it was unsurprising they made up 25% of new additions.

Jane Powell (London, Director CALM): In the midst of the extraordinary spectacle of 17 young suicides - mainly male - in Bridgend, there's a report out showing that the suicide rate in young men in England and Wales is at all time low. Can both be true?

The analysis published in the British Medical Journal of the decline in the suicide rate is an important detailed study. The fact that the rate has been declining isn't new, but the details within the study are. The headline though - that the rate suicide in young men is at an all time low - seems the only angle journalists have taken any note of. Their message, that all is fine: there was a problem once, now it is disappearing, nothing to worry about any more.