I HAVE been following the recent debate about the perception of young people as the cause of crime and individuals and organisations, such as the YMCA, who spend their time trying to support young people being labelled as wet liberals.

As a youth worker for the past 20 years I have seen a huge change in that label 'youth'. When I began work, youth was a time to be enjoyed and much of the work I was involved in was trips out, sports and activities - how times have changed.

The pressures on young people today are immense - that's not to say we had it easy and no excuse for the behaviour of a minority.

Issues surrounding poverty, lack of decent accommodation, family breakdown, debt, bullying and relationship problems constantly top the list of enquiries to us - and we're currently dealing with more than 1,500 of these a year.

Many people say that they are scared by groups of young people hanging around. In fact many groups are reported to the police, get moved on and, obviously, get frustrated. I've never yet seen a group of adults sitting out on the street enjoying the sunshine being asked to move on!

So let's tackle some of the real issues. In 2001, just over 98,000 young people aged 10 to 17 were convicted or cautioned - a huge number but only 1.8 per cent of the population of that age in Britain. That means that for every one young person who commits an offence 49 don't. Criminologists claim the police only convict or caution one in five offences, but even then the figure would only be 9 per cent.

There are some major national policy decisions that could reduce these figures.

It is estimated that as many as 90 per cent of young ex-offenders will re-offend within a two year period, but recent work at the Lancaster and District YMCA has shown that, given support, this figure can be vastly reduced, even turned on its head!

The Lancaster 'Wise Up' project has a success rate of 87 per cent over a three year period - meaning that, out of 117 ex-offenders worked with only nine have re-offended. It's certainly no easy option for the young person but it has proved to work in helping them re-build their lives and look forward to making a positive contribution to society.

Our challenge now is to continue to find the financial support to keep the Project alive - £50,000 to work with this number of ex-offenders.

In conclusion I'd add that as a society we have to learn that we can only reap what we sow. If this makes me a wet liberal, then so be it!

Phil McGrath, General Secretary, Lancaster and District YMCA.