“RADICAL reforms” are needed to the youth justice system to prevent children from becoming embroiled in crime and help them turn their lives round, the Children’s Commissioner for England says.

Anne Longfield says that locking youngsters up is not a way to stop crime and has warned that an “under-resourced and fragmented system” of child protection is letting down thousands of children before they ever set foot inside a police station.

In a report published today, she calls for a Scandinavian-style “joined-up, child-focused system” for youngsters who need to be held in secure units.

This includes the government putting more resources into preventing gangs from exploiting vulnerable children, as part of a plan to cut the number of youngsters ending up in prison.

Ms Longfield said that tackling the scourge of serious violence requires a radical change in how the youth justice system is viewed.

Hundreds of children are ending up in Britain’s courts and prisons, whereas only 13 children aged 15 to 17 were jailed in the whole of Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark combined in 2015.

Ms Longfield said: “The number of children in custody in this country is only half the size of a secondary school.

“It should not be beyond us to improve our justice system so that children involved in the criminal justice system are recognised as children first.”

The system is failing to see the child first and the offender second, which is reducing the opportunity for real change, she added.

She said this is “particularly true” for black children, who are more than four times more likely to be arrested than white children.