These children aren't born criminals, they are vulnerable

When I founded Kids Company in 1996, the 100 adolescent boys who arrived in the first few weeks were very aggressive, had not been in education, and were all wanted by the police. A couple of weeks later we ended up with about 400 kids.

What also made me curious was that big boys who had committed major robberies would talk about having night terror. They were wetting the bed and some sucked their thumbs. It was a contrast to how they lived their daily life - pretending to be invincible.

I found that violence and abandonment have an impact on their brain development, and, as a consequence, their ability to manage behaviour and emotion. I'm delighted scientific research will be done to hopefully prove my theory right. I hope to show this is a problem created by poor psychological care. It's very important to understand that these children are not born this way.

I get very angry with politicians because they are so quick to punish these kids, and not quick enough to take responsibility for the fact that we have a completely failing structure around vulnerable children in terms of social services, mental health and education. Government policy goes so wrong because it's packaged around the notion that these children are born criminals.

If I had to go to the original source of the problem, step one would be a robust intervention in the wellbeing of girls. Getting adolescents to anticipate that in years to come they're going to be a parent is very important.

At Kids Company we have achieved a 90 per cent reduction in criminal activity and violence by teaching kids to take more responsibility. We should be talking about the fate of vulnerable individuals at risk of despairing of life. We need to help them feel connected to mainstream society.