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There’s a heck of a lot of local tv and radio attention being paid to these radio plays. They are being performed and recorded this week in three different regional theatres, and some of the press is no doubt just the usual work to get an audience - but I feel there’s another angle to it.

Last night on the TV News they had a short interview with the guy whose story makes up a significant part of the drama, and there will be audience discussions post recording in the theatre, and phone ins on the radio after each episode goes out.

People are paying attention to the fact that the roots of this show are real. That they talk about events in the lives of real children that most people may find it hard to believe actually happened.

I’m glad. In the UK we incarcerate a phenomenal amount of teenagers, thousands in fact, and that trend shows no sign of going away - in fact I hear they are building more prisons. You have to doubt whether this has any other impact than keeping them off the streets.

All figures seem to support the theory that if you can get a teenager through to their late teens without having them imprisoned their offending rate drops dramatically of its own accord after that - unless they have been imprisoned, in which case the re-offending rates get far far worse. Over 85% in some studies.

Personally I feel that anything people can do to keep young offenders out of prison is an investment for society.

Though I have to smile when I remember the faces of some of these kids as they realised the true horrors of the drama workshops we ran over the summer, and though I have absolutely no hard evidence that our work has had any effect at all, the social workers who made it happen seem to be positive about the process, and that’s certainly worth having.

It’s been a new process to me, and certainly feels more worth doing than just another episode of just another crime show. Writing this set of scripts that may just have the tiniest positive effect on the real world has made me consider my position. I’ve written a lot of drama that has existed for pure entertainment. That’s all very fine, but the rewards from this project have been more real, and far far less selfish.

Food for thought.