Prison is the most expensive and least effective response to social unrest. Investing in our poor young people is a cheaper and more humane reaction The Metropolitan police estimates that in a year's time it will have arrested 12,000 people for their part in the London riots. It'll be working from a database of 25,000-50,000 suspects, garnered from 200,000 hours of CCTV footage. Each hour of this footage takes four to five hours to review. The cost in police time alone, not court time and prison services, is already running into many hundreds of millions of pounds. The government, however, is anxious to depoliticise the August events. Whitehall departments have made it clear that the word "riots" is not to be used. Only the Met's Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Greany, head of Operation Withern looking into the unrest, has dared to describe the events as "war". "Disturbances" is the government's favoured alternative. But the language used has been far from temperate. Everyone had something to say about the events, from professors to shopkeepers. The voices no one heard were those of the rioters themselves. The government has been keen also to throw around statistics about how many of the rioters had previous offences. But far more significant is that about a quarter of the rioters in England were unknown to the police, while in London only 1% of those who took part were offenders under orders of the probation service. That means 99% had no involvement in the riots. About a quarter of participants in London were under the age of 17, yet all protocol regarding youth justice was ignored. Youth services have worked hard over recent years to establish a rulebook for young offenders, designed to keep them away from the dangerous chasm of the adult justice system. Youth courts, specially trained magistrates, targeted assistance by youth offending teams, triage and assessment, social worker involvement ? all have been slanted towards rehabilitation and welfare. This good work was overturned when young people were "herded" ? another brave word from Greany ? from police cells into the adult courts. Long sentences were imposed. Young people who might have been helped to live differently are now in jails, dispersed all over the country to rub shoulders with career criminals and murderers. There are strong political reasons for the riots, despite the government's attempts to brush them under the carpet. Poverty has no political voice, but that doesn't mean the poor have nothing to say. The history of riots teaches us that the removal of hope results in extreme behaviour. The hopeless, the marginalised, the emotionally and financially impoverished don't express themselves by writing to their MP. The Youth Justice Board has commissioned myself and the ex-offenders I work with to interview young rioters. Getting them to talk is no easy task. They don't care about anything much. Why should they? No one cares about them. One told me that he wished he had the ability to make better decisions, and he had a point. Certainly, most haven't been helped to make decisions about moral choices. While the children of policymakers and commentators enjoy a good education, rioters think their BlackBerrys are more important than lessons. Aspiration-deluded, they believe that they can get rich quick by rapping or lap dancing. But the reality is that more than a fifth of under-24s are unemployed. The gap between the unattainable dreams of young people and their hopeless reality generates extreme behaviours. It is not their fault they live without hope. It is a result of society's neglect. Money invested in youth services has been drastically cut and the August riots are the first violent responses, probably of many, to the lack of help, guidance and opportunity. For too long we have been content to ignore the emotional deprivation that surrounds these young people, hoping the underclass would stay silently in its place. Instead, they bounced out of the ghettos showing something like insanity. We should treat insanity therapeutically, not lock it up punitively. Prevention must cost less than punishment. Prevention ? investing in interventions that give children emotional stability, hope and opportunities ? is not just the cheapest solution it is the right solution, and the most humanitarian. Last week, I worked with a group of young offenders. One was silent. I thought he was showing how little he cared. I asked him what he would most like to change about his life? To my surprise, he thought hard. "I'd like to be born into a different family," he said. We are all his family. If we want to change him, we should change ourselves. ? Mark Johnson, a rehabilitated offender and former drug user, is an author and the founder of the charity User Voice . Prisons and probation Young people Youth justice UK criminal justice UK riots Mark Johnson guardian.co.uk © 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds