The children that we fail

Camila Batmanghelidj of the estimable Kids Company writes in the Telegraph this morning about how we have got into a situation where children kick a man to death. Batmanghelidj’s argument that those who have grown up in a brutal environment are more likely to behave brutally makes perfect sense to me. As she puts it, “they know how to kick because they have been kicked, they know how to stab because they have been stabbed, they know how to torment and humiliate because they have experienced the same.” 
The extent to which we as a society fail these children is brought home by the fact that as, Batmanghelidj notes, 570,000 children a year are referred to child protection services but only 37,200 of them are actually offered help.