It is the civility and the humanity of the proceedings that impress. After all, behind the lurid headlines, these are just children  We've all read the headlines. On a day when a man in Barking, east London, was stabbed repeatedly in an unprovoked gang attack and the Metropolitan Police chief, Sir Ian Blair, was forced to deny that youth crime was out of control, they make grim reading.  Have we reached some sort of crisis point? Just two months ago, Time magazine reported that "Britons are frightened of their own young" and, in 2007, a Unicef report on child wellbeing in 21 industrialised countries put Britain at the bottom of the league.  Last week I found myself at the Thames Youth Court in Bow Road in London's East End. This is not a Crown Court – the more extreme cases of rape and murder are not tried here – but I thought it might give me a snapshot of the problems faced by the authorities day in and day out, the reason London's new mayor has felt the need to put an extra 440 uniformed officers and 1,600 special constables on to the street.  Over eight hours, I watched Judge Stephen Dawson deal with 17 young offenders – some as young as 13. This was just one typical day. Later on, I met him to discuss what I had seen.  Thames Magistrates' Court is a surprisingly attractive building. The reception area on the first floor is light and modern. With its giant Coke machine and potted plants, it reminded me so much of a health club that I might almost have imagined that it was squash, rather than the law, that was being practised behind the door marked Court 5.  The courtroom itself is also welcoming, with grey carpets, mauve executive chairs, pale wood panelling and skylights. In fact, as I discover later, all of this is intentional. "The court is designed in such a way that it is accessible to young people," Judge Dawson tells me, "so they can understand what's happening and participate. Everything is at the same level. We keep the language simple…"  At 9.30am, the young offenders begin to arrive; some with families, some with solicitors or care workers. There is not a girl among them. Although one or two have put on suits or school uniforms, most are in hoodies, baseball caps, ear-studs, trainers.  If the juvenile courts decided to seek commercial sponsorship, Nike would be a shoo-in for the job. I've never seen so many ticks in young lives that have earned their fair share of crosses.  The first offender I meet is somehow reassuring. James is 17. He is here with his parents, who are decent people ("It's been a bit of a shock to us all, really"). James got drunk, stole his mother's car, smashed it into two parked cars and ran away. It's his first time in court and I ask him how he feels.  He rolls his eyes: "Like crap!" He's terrified and when he escapes prison, receiving an eight-month referral, driving disqualification and fine (to pay in compensation), he crumples like the kid he is and it's clear that he won't be back.  More worrying are Tom and Simon, 13 and 15, two brothers accused of robbery. They are not terribly attractive, one jiving to music from his mobile phone, the other sprawled in a chair, eating a burger in a way that should be a crime in itself.  "I'm happy to be here," Tom crows. "It's an escape from school." This is his sixth offence and I wonder if he's afraid of being sent to prison. "I don't care. I'm an innocent boy. Prison is like being in the house but with bars on."  His mother, 36-year-old Sarah, who came to the UK from East Africa, watches him with blank despair.  "Everything they say is rubbish," she tells me. "Their father walked out on them soon after they were born. And now they're just like him. They don't listen. They're out of control. I can't change them. They can't change themselves." She has given both of them up for fostering.  Here are the crimes that take up Friday, May 16 at Thames Youth Court. Eric, who is only 15 but huge, took a mobile phone off a boy on a bus, threatening him with a knife. Owen attacked a bus door with a claw hammer. A few kids are in for possession of cannabis. Some of them also had cocaine.  Half a dozen more are here because they have broken the condition of their bail for past offences. Jim was one of 10 kids who attacked a man for no good reason – with broom handles in this case, not knives. The man suffered a dislocated shoulder. Billy threw a brick through a window and stole £25,000 of designer clothes.  Nearly all the children I meet have either no parents or one parent. They are all poor. More unexpectedly, though, drugs do not seem to be the motive for many crimes (excluding, of course, possession and dealing). In fact, the motivation is often unclear.  Billy, who left school when he was 14, describes a life of boredom, getting out of bed at 1pm, hanging around the house with his unemployed father ("the Poles have got all the jobs"), then all night at the pub, even though he doesn't drink. He was the one who stole the clothes.  "I'm shit scared of jail," he tells me. "I wouldn't be able to smoke in jail. And you don't want to go to jail in the summer. It's stuffy and hot."  He escapes prison, getting 12 months' probation and 100 hours unpaid work – and seems strangely unmoved by the experience. "My dad did the same thing at my age," he tells me. "I've got no job. I don't go to school. You've got to get money somehow."  Will he reoffend? "If I do, I'm not going to get caught. I don't want to come back to this shithole again."  Throughout the day, Judge Dawson is unfailingly courteous and considerate. "Thank you for attending today," he says. He goes out of his way to be helpful. One offender has the terms of his bail changed – for one day only – to allow him to go to a birthday party.  Another has his trial postponed to allow him to finish his GCSEs. And, today, nobody is sent to jail. Only Tony, 13, who has repeatedly broken the terms of his bail, is put into secure accommodation until his trial.  Stephen Dawson is not sure that custody is any help. "People are frightened of it," he says, "so in terms of a deterrent it has some merit. It also has merit in that it allows victims of a crime to feel they have been recognised by a severe sentence. But as to whether it has any benefit for young people is debatable – recidivism being so very high."  Jen Bracher, a youth worker and clerk of the court, is quick to agree. "Statistics show that referral orders have a very good success rate in taking people out of the criminal system." She suggests that the figure may be as high as 75 per cent – and she could add that it's a lot cheaper too. Youth custody costs the state about £245 million a year.  But what, I wonder, is to be done if these young people are going to be stopped before they reach court? Judge Dawson is also the trustee of an advice and resource centre for young people called the King's Corner Project and he becomes very animated. "We still don't do enough in terms of youth provision… like the old-fashioned youth club. Local people and businesses should be helping. We need to work with our kids."  It's a long day and there's something rather depressing about this seemingly endless procession of offenders – scared, scowling, disdainful or just disconnected. Yet my over-riding impression is one of optimism. It is the civility and the humanity of the proceedings that impress. After all, behind the lurid headlines, these are just children.  Go back to that 2007 Unicef report on child wellbeing in which we scored so badly. It began with a quotation that somehow seems apposite. "The true measure of a nation's standing is how well it attends to its children… their sense of being loved, valued and included in the families and societies into which they were born."  On the strength of my day at Thames Youth Court, I would say we have at least some cause for hope.  Have Your Say: Is something wrong with Britain's children?
Children's author Anthony Horowitz spends a day in a juvenile court looking    for some good news behind the recent horror stories.