FEWER than 4 per cent of the parents of young offenders were educated beyond primary school, according to new research.
Only one third of young people surveyed in the State's four open residential centres for young offenders normally live with both parents, according to a report by Dr Brid Bates.
The report, Aspects of Childhood Devianey: a study of young offenders in open centres in the Republic of Ireland, was introduced by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, president of Focus Ireland, at a ceremony at St Joseph's residential school near Clonmel, Co Tipperary, where Dr Bates teaches.
The report shows the young people have often tragic backgrounds nearly three quarters come from violent homes, one in four has a mother who is chronically ill, and one in 10 has a father who is dead or dying.
Half have fathers with alcohol problems, more than one in four have mothers with alcohol problems and there is drug abuse in nearly a third of their homes.
The children themselves have low education levels. Nearly two thirds are more than two years below the normal reading age, with many having been suspended from school or having often missed school.
Yet eight in 10 say they would like to sit State examinations and those who do are usually the first in their family to do so. Almost all would like a job.
The research shows that although most of them come from troubled homes, their parents are the authority figures towards whom they have the most positive attitudes. Other authority figures towards whom they feel positive are nurses, priests/religious and doctors.
Those towards whom they feel negative are teachers, childcare personnel, social workers, probation officers, judges and, most of all, gardai.
Dr Bates said that a response to juvenile crime would have to tackle many issues, including deprivation, relationship problems and educational failure. However, this alone would not be enough and the attitudes and beliefs of young offenders also had to be addressed.
She suggested a range of measures, including psychotherapy. She also suggested that a Ministry for Children and Families be established to oversee the implementation of a national strategy on childcare.
Sister Stanislaus said children's inability to cope with school "tells us more about the education system's inability to cope with poor children from disadvantaged areas than it tells about the child". She also called for a national authority to implement childcare strategy.
However, the call was rejected by the Minister of State for Health, Education and Justice, Mr Austin Currie. He told guests that an interdepartmental sub committee and a Cabinet subcommittee which he chairs were tackling the previous problems of lack of coordination between the three departments.
Referring to the parents of young offenders, Father Joe O'Reilly, director of St Joseph's, said they suffered from multiple deprivations themselves. One had to wonder, he said, how such deprived parents could be held to account for the behaviour of their children.