Three weeks ago the Department for children, schools and families somewhat oxymoronically beat their chest over this last year's statistics on school exclusions. The reason I bring it up now? It turns out the government (as well as every other party) are unable to add 1+1 and make 2.

The report on child drinking shows without a doubt that truancy adds to the chance of a child starting down the path of "binge drinking". It's been reported in the past that delinquency increases with exclusion from schools. So is it any surprise when over 10% of our children are removed from school at least one week a year in any given year that some of them find the time to discover alcohol and/or drugs in that time of social exclusions.

What's most important is when these exclusions take place. From the ages of 12-15 there is a significant spike in the levels of students removed from schools, no doubt when adolescence proves too much for teachers and the easiest option is to just get rid. This is also the age when the NHS statistics show that consumption starts to rise in our youth. I don't wish to show any definite correlation here, in fact I believe that it is more down to natural progression of curiosity and peer pressure than anything else.

But can we ignore that we are willingly accepting and applauding the action of forcing our youth to effectively truant, while also searching for some other reason than this as to why kids "go bad"? Can we so blindly carry on wondering how gangs form in black communities without further looking in to why black and mixed race kids are excluded over twice as often as white or Asian ones? It's clearly something that the educational bodies aren't accepting as fixed period exclusions are still rising, despite any number of permanent exclusions falling.

Don't get me wrong, I don't blame the schools. I question how adequately resourced they are to deal with problem kids and how much of an incentive they have to act constructively with regards to their behaviour, but somewhere along the line of command it is far, far overdue for us to look again at what the hell we are doing when it comes to the policy of disciplining youths, and the actions applauded by politicians that could potentially aid many of the problems those same politicians worry about.