EXCLUDED schoolchildren are more likely to go in to a life of crime, a Bournemouth University study has found.

Researchers compared two “disadvantaged” groups of young men between 16 and 24 as they both have higher crime rates than the general population.

Professor Colin Pritchard and senior lecturer Richard Williams examined national police records between 2003 and 2008 for data relating to 438 young men in care and 215 excluded from school in one local authority between 1998 and 2003.

They examined the crime rates, victims of crime, suicides and violent crime, including murder, relating to the youths.

They found two suicides and three murders amongst the excluded children, which equates to a suicide rate of 133 times the general population and a murder rate more than 1,670 times the general population.

There were no murders or suicides among those who had been in care during this period.

A third of those excluded from school had no criminal record, compared with 67 per cent of those in care who had no criminal record.

Professor Pritchard said, when comparing one group with social work support and one without, the ones without social work support came off significantly worse.

“Their crime rate has not finished either because they are still only 24. This to me is a great scandal. There is little for the excluded children, particularly when they have past the compulsory school age.”

On Saturday the Daily Echo reported that 50 children were permanently excluded from schools in Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset last year.

The number of schoolchildren thrown out for offences such as violence, verbal abuse or disruptive behaviour nationally are at their lowest for 12 years, This national trend is also reflected in the area. Bournemouth, 29 secondary school pupils were excluded in the academic year 2007/08, a further 20 in Poole and 10 in the Dorset County Council area.