When I was a child we lived cheek-by-jowl with families most of whose boys and men were in Approved School, Borstal, or prison. Many of the women were involved in sex work, shoplifting gangs etc.
My mother was very distressed at the age of some of the girls/boys exposed to or involved in the activities around them. However, such was the reputation and rumoured conditions of Approved Schools or Schools for Wayward Boys and Girls at the time that she couldn't see that the lives of the children would be at all improved if Social Services were involved or the children sent there on an order.
My mother did what she could and I know this caused her a huge amount of moral anguish.
Despite all the rhetoric about safe-guarding, with the intersection of austerity, the Children's Act, on-going abysmal standards at children's homes - decades later, it doesn't feel like anything has improved substantially.