Abstract: Having the freedom to explore and experiment is an integral part of growing up. This entails both deliberate and unconscious risk-taking by children. While government agencies have a role to play in helping parents, carers and children manage risk, this role is often enacted through risk avoidance strategies aimed at the worst-case scenario. This research presents one part of a PhD dissertation that examined conceptions of risk in relation to children’s independent mobility (CIM). CIM is defined as the use of public space by individuals who are under 18 years and unaccompanied by adults.

The paper finds that policy transforms children into a homogenous ‘at-risk’ population. This at-risk identity can be used to justify policy interventions that help keep children from unsurveilled public space and promote specific development pathways that aim to ensure children become productive adults. A side effect may be that government policy contributes to parents’ and carers’ concerns about letting children go places on their own. Results were obtained from a multi-level government document review. Understanding how risk is produced in policy is vital because the loss of children from public space may have consequences for achieving urban sustainability. Specifically, children who are not socialised into modes of public conduct may continue the individualised, home and car-based lifestyles that have been criticised.