When a child struggles to learn, when his behaviour becomes disruptive, when he stops seeing a place for himself in school, how often do we ask what is happening underneath?

Too often a need that first shows itself in the classroom is treated as a discipline problem. The child is suspended, then excluded, and for some the road ends in Westgate. Bermuda has seen this pattern before. The trouble is that we keep forgetting the answers.

It starts in school. In 2009, research highlighted the disproportionate number of young Black men leaving public high school without a certificate, and their overrepresentation in prison. In 2011, researchers interviewing young men who had left school heard a familiar refrain: they had not felt cared for at school, and no one had asked why they were acting out. One boy described a teacher blacking out his grade in front of his classmates, after which they looked at him as if he were stupid. He lost his temper and was sent to the office. That same year, the education minister told the House of Assembly that suspensions were happening far too often.

The warnings keep coming. Last month, reporting on public-school reading levels showed that more than half of students were below the expected level across 2020-2023.

When those needs go unrecognised, adults see the behaviour, not what sits behind it. Teledo Breary spent 25 years in the Bermuda Police Service, six of them as a school resource officer, and now runs Help Me Speak Up, an early-intervention initiative for young people. He also lives with ADHD.

“Before we correct a child’s behaviour, we need to understand what’s driving it,” he says. “Sometimes the behaviour we see is only the surface of a much deeper need.”

Laura Thomas, a clinical psychologist at Solstice, argues that schools should not need a formal diagnosis to provide effective support, but that understanding a child requires “a holistic assessment of their needs and consideration of the function of any observable behaviours”. Support should not have to wait for a label. Nor should we respond to behaviour without asking what is driving it.

Out of school, the pull is elsewhere. The 2011 researchers found that young men who found no connection at home, at school or at work turned to the streets. Bermuda’s 2024 National Violence Reduction Strategy acknowledges that undiagnosed behavioural and mental health conditions can be part of the picture, and that young people can be drawn towards gangs from primary-school age. Yet recognising a risk is not the same as building a system to identify and address it.

By the time some of those young people reach custody, the pattern shows up in the numbers. In 1998, the Reading Clinic screened 159 local inmates. About a third were assessed as high-risk for attention deficit disorder. That was a screening result, not a set of diagnoses, but it was a significant warning. The following year, 28 per cent of Bermuda’s prisoners were reported to be functionally illiterate.

The question was never asked systematically. An internal 2025 review of the Department of Corrections found that most new arrivals enter without a formal needs assessment, that there is no age-specific screening, and that no data is collected. England, by contrast, already offers screening for learning needs on prison entry and has a neurodiversity support manager in every public prison.

There is a wider assumption worth challenging here. When people read about criminal behaviour, they often ask how someone could be so stupid as to believe there would be no consequences.

The evidence says otherwise. The Reading Clinic helped men in prison to make real progress in their literacy; some moved from reading at a first-grade level to a tenth or eleventh-grade level.

I grew up with childhood friends on North Shore who would later end up in Westgate, or be tragically murdered. I knew people who became involved in crime who were highly intelligent. Had my life turned slightly differently, I could easily imagine being drawn towards that world. To be clear, I am not excusing criminal behaviour. But it is important to recognise that intelligence, choices and circumstances are not the same thing.

Ann Allega, a former corrections officer in Texas who later ran a six-week rehabilitation course in British prisons, put it simply: “I was surprised at how intelligent and articulate they were.” Some had not finished school; it was no barrier to taking part.

Intelligence does not rule out dyslexia, ADHD or language difficulties. People can be capable in many areas of life and still struggle in a classroom designed for a different kind of learner. The point is not that people in custody are secret geniuses; it is that difficulty with reading or attention is not an absence of ability. The ability was there. What was missing was anyone looking for the need.

None of this means neurodivergence causes crime, or that offending should be excused. Poverty, trauma, family stress, racism and other structural disadvantages matter; unrecognised learning needs are one strand in a much wider picture. Nor is it an argument against teachers or prison officers, who must work within systems that manage classrooms, maintain order and keep people safe. They cannot be expected to solve a problem the system has not properly measured or equipped them to address.

The failure, I would argue, is one of institutional memory. By 2006, the Reading Clinic’s prison programme was on hold, and the clinic had not been contacted in more than a year. Bermuda had evidence that people who struggled to learn could make substantial progress with the right support, and let it fall by the wayside. We identify problems and publish reports, then lose momentum and act surprised when another generation meets the same barriers.

As Parliament considers the Education Authority Bill, Bermuda has an opportunity to do better. The Bill requires the authority’s board to include expertise in supporting vulnerable and at-risk students and gives the authority responsibility for school-based health services, including screening and speech and language therapy. Yet nothing in it requires the authority to report how many children are suspended or excluded, or how many may have had needs that were never identified.

Three practical steps would help, one at each point on the path.

First, in school: assess before permanently excluding. The authority’s screening and support services should be used to identify unmet needs before a decision is made to permanently exclude a child. Screening is not a diagnosis, and identifying a need is only useful if support follows. This does not mean removing consequences for behaviour. It means making decisions with a clearer understanding of the child in front of us.

Second, at the prison gate: screen on entry to custody. Learning, language and attention screening should form part of a timely needs assessment for people entering Corrections, followed by appropriate support. If we are serious about rehabilitation, we need to understand what may have made success in education more difficult.

Third, so that we stop forgetting: count it. The annual report that the minister must lay before the legislature should include aggregated data on suspensions and exclusions, including recognised learning needs, with small numbers suppressed where necessary to protect children’s privacy. We cannot measure progress if we do not know where we are starting.

A small island should be well placed to recognise patterns across schools, services and generations. The point is not to label every struggling child, or to promise that assessment will prevent every offence. It is to stop treating each case as though no one could have seen it coming.

More than a decade ago, young men told researchers that no one had asked why they were acting out. The question for Bermuda now is whether we are finally prepared to ask, and this time to remember the answers.

• Paolo Odoli is a former aide-de-camp to two governors of Bermuda and a former government communications officer. He lives in northern Italy with his family