Teenagers are joining gangs in increasing numbers because they have no adult role model in their lives, the Prince's Trust charity has cautioned.

In a bleak report on youth culture, the charity founded in 1976 by the Prince of Wales said that more than a third of 16 to 25-year-olds say they do not have a parent they consider a role model, so turn to their peer group instead.

Among those who have left school with no formal qualifications, the proportion with no role model is significantly higher, at 43 per cent, compared with the age group as a whole, at 34 per cent.

More than half (55 per cent) cite friends as their main role models and two thirds say that they would go to a peer first with a problem. Fewer than a third (31 per cent) would turn to a parent.

Although fewer than one in ten (9 per cent) of young people have spent time in a gang, there is widespread sympathy for those who do. More than half (58 per cent) say “finding a sense of identity” is a key reason for joining one.

The charity said it was not surprising that so many young people were ending up in trouble when they had no one in their lives setting a good example.

The findings of the report, The Culture of Youth Communities, echo a warning by Barbara Wilding, the Chief Constable of South Wales, made public last month, that tribal loyalty had replaced family ties for a generation of angry young people and the police could not deal with the problem alone.

The Prince's Trust carries considerable weight with the Government and opposition parties because of its history of work with troubled teenagers. Its specialist programmes help young people in deprived areas to leave gangs and turn their lives around, or avoid trouble in the first place.

The report, which comes out next week but has been seen by The Times before publication, will be seen as a call to intervene earlier to stop young people drifting into crime, rather than hit them with harsh treatment when they are caught.

Paul Brown, a director at the charity, said the research showed that if children could not find good role models at home, they looked for them in a gang, which gives them the sense of security and identity that they should find in a family. “If young people do not have parents who are good role models and have no other adults in their life to look up to, gangs fill the vacuum,” he said.

“Some of the young people on our programmes come from families where no one has ever worked. They think having a job with a steady income and a stable family is not an achievable goal for them. Gangs are very attractive to young people if they have no sense of direction or motivation.”

However, the report tries to put the recent alarm over knife crime into perspective. It said that only 2 per cent of people in the age group carried knives, and only 3 per cent regularly used drugs.

The Prince's Trust focuses on helping young people get into training so that they can acquire traditional qualifications, but also sends them on programmes to build their confidence and equip them with basic social skills.

Mr Brown said that many young people arrive “unable to look you in the eye, tell you their name or shake your hand”, they have so little confidence. “By the end, they can address a room of strangers or approach an employer about a job,” he said.

Case study

Samantha, 19, grew up in St Paul's, Bristol, with her mother. “We were bullied by neighbours because my mum had relationships with other women and she took her anger out on me. She kicked me out when I was 15.

“I went to stay with my nan but then had to go and ended up in a girls' hostel. It was full of druggies and prostitutes. I went to another hostel which was better, but fell in with the wrong crowd. I got arrested for firing a ball-bearing gun at people in the street.”

She was then introduced to the Prince's Trust Team programme. She has just finished training to be a youth worker and has her own flat. She can see why she joined the gang: “The older people in the gang are like a mum or dad. You take your problems to them.”

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