{"id":220,"date":"2014-02-18T14:48:54","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T14:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/?p=220"},"modified":"2015-02-20T09:36:08","modified_gmt":"2015-02-20T09:36:08","slug":"transforming-youth-custody-will-secure-colleges-secure-social-justice-for-children-who-offend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/transforming-youth-custody-will-secure-colleges-secure-social-justice-for-children-who-offend\/","title":{"rendered":"Transforming Youth Custody: will secure Colleges secure social justice for children who offend?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/files\/2014\/02\/kh-talking.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-221\" style=\"margin: 0px;border-width: 0px\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/files\/2014\/02\/kh-talking-150x150.jpg\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #000000\"><strong>Professor Kathryn Hollingsworth<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #808080\"><em>The Ministry of Justice has recently published its proposals to reform the system of youth custody in England and Wales through the introduction of secure colleges.\u00a0 In this blog Professor Kathryn Hollingsworth sets out what we know about children currently detained in the juvenile secure estate and considers whether the secure colleges will help to achieve a more rights-consistent and socially-just system of child imprisonment. The blog is based on a Current Legal Problems lecture delivered at UCL on 23<sup>rd<\/sup> January 2014 entitled \u2018Assuming Responsibility for Incarcerated Children\u2019.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">A key issue in relation to social justice for children is how we respond when they break the law.\u00a0 We know that children who offend are likely to have experienced multiple prior disadvantages and those who end up in custody are an especially vulnerable group.\u00a0 Research by<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk\/Portals\/0\/Documents\/PunishingDisadvantage.pdf\">Jacobsen et al in 2010<\/a>, <span style=\"color: #000000\">for example, found that 78% of imprisoned children had absent fathers and 33% an absent mother; 51% had lived in a deprived household\/unsuitable accommodation; 48% had been excluded from school; 39% were on the child protection register and\/or experienced abuse or neglect; 28% had witnessed domestic violence; 27% had experienced local authority care; 20% self-harmed; 11% had attempted suicide; 17% had a diagnosed mental disorder and 13% had experienced the bereavement of their father, mother or sibling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\"><!--more-->It is thus cause for celebration that the rate of child custody has declined so significantly in England and Wales over the past five years.\u00a0 In<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/youth-custody-data\">November 2013,<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">1229\u00a0under 18\u00a0year olds were in detention compared to more than 3000 in 2009, and thus far fewer vulnerable children are now held in custodial institutions.\u00a0 However, these figures must be seen in context: England and Wales still has one of the highest rates of child imprisonment in western Europe; children continue to be incarcerated for quite minor offences; over 60% of children remanded to custody do not go on to receive a custodial sentence; and black boys have not benefitted from the decline and remain significantly over-represented in the custody population.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Moreover, the declining rate of child imprisonment tells us nothing about how children are treated when they <em>are<\/em> detained. \u00a0Report after report &#8211; from NGOs, from the Children\u2019s Commissioner, from the Prisons Inspectorate, and from the Probation and Prisons Ombudsman \u2013 provide evidence of the shocking treatment that children experience in the so-called juvenile secure estate. Here is a snap-shot of what we know (with quotes from some reports in italics):<\/span><\/p>\n<ul style=\"text-align: justify\">\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">First, children die in prison: 33 children died in the secure estate between 1990 and 2012, which includes three deaths in 2011-12.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Second, children are restrained, sometimes using pain-infliction techniques, sometimes using handcuffs, and sometimes resulting in injury.\u00a0 In 2011\/12, there<\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000\">were 8419 incidents of restraint involving children in prison, an average of 702 incidents involving 474 children per month. This is greater than in 2008-09 when the custody rate was more than twice as high. Proportionately children from black and minority ethnic groups are more likely to be restrained, as are young children and girls. [\u201c<em>I had bruising on my back from where I was slammed into the wall in my cell\u201d<\/em><em>; <\/em><em>\u201cLoads of them come on you in full riot gear and beat the sh*t out of you\u201d<\/em> UR Boss, Life Inside]<strong> <\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Third, self harm is prevalent: there were 1791 incidents of self harm in 2011-12, down 35% from 2008 but up 21% from the year before and the rate for girls is especially high (at 26%).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Fourth,<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/society\/2013\/mar\/03\/43000-strip-searches-children\">children were subject to 43,960 incidents of strip-searching in the 21 months up to December 2012<\/a>, <span style=\"color: #000000\">and although the Youth Justice Board previously announced that only risk-based strip searching is now to be used, prison inspections show that it continued to be routinely used [\u201c<em>Until now, the first experience of every single child entering a young offender institution has been of removing their clothes whilst two strangers stare at their bodies\u201d<\/em> Andrew Neilson, Howard League]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Fifth, children are placed in segregation units, sometimes without education or purposeful activity, and sometimes with little time outside of their cell. [<em>\u201cOn the block you just have a mattress on a concrete slab\u201d; \u201cIt\u2019s mentally draining. It does more harm than good\u00a0 . . . Young people come out more violent, you can tell what it\u2019s done to them\u201d.]<\/em><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Sixth, children are assaulted by other children and in some institutions experience a great deal of bullying. This is one of the key concerns expressed in the Howard League\u2019s<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.howardleague.org\/u-r-boss\/\">UR Boss campaign<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">and the prisons and probation ombudsman has noted that bullying had been present in the lives of children who died in the secure estate. [<em>The environment in prisons doesn\u2019t make you want to achieve anything.\u00a0 Call it gang culture if you want. Everything is about violence. Prisons only deter you by scaring you. The violence is unbelievable\u201d <\/em>Howard League <em>Life Inside 2010<\/em>]<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Seventh, on occasion, and in breach of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child may be placed in an adult prison.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000\">Finally, children are placed a long way from home \u2013 the Youth Justice Board has dropped its target of placing children within 50 miles of their home, making visits and the continued relationship with families increasingly difficult<\/span>.<span style=\"color: #000000\">[<em>\u201c<\/em><em>I\u2019m entitled to five visits a month but I only get two because my mum lives so far away<\/em>\u201d Howard League, <em>Life Inside 2010<\/em>].<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">However, the experiences of children in the secure estate vary depending upon what type of institution they are placed in.\u00a0 Currently, children sentenced to custody in England and Wales are held in one of three types of accommodation.\u00a0 The first is secure children\u2019s homes.\u00a0 These are run by local authorities and are small units with a high staff-child ratio that house the youngest (12-14 year olds) and most vulnerable children. The second type of accommodation currently available is the secure training centre.\u00a0 There are four privately run STCS, each of which accommodate between 50-80 children and, though they are penal (rather than care-based) institutions they also accommodate younger and vulnerable children (and girls).\u00a0 Finally, young offender institutions (YOIs) are used to accommodate the majority of children sentenced to custody (about 77%).\u00a0 These are, in effect, prisons for children; accommodation is in cells, staff are prison officers not care workers, and there is a low staff- child ratio (1:15).\u00a0\u00a0 Unsurprisingly, it is YOIs \u2013 and to a lesser extent STCs \u2013 where children receive the worst treatment and in relation to which most of the data presented above relates.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">Given the current experiences of detained children, the<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/consult.justice.gov.uk\/digital-communications\/transforming-youth-custody\">publication in January 2014<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">of the Ministry of Justice plans to \u2018transform youth custody\u2019 in England and Wales<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/uploads\/system\/uploads\/attachment_data\/file\/181588\/transforming-youth-custody.pdf\">(and see the original green paper from February 2013 here)<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">is, at first glance, to be welcomed. \u00a0The Government plans to create a network of secure colleges &#8211;<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-25766557\">the first of which is to open in Leicestershire in 2017<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">&#8211; which together will be used to accommodate almost all children detained in the juvenile secure estate.\u00a0 The colleges are intended to provide better educational provision for detained children (currently some children receive only 11 hours of education per week), to improve resettlement support, and thus to decrease recidivism (70% of children leaving custody re-offend).\u00a0 \u00a0However, although an attempt to reform youth custody is to be welcomed, these proposals are unlikely to come anywhere close to being \u2018transformative\u2019.\u00a0 Instead, there is a clear risk that the proposed secure colleges will perpetuate \u2013 or indeed worsen &#8211; many of the shortcomings of the current system.\u00a0 \u00a0Very<\/span> <span style=\"color: #000000\">young and very vulnerable children will be placed together with older children in large institutions that will contain up to 300 children.\u00a0 And, because the colleges are so big, there will be only a handful of them and thus many children will continue to be placed a long way from home.\u00a0 There are concerns too about the use of \u2018reasonable force\u2019 that the current proposals will allow to be used for the purpose of \u2018good order and behaviour\u2019 (GOAD), rather than its use being confined to situations where the child is posing a danger to him\/herself or others (see the provisions in the<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/services.parliament.uk\/bills\/2013-14\/criminaljusticeandcourts.html\">Criminal Justice and Courts Bill<\/a><span style=\"color: #000000\">). \u00a0The use of restraint for GOAD in secure training centres has previously been held to be unlawful by the<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bailii.org\/ew\/cases\/EWCA\/Civ\/2008\/882.html\">Court of Appeal<\/a> <span style=\"color: #000000\">and a breach of children\u2019s Article 3 ECHR rights (which prohibits degrading and inhuman treatment).\u00a0 Depending on what \u2018reasonable force\u2019 entails there is a very real risk that children\u2019s rights will again be at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><span style=\"color: #000000\">The Government\u2019s published proposals for secure colleges made no mention at all of children\u2019s rights. Furthermore, there was no reference to the need to <em>care <\/em>for children who are deprived of their liberty and removed from their families and carers.\u00a0 I have argued elsewhere (in the public lecture delivered at UCL referred to above) that when under 18s are incarcerated &#8211; and thus when parents and carers are prevented from meeting their parental duties to their children &#8211; then the state can be seen as assuming a responsibility to parent those children; a duty that should include providing the child with <em>care<\/em> and with a <em>home<\/em>.\u00a0 Although the exact structure and nature of the secure colleges is not yet clear, the information available so far suggests that this type of duty cannot be fulfilled in these new institutions.\u00a0 They have been designed with two aims in mind: to reduce cost and to reduce re-offending, not to improve the experiences and care that children receive. \u00a0To truly transform youth custody, secure children\u2019s <em>homes <\/em>not colleges must be used throughout the secure estate with a focus on care, on children\u2019s rights, and on reintegrating children back into the family and community that is otherwise responsible for them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Kathryn Hollingsworth The Ministry of Justice has recently published its proposals to reform the system of youth custody in England and Wales through the introduction of secure colleges.\u00a0 In this blog Professor Kathryn Hollingsworth sets out what we know &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/transforming-youth-custody-will-secure-colleges-secure-social-justice-for-children-who-offend\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5160,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[38,37,11,36],"class_list":["post-220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-social-justice-2","tag-child-rights","tag-reform","tag-social-justice","tag-youth-custody"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220\/revisions\/314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/nisr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}