Good news: the number of children in prisons has dropped. Bad news: there are
still 2,203 children in custody in England and Wales, half of them
imprisoned for non-violent offences.
Should non-violent offenders be there? The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) believes
not. It launches a website this week — outoftrouble.org.uk — to support its
campaign to reduce the number of under- 18-year-olds in custody. The voices
on these pages can be heard on the website, all are young offenders with
experience of prison and their stories are bleak. Most believe that they
deserve to be punished, yet their words make a powerful case for finding
alternatives to custody for many young offenders.
The age of criminal consent in England and Wales is 10; England and Wales are
the only countries in Western Europe to habitually imprison children under
the age of 14. The youngest child to tell his story here is Sam, a boy of
12.
The main reason for keeping children out of the secure estate is because there
is no evidence that it helps them: three quarters are reconvicted within a
year of release. Yet many are in custody because they are on remand. Others
are there because they failed to turn up for appointments with their youth
offending team. More children are imprisoned for breaching the conditions of
a previous sentence than for burglary.
Penelope Gibbs is the PRT’s director for strategy to reduce child and youth
imprisonment. “We believe that only children who commit, or are likely to
commit, violent crimes should be in prison, particularly because it seems to
be ineffective for under-18-year-olds,” she says.
“It’s mind-blowing that a teenager who doesn’t turn up to meet their
youth-offending team can end up in prison. Not only would a teenager from a
stable home be unlikely to turn up to appointments on time, but we’re
talking about teenagers who are the least likely to be able to organise
themselves because they have led unimaginably difficult lives. They’ve been
abused, bereaved, witnessed violence, put in care. None of this excuses what
they’ve done but it does explain why.
“From a human point of view, we also believe that imprisonment is a punitive
thing to do and should be reserved for those who need to be in a secure
place for their own rehabilitation and to protect other people. What’s the
point of imprisoning a child for a non-violent crime when they can be
rehabilitated in the community?”
Community rehabilitiation is becoming increasingly flexible. Youth
Rehabilitation Orders can involve reparation work, intensive fostering and
the Intensive Supervision and Surveillance Programme, which involves 25
hours a week of structured training, education or work on the client’s
offending behaviour. “The key is to make productive use of time, and to do
something that may help them turn their lives around,” Gibbs says. She cites
a contemporary-dance programme being used in Leeds and Bradford. “Imagine
young streetwise 17-year-old boys doing contemporary dance, which they’ve
never done before, and putting on a performance at the end? It’s a
life-changing experience.”
Intensive fostering, which is being piloted in parts of England, involves
specially trained foster carers who supervise a programme that rewards good
behaviour. “This can work well for some young people who need a strict
parent,” Gibbs says. The PRT is also impressed by the restorative youth
conference order used in Northern Ireland, where the number of children in
custody has dropped as a result. This has a reoffending rate of 38 per cent
and involves the offender meeting the victim, or a representative of the
victim, so that the offender can understand the impact of his crime,
apologise and make amends through community work, offender behaviour work or
compensation.
Another scheme being piloted in Cambridgeshire is multisystemic therapy, which
focuses on the offender and his or her family and involves a team of
therapists and health and parenting practitioners working to address the
root causes of the offending.
“These approaches offer a lot of promise,” Gibbs says. “The young people we
have met in custody are not monsters. All of them have the potential to have
a good life. What worries us is that once they get into the prison system
under the age of 18, such is the level of reoffending that they’re likely to
be in and out of prison for life. We’re pleased that the number of young
people in prison is dropping, but that doesn’t negate the need for it to be
lower still.”
The inside stories
Sam, 12, has been given a custodial sentence after a series of drug and
alcohol-related crimes
“First time I’ve been sent down. Robbed a sat-nav off a coach. To get money
for drugs obviously. Live with my mum and two younger sisters. Don’t go to
school. Been expelled from three schools. It was all right at first, had a
laugh and that. I was clever, still clever now, just don’t use it in the
right way.
“Trouble started when I was 8 or 9. Started getting angry. Fighting and that.
Swearing, spitting at teachers, throwing chairs. If they wound me up I’d
just punch them straight off. Started smoking weed when I was 8. Been
arrested over 20 times. Burglaries, street robbery, drunk and disorderly.
I’ve hurt people, battered people. I’d tell you why I’m angry but it’s
personal and it gets me angry thinking about it. Something happened in the
past to do with my family. I found out about it properly when I was 8.
Started getting stressed, fighting every day. Then I got into drugs, pills,
sniffing coke, taking whizz [speed].
“Hate social workers, talk a load of bollocks, try to take me off my mum. I
don’t listen to anyone except my mum. She’s the most important person in my
life. If I carry on like this I’ll either end up dead or in and out of jail
all my life. My dad’s not at home. I hate him, wouldn’t care if he died.
“This place isn’t helping me. Staff are unfair. Want to get back on the drugs
and start doing daft things again. There’s a guy who lives across the road
from me. He’s sound. Got sent down once. He said, ‘You remind me of me’.
He’s got a job, three kids and a gym in his house. He said I can go training
with him. Hanging around with people who don’t get into trouble sorts my
head out.”
Tracy, 14, is in a secure unit after street robberies with a group of
friends
“I was just playing out on the street doing what I want, when I want, how I
want. Me and my friends started picking victims, fighting with them,
robbing, beating up. It was no one’s idea, that’s what everyone does.
Nothing to do, bored, stopped going to school. I live with my mum. Not much
she can do. Got a sister who’s 20, got a baby. She’s good, a role model. She
had a better upbringing than me. She just did. It’s personal stuff that
makes me an angry person. From 9 upwards, I was old enough to understand
what had gone on when I was a baby. I was good at school until I met my
co-offenders. When I knew I was coming here I felt sad inside because I knew
I was going to be away from my mum. I did deserve it.
“Being locked up makes me want to explode. You feel all alone. You wish you’d
listened to your parents. I want to move forward and keep myself away from
my past.”
Robbie, 14, is in a secure unit for the tenth time
“First time I was proper upset. I was 10½. After that didn’t care. Just got on
with it. Been here nearly a year, got moved because I was too naughty.
Smashed windows, kicking off all the time. It’s how I am. One night here I
was talking out of the window to a kid. Told to shut up. They rushed in,
started kicking, punching me. There’s no way I was going to fight back. I
woke up with lots of bruises. If you’re proper angry and trying to kick off
when they hold you, you try and let all your aggression out. After that
you’re calm.
“They sent me to a residential home in Wales. Used to lock me in my bedroom at
night. Jumped out of the window, ran for it, jumped a train going back home.
After a week and a half got fed up with it, handed myself in. They locked me
up again. Ran away again. I live in a rough area. I started getting into
trouble at primary school. Street robberies, burglaries, common assaults,
started when I was 10. I was smoking weed all the time. Single mum, she
works. Recently got in touch with my dad. Haven’t seen him since I was 4.
Don’t really care.
“At first when I got locked up I used to get angry because it was too far for
my mum to come. Now if she doesn’t come, she doesn’t come. I ring her every
night. Doesn’t help. I don’t want to carry on committing crime. It’s stupid
really. No one got injured in my crimes, it’s just the courts got fed up
with me and gave me a harsher sentence to make me realise what I’d done. It
hasn’t helped me here.”
Patrick, 15
“Stabbed my cousin on New Year’s Eve, it just got out of hand. My cousin got
hold of my throat, I couldn’t breathe. It was the only way I could get him
off me: got sent to prison. Been arrested for carrying knives and fighting
in the street. I did have a few problems at school, got kicked out for
headbutting a teacher.
“I’ve got four brothers, I’m the youngest. They’ve been arrested, but none of
them has been to prison. It’s a rough area, stabbings, fighting. I’ve been
hanging round the streets since I was 7. I started smoking weed then. My
real dad died when I was 7. That may have been why I started to go off the
rails. When I found out I started to cry and my auntie slapped me and said,
‘Stop crying, be brave about it’. I’ve not cried over it since.
“Since I got out I’ve started doing boxing and I’ve learnt to control my
temper now. I’ve not been fighting on the streets. I don’t know why I was
angry.”
The names have been changed
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