mag by Economist

Author:Economist
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: News, The Economist
Publisher: The Economist
Published: 2015-12-03T20:28:48.425450+00:00

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Children in prison

A welcome jailbreak

Britain’s addiction to child imprisonment ends in dramatic style

Dec 5th 2015 | From the print edition

THERE are few worse places to grow up than a young-offender institution. Gangs are rife, staff lack training, violence is common and education rudimentary (a lawyer says that, during a security lockdown, her client once received nothing more than a crossword slipped under the door). Seven in ten inmates reoffend within a year of their release. And it is an expensive form of neglect: jailing a young person for a year costs the taxpayer at least £60,000 ($90,500)—nearly double the price of a year at Eton College.

In 2009 England and Wales locked up more of their youngsters than almost any other rich country. But since then the number in custody has fallen by 64% (while the adult jail population has not budged). The turnaround has three likely causes.

First, police have dropped many of the arrest-targets they used to chase. These had encouraged the detention of children, since it was easier to catch spray-painting teenagers than burglars. The demand in 2010 by Theresa May, the home secretary, that police stop using them was heeded. Second, children who are arrested are less likely than before to end up in custody. A law passed in 2009 by Labour gave judges more flexibility in sentencing; another passed in 2012 by the Tory-led coalition made judges consider local-authority care before choosing custody.

Third, the use of antisocial-behaviour orders (ASBOs), civil injunctions for yobs that led to jail time if repeatedly violated, has ended. ASBOs were scrapped this year, their use having fallen steadily from a peak in 2005. Their abolition has been accompanied by earlier intervention in the lives of young troublemakers by partnerships of police, local authorities, probation and health services. The number of under-18s arrested dropped from around 250,000 in 2010 to 112,000 in 2014.

With only serious offenders ending up in custody, rates of self-harm, assault and staff’s use of physical restraint in youth-prisons have risen since 2009. And as small, local jails have closed, young inmates have been held farther from relatives. In 2013-14 one-fifth of boys (who make up 97% of the youth-prison population) went unvisited by friends or family.

But the transformation is welcome—and it may yet bring other benefits. The number of 18- to 20-year-olds in custody has recently begun to fall, too. As Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust notes, “The surest way to build the prison population of the future is to lock up children.” It may be that the opposite is also true.

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