A study by the charity on children aged 12, 13 and 14 who have served a custodial sentence found more than a third of them should not have been put behind bars, based on the government's own criteria.
The law states children aged 14 and under should not be sent to custody unless they have committed a grave offence or committed a serious offence and are deemed to be a persistent offender.
Barnardo's examination of the cases of 214 children - 46 per cent of those in this age group sent to custody in 2007/08 - found that more than a third did not meet this criteria.
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