Speaking at a conference on looked-after children in custody, Ellie Roysaid: "The fact we pick up the tab when young people go into custodyencourages stepping back at the point when local authorities should bedoing more for that young person."
Roy cited evidence from the case histories of two young offenders whocommitted suicide in custody. "There were times for both of them when wecould have invested in better care and support but, because the childwas offending, workers stood back and took a fatalistic approach."
She added: "The reason a child comes into court is because of thefailure of others, for example to keep children in school or with theirfamilies. It's important because custody is so expensive."
Barbara Hearn, deputy chief executive of children's charity the NationalChildren's Bureau, said: "There's a sigh of relief from localauthorities when a child enters custody as they are paid for by adifferent funding stream. This does not reflect a callous disregard ontheir part, but a reflection of sheer cost pressures."
She said that it used to be a source of professional shame when alooked-after child entered custody, but she added: "Entry into care canact as an accelerator into custody."
Figures show that more than half of children in the criminal justicesystem have been in care at some point, and looked-after children arethree times more likely than their peers to be convicted or receive afinal warning.
According to Roy: "The crucial thing is how you stop young people cominginto contact with the justice system in the first place."
Hearn suggested that directors of children's services should have tocountersign all recommendations for custody.
Roy said she hoped that the forthcoming green paper on looked-afterchildren would recommend more training on behavioural management forchildren's homes staff. She added: "We want to see protocols betweenchildren's homes, youth offending teams and police on how they canreduce the use of custody together."
Last week also saw a former member of the Youth Justice Board publish areport calling for the age at which children are deemed responsible fortheir crimes to be changed.
In a report on children in trouble with the law, Rob Allen, who is nowthe director of the International Centre for Prison Studies at King'sCollege in London, said the age of criminal responsibility should risefrom 10 to 14. And his report, published last week by the Centre forCrime and Justice Studies, says child care proceedings should instead beused for offenders under the age of 14.
- www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/rel/ccjs.
