The economically led practice of reallocating the bedrooms in children'shomes of young people given short sentences undermines any notion thatthey have a "home" in any real sense while being looked after. As amanager of children's homes from the 1980s onwards I assumed youngpeople in long-term placements would have their room kept for them andwhere there were no parents actively involved, staff would visit themregularly.
However, when I became manager of a secure unit dealing mainly withyoung offenders in the 1990s, I discovered this was not common practice.I was appalled to find that young people who had been looked after by alocal authority for several years not only had their placementterminated when admitted to custody, but it was also not unusual for ayoung person not to know where they were going to live post release.
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