Of course staff are professional, but they are dealing with children who have had damaged lives and who have, in large part, been failed by those who should have protected them. Forty-five per cent of the children in prison have been permanently excluded from school. More than half have been in local authority care. Many will have suffered sexual abuse or domestic violence. Most will have mental health needs.
Having failed to identify, or develop, alternatives to custody, government policy veered from a move to end the imprisonment of vulnerable children to trying to make prison more child-friendly. The unit was the wrong answer to the problem. But the real problem is how to fit young people with serious needs into healthcare, education and wider society. And that remains, however many nice new units are built.
Many young people in prison are a long way away from their families. They are moved around within a system that struggles to house them in the right environment. Despite the kindness and care of staff, they are kept in a limbo where they are being taught about the world but not involved in it.
We are not talking about a handful of dangerous young people. The number of 15- to 17-year-olds in prison has all but doubled over the past 10 years. Only one in four has been convicted of violent offences. Many more are in for property crimes. We also hear worrying stories coming through the system of young people jailed for breaching antisocial behaviour orders, a new fast-track civil justice route to jail.
The grave risk with projects like the Josephine Butler Unit is that they actually end up encouraging magistrates and judges to send yet more troubled children to prison. Eighty-two per cent of under-18s reoffend within two years. It makes sense for no-one. The real answer is to be found in care and treatment outside prison walls.
Got something to say in Soapbox? steve.barrett@haynet.com or 020 8267 4707.
