Reducing Child Imprisonment: A Systemic Challenge1

Abstract

This article seeks to make explicit the obstacles to reducing child custody in order to understand better what is required of an effective decarcerative strategy. It argues that a punitive turn, with its origins in the early 1990s, was responsible both for a subsequent inflation of the numbers of children in custodial establishments and for a range of systemic changes which serve to maintain the population of the juvenile secure estate at high levels. Thus, although recent efforts to reduce custody have tended to focus on provision of robust and credible community based programmes, rates of diversion, shifts in the tariff and movements in practitioner attitude are as important as programmatic concerns to the success, or otherwise, of initiatives designed to function as alternatives to custody.

Understanding the Adjustment of Incarcerated Young Offenders: A Canadian Example

“…Decarceration however, is only one part of what should be a broader mandate to re-evaluate the impact and conditions of confinement for youth. As Bateman (2005) argues, practitioners and those committed to the well-being of youth in conflict with the law can perhaps be the ones to drive this initiative forward.…”

A Study into Breaches of Youth Justice Orders and the Young People Who Breach Them

“…Increasing numbers of breaches have been attributed to what Bateman (2005Bateman ( , 2011b, among others, describes as a 'Punitive Turn' in Youth Justice in the mid-1990s. Policy initiatives led to tougher responses to youth crime (Home Office, 1997) and the YJB National Standards (YJB, 2000(YJB, , 2004(YJB, , 2010b became prescriptive (Bateman, 2005), ultimately leading to a rise in the use of custody.…”

“…Young people who are breached while on Youth Justice Orders are further criminalised and accelerated up the Youth Justice Tariff (Bateman 2005). Hart (2011a) says that this punitive treatment of young offenders further drains resources and leads to increased negative outcomes for young people, such as disrupted education and potentially even increases the likelihood of re-offending.…”

Girls from Wales in the Secure Estate: Sent to Coventry?

“…Secure provision in Wales has been a problem for many years (Youth Justice Board, 2004c) and the lack of secure accommodation for girls in Wales means that some children will be more than a three hour journey away from their home address (WAG, 2010). While it could be argued this issue would be addressed if the provision of Secure Children's Homes in Wales was significantly increased, this action could unintentionally obfuscate the important underlying issue of net-widening (Pritchard, 2010), in that far too many children are caught up in the youth justice system, and once caught into the system sentencing practices up-tariff youth (Bateman, 2005) propelling them towards incarceration. In highlighting the issues posed by incarcerating children from Wales this article adds further weight to the argument for diversionary programmes to keep young people from criminalisation and away from incarceration.…”