Torturing young people New Labour style…
Two young teenagers died in Secure Training Centres (STCs) in 2004. Both had been subjected to physical restraint techniques. Gareth Myatt, 15 yrs old, died of asphyxia as a result of, the now banned, double-seated embrace. Adam Rickwood, 14, killed himself after being subjected to the “nose distraction” technique.
Both of their inquests were held this year. Pressure was put on the government to abolish these vile practices but how do New Labour respond? They broaden the rules on restraint techniques, “ensuring good order and discipline“. So according to that logic, it is acceptable for kids to end up with nose bleeds, brusing and broken bones because “good order and discipline” is paramount.
Thirty children have died in state custody since 1990 yet there have been no inquiries into their deaths. And it has been estimated that children in custody are assaulted 3,000 times every year. But I see no criminal investigation into the perpetrators of these assaults.
But hey, this is New Labour tough on crime and tough on punishing kids! Locking up kids is bad enough but the use of physical violence to control vulnerable and powerless kids will further degrade and humiliate especially as many of these kids have experienced sexual and/or physical violence in their lives (and many have).
It’s obscene and a disgrace that these practices are allowed to continue. The seated-double embrace technique has been suspended since Gareth Myatt’s death, so has the “nose distraction” technique (too late for Adam Rickwood) and the “double basket” hold. But other forms of physical restraint are rountinely used in institutions across the country.
And now in a new report to a government-commissioned inquiry into physical restraint, Professor Sir Al Aynsley-Green, the Children’s Commissioner for England has argued (and his submission has been leaked to the Indie on Sunday):
“The use of violence and force to control and punish some of the most vulnerable children in society is unacceptable”.
Whether NL will take any notice of his submission or the growing demand for an outright ban on physical restraint is doubtful. It will be another report that will languish at the bottom of the pile on some minister’s desk.
Finally, this from Pamela Wilton (mum of Gareth Myatt): “I loved Gareth so much and my life will never be the same. Nothing can bring him back to me. My only hope is that the Government will listen to the voices of children in custody so that lessons can be learnt and other children can be kept safe”…
Why we must close all Young Offender Institutes and Secure Training Centres - the universities of crime.
The way young offenders (and what a label! - they are ‘young people’ often with multiple problems) are treated (or NOT treated as the case may be) in the UK is a national disgrace.
A few facts
Just a couple of facts from The Howard League for Penal Reform confirms the disgraceful nature of our Youth Justice system.
* England and Wales lock up more children than any other country in Western Europe (Council of Europe, 2005).
* Children in custody are serving longer sentences. The average length of an immediate custodial sentence for children aged 10-17 at magistrate’s court doubled from 3.5 months in 1995 to 6.4 months in 2005. The average length custodial sentence at crown court rose from 17.6 months to 22.1 months in the same period (Sentencing statistics England and Wales, 2005. Home office statistical bulletin 03/07
I have spent over 32 years (until retired) working with young offender’s and in this time have visited most juvenile penal establishments in Southern England and the Midlands
How young people who offend are treated today.
Most young people who seriously offend and receive a custodial sentence are locked up in Young Offender Institutes (Juvenile prisons! - they look just like you see on TV with locked cells)) or Secure Training Centres (not much better than YOI’s but often ‘new builds’ so they look better from the outside, and many are now run by private companies!). Most cannot read or write much, have failed(?) in the education system (the education system failed them!), were often thrown out of school at an early age with no one caring much about their education or what they did with their time. Left to wonder around the streets they often took up drugs and drink and then got into petty crime at 8 to 12 leading on to more serious crime from 11 to 18+. This scenario is often linked to poor parenting (rather than obvious neglect), low income and bad housing, poor schooling (aimed at academic success with a ‘one size fits all approach’) with few if any good adult role models. Their future is often bleak and depressing with no way out. Depression, loss (a parent or family member having died or a missing parent via divorce or separation) and abuse (physical and sexual) often features in the backgrounds of young people who offend. Compounding the problems and often tipping a young person over the edge into crime can be a new step parent who is not accepted because the young person wishes to stay emotionally loyal to the ‘missing’ parent with no professional help offered, if at all, until a serious crime is committed.
The other side of the coin
Not for them an education at Eton or Harrow with an assured place at university, with year after year of foreign holidays to help with the ’stress’ of learning, all paid for by wealthy parents. Not for them the weekly allowance to go clubbing at 16 to 18. Not for them the parent with the 4 by 4 car to taking them to the private tennis club and swimming pool or the private golf club/country club. No they have none of this in their life which is often only a life of emotional poverty and neglect from parent/s who try their best but have often had no good parental role models themselves.
The university of life
So our young people the ‘young offenders’ as our New Labour government calls them seek support, love and fun from the only source available - their gang, the streets and their peer group. The educational failures(!), miner drug users and social outcasts link together in a street culture that provides an alternative ‘parent’ one that does not reject, with few rules other than gang loyalty, and provides the unconditional acceptance (’love’) they crave (as we all do). For them their ‘university’ is survival on the street amongst younger and older peers. What starts out as miner crime leads on to more serious crime, what starts out as miner drug use leads on to serious drug use and dealing. At each step along the way their ability to identify with the victim, to feel and to care, becomes blunted until they feel nothing for others, as they feel others care nothing for them.
Materialism
Having no car they take the BMW and Audi that belong to the parent of the Eton and Harrow students or the local Grammar school kids parents, and for a few minutes, an hour or two they are part of the ‘haves’ instead of the ‘have not’ that they know our rotten system has placed them in. They fight in the only way they know, to grab a bit of the action and material life style for themselves at any cost to themselves, their families and their communities. It is the logic of capitalism, the logic of the jungle. Not having ‘connections’. wealthy parents, country clubs, top private schools and universities, flash cars and clothes or money they still feel that these are the things that matter in life, as this material life style is what they see on TV every day. By hook or by crook they decide, (often without being consciously aware) they are not going to be left behind in life as a ‘looser’ (does anyone?).
Failure
It is we, society that has failed - failed to equip them with an education to survive in our cut throat capitalist world and failed to change the very nature of our society for one in which there would be ‘no failures’ as children. Failed to give them the ‘right’ mother or father with money, connections, aspirations and expectations with the income to support them. No they are the losers in the lottery of our capitalist system and they know it and fight back in an individualist dog eat dog way, that for brief moments when they have had that cannabis joint, or ride in that stolen BMW or swallow the contents of a bottle of whiskey from the last ram raid job, makes them feel just as good as you and me. And in the depressive low after the high of the night before they know that they will have to do it all over again and again. Not for them the ongoing high of a university place, the ‘gap’ year subsidised by mummy and daddy or their first car bought by father/mother out of the small change from that years share dividends or company bonus.
Throwing the key way
So what do we do with these needy young people when their luck runs out and they are hauled before the Youth Courts for the more serious crimes (no doubt after many weeks if not months on bail during which none of the key issues are addressed)? We lock them all up together where they often become more disturbed, bullied and abused. They learn to become ‘hard and tough’ to survive, and then we wonder why they have not changed when they are released.
Time after time I came across young people of school age who received no education, or trade training at places like Feltham YOI (or if lucky two hours education a day), or drug counselling or counselling of any type due to staff shortages or lack of trained staff. The whole emphasis was always on warehousing these young people and despite the best attempts of some staff their real needs went unaddressed which were often just the need for basic eduction to read and write or counselling to discuss abuse both inside and outside the family or to kick their drug habit. I came to believe that Young Offender Institutes were what they looked - prisons for children where they could be warehoused and the key thrown way as far as the rest of society was concerned. What the rest of society had forgot was that someday one of these young people was going to be released at an address near them and they were going to be angry, very angry.
Work
The prospects for real well paid work for these young people at 16 (soon to be 18, which will compound the problem for these young people) are slim indeed and it is not surprising therefore that many slip back into the well worn and comfortable habits of petty crime, miner and serious drug dealing and taking, living a life of getting up late (after watching videos taking drink and drugs to blunt the pain of a dull life going no where) and getting up late (to kill time). We my friends live in a society that cares nothing for the blighted lives of 1000’s of our damaged children, shame on us, shame on all of us.
Often these young people have real potential that is never been seen or brought out of them. The one thing that was certain was that their needs were not going to be met in our custody system - a disgrace to any civilised society. We are not reforming young offenders but grooming them in our current penal system, a world where dog eats dog and being ‘hard’ and lacking feeling is seen as the way to survive - these are the lessons they learn in their ‘universities of crime’.
Reform
We must start to reform this juvenile penal system by making sure no juvenile of 16 or under is EVER locked up in secure establishment unless it is for the most serious crimes such as murder etc when significant specialist help (psychiatry, psychology, counselling, education) must be provided so that on release these very damaged young people are not a danger to themselves and others.
For the vast majority of other young offenders committing the more serious crimes community based schemes providing basic education, work experience, role modelling by a caring adult ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’ figures, sports training, community service and victim awareness (working for the victim of the crime or other victims to an agreed contract and face to face meetings if agreed by the victim) and counselling will do far better than any penal establishment. These young people need to both feel real remorse and sorrow for their actions as well as to feel a valuable part of society with real prospects of education or work on a livable wage. Paying back to society and learning to re-engage with society and communities is harder, much harder than a prison sentence (ask any young person who offends). Being made aware of the pain they have caused others and being asked to put this right can produce a profound positive change in a young person. Having completed a community sentence and having found work or education, with the caring but firm adult guidance they clearly need, many young people are once again able to feel part of a community that has not turned their back on them and rejected them as failures while still juveniles - this is real rehabilitation.
Another way for the hard to change
Where needed well paid, professional foster parents (yes its their occupation, not a hobby), along with a clear contract of responsibilities for the young person concerned, for those most in need, after sentence or on bail, for limited periods should be provided (working alongside the real parent/s and other professionals) - a system that has been tried and tested and does work in the UK.
Yes there are better ways of preventing serious youth crime than locking young people up and throwing the key away, ways that allows a young person to feel valued and loved and part of their family, their community and a valued member of society - a real human being once again!
Neil Williams
http://respectuk.blogspot.com/
LINKS
Howard League for Penal Reform
http://www.howardleague.org/
Why the Howard League for Penal Reform believes children should not be held in prisons
http://www.howardleague.org/index.php?id=452
The National Association for Youth Justice
http://nayj.org.uk/website/
Prison Reform Trust
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/
Nacro - Services - Youth Crime
http://www.nacro.org.uk/services/youthcrime.htm
Comment by Neil Williams — 30 December, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
Very moving article Louise.
I think that the lasting failure of this government will be seen as its polcies towards young people. Of course, children in custody are the extreme case, but the general insecurity and stress of modern childhood, the commercialisation, the testing in schools, and general loss of direction and moral compass by our society, affects all children.
Is this what the labour Party has become?
Comment by Andy — 30 December, 2007 @ 11:19 pm
Thanks Andy.
There are some things that can have an impact on an emotional level and this does. It angers me reading about the lives of these children and young people and how this Government can dismiss and cast them aside as if they meant nothing. Their lives worthless.
I agree with the pressure on kids re testing, testing and testing. And if you don’t make the grade and so on.
Unfortunately, this is what the LP has become.
Comment by Louise — 30 December, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
Yeah, I wasn’t getting at you about the LP.
It is just tragic.
Comment by Andy — 30 December, 2007 @ 11:31 pm
“Yeah, I wasn’t getting at you about the LP“.
Didn’t think you were btw. New Labour are …to put it bluntly..scum-bags of the highest order.
I agree, it is utterly tragic and needless.
Comment by Louise — 30 December, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
Neil.
Your very interesting comment disappeared into mooderatrioon just because it included so many links. Fortunaately it didn’t get lost among all the spam.
Comment by Andy — 31 December, 2007 @ 12:03 am
Neil: I read your comment with interest. The abject misery of being labelled and locked up, and human cost as well. Containment and control is the name of the game and alternatives to these barbaric practices are dismissed and ignored.
I used to visit women at high secure hospitals in the 90s (before women were taken out of the high secures into medium secure units)and some of them were barely out of their teens. It was tragic. Many were self-harming (instead of enlightened attitudes women were punished for self-harming), many had experienced sexual/physical abuse (it was estimated that 85% of women in secure hospitals had been sexually abused or raped in their life), many had mental health problems exacerbated by the secure hospital regime (it was based on a kind of behaviourism)and majority did not need to banged up in a secure hospital.
They were vulnerable scared and powerless young women (I worked with women mainly)who needed help, support and solidarity not punishment nor containment. Yet they were also vilified and stigmatised for being in Victorian hell-holes like Broadmoor and Rampton or the more modern architectural hell-hole, Ashworth.
These places are archaic and an anachronism..and should be consigned to the dustbins of history.
Comment by Louise — 31 December, 2007 @ 12:41 am
The UK prison system has always failed it’s inmates.
I really don’t think it will change fundementally until we radically change the class system that breeds it.
Comment by Halshall — 31 December, 2007 @ 2:31 pm
I can only agree Louise (Post 7).
So many young people, and adults, for that matter have some form of mental health problem that does not get addressed in the penal system. I witnessed case after of young people both boys and girls not receiving the Psychiatric and Psychology support they needed despite me writing this up in the ‘care plan’ for them. Self harm amongst young people in custody is very high, and as both you and I state, is often linked to abuse (physical, emotional and sexual) that has never been recognised.
Depression amongst young people in custody is high leading many to self harm and attempt to end their lives. As the Howard League for Penal Reform reported since January 2002, 6 children have died in penal custody. This includes 4 children in prison and 2 children in secure training centres. The youngest child to die was 14 years old. One child died following restraint by staff. Children in prison are 18 times more likely to commit suicide that their counterparts in the community (The Lancet, 15 Sept 2005).
Yet the system is designed even for children, to control and to warehouse and not to heal. The people of this country need to be made aware of what is happening ‘in their name’ behind the closed doors of our penal institutions. The myth that ‘prison works’ needs to be exposed for what it is - a myth (in fact it breeds crime like an incubator). It is ineffective in terms of reducing offending, 82% of boys sentenced to prison are re convicted within 2 years of release. 56% are re committed to custody. (Home Office Statistical Bulletin 17/05)
Just look at these appalling figures “the number of 10-17 year olds received into prison rose from 4,671 in 1995 to 5,175 in 2005 (Offender management caseloads statistics 2005, table 7.6, home office)”. So 5175 juveniles were locked up in 2005 at a cost of many millions to our society in a system that we know fails to rehabilitate them. For the same money or less we could have one of the best community supervision schemes in the world (and an example to the world) where young people would get the advice, support and control they need with a new army of well paid support workers recruited from the communities in which these young people live along with a new army of professional staff and professional foster parents (we need to think big just like the founding of the NHS and for this to happen, like so many other needy reforms, we probably will need a Socialist government). The strange irony (but hey that capitalism for you) is that Probation Officers/ Social Workers are being cut (see: NAPO, Fight he Cuts - Defend Probation at: http://www.napo2.org.uk/noms/ ) while being overworked and on very poor pay for their skills and education.
It is clear that the penal system has become a political pawn for politicians of all three main parties to play at being ‘hard on crime’ and offenders of any age, which to them means building 1000’s more prison places for adults and juveniles at a cost (hardly ever mentioned) of many, very many millions of pounds of your money and mine. While money is thrown away like confetti on bricks and mortar the victims needs remain unattended and the young offender just serves time becoming bitter and angry - what a penal system what a disgrace!
Whilst policy is made out of myths that crime is out of control and knocking on your door any minute now, the truth goes unreported and this is the truth:
“The Chair of the Youth Justice Board said that twice as many children are locked up as a decade ago, despite the fact that the British Crime Survey recorded a 44% decline in crime and no evidence of an increase in crime committed by children (The Guardian, 25 October 2006)”.
Comment by Neil Williams — 31 December, 2007 @ 2:34 pm
#9 Neil,
fine but you state in para 4 ‘like so many other needy reforms, we probably will need a
Socilist government ‘.
Problem, we have to many had a ‘Socialist’ government and it solved only a limited amount to do with the evils of the youth and penal system, whether under Attlee, Wilson or Callaghan.
And under New Labour with it’s toal committment to the ‘market’with no reforms (in the traditional sense).
A ‘Socialist’ (read ‘Social Democratic reformist’) government seeks electoral advantage by pandering to the system of exploitation that exists, and that continues to marginalise whole sections of W/C youth. There may have been some hope back in the 60’s with the abolition of hanging, and the legalising of abortion and homosexuality for example, but now in the era of profit and consumerism, above all else ?
So how do you change a cruel, repressive penal system that’s an inherent part of it ?
You need to build a mass party that doesn’t sell out when it comes to challenging the priorities of profit and the exploitation that creates that profit in all it’s class -ridden forms.
Sorry to sound rather cliched.
But there are no shortcuts.
Comment by Halshall — 31 December, 2007 @ 3:21 pm
I dont diagree with you Halsahll (post 10).
My definition of a Socialist government is more agin to that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela (and that’s only a starting point)rather than Atlee/Wilson in the UK.
Labour governments are no longer reformist or progessive and i agree that means we do need to build a mass party of the left that can unite all those who want reform, progress and a Socialist society based on need not greed,people and not profit, a society in which we are all valued.
How that is to be done and what form it takes is where many of us have different views as evident on this web site.
Comment by Neil Williams — 31 December, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Halshall: “You need to build a mass party that doesn’t sell out when it comes to challenging the priorities of profit and the exploitation that creates that profit in all it’s class -ridden forms”.
But this isn’t gonna happen in the immediate future. Sorry to sound pessimistic but everytime the “build the mass party” is mentioned I despair. It reminds me of Del Boy from Only Fools when he says, “Next year we will be millioniares”… But it doesn’t happen rather like the belief that the next big attempt of building a radical alternative to NL will be The One. But it is a pipedream.
Most of us know that NL is a load of offensive cack (even us Labour Lefties)
I have sympathy with what Neil says and I agree with final sentence: “How that is to be done and what form it takes is where many of us have different views as evident on this web site”… and it is bang on the money.
I just think waiting for the mass workers party to develop, evolve and to challenge the neo-liberal project won’t happen in the immediate future.
Therefore, what do we do? Do we wait until the Next Big One comes along? No, we can still challenge and work together even at the moment. There are orgs we can work with who trying to challenge and put pressure NL and their vicious law and order project. The orgs Neil mentions but
I would also mention INQUEST, Women in Prison, Women in Secure Hospitals, and so on. Yes, they put reformist demands on the state but what else are we do to in the meantime? Wait for the mass workers party? The revolution? At least we could show solidarity with these orgs and also grass roots orgs that exist in the here and now then waiting for the pipedream.
Comment by Louise — 31 December, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
Very moving stuff at this time year, the penal system from top to bottom is crap to say the least. Neil, Andy, Louise, good stuff. While we sit twiddling our placards waiting for the mass movement and the revolution nothing happens. Perhaps the use of the word ‘riotousness’ in the Benn article is what we want. But in the meantime lets support all those out there who have actually rolled their sleeves up and are trying to do something. Call me a reformist but better a few lives saved today……..
Comment by Pete Brown — 31 December, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
Thanks Pete.
“Call me a reformist but better a few lives saved today
I agree with you on that. And there are people and orgs who do need the support and solidarity.
Happy new year, comrade!
Comment by Louise — 31 December, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
Comrades, don’t give up on the need for a mass party of the left, because you also have to campaign for reforms in the here and now.
And every reform won however small, just like every demand raised for workers and won, every tiny victory for civil rights, like the pressure on the Neo-Cons to close Guantanamo or the march on Parliament Square, every hospital or PCA saved from privatisation or closure or indeed greater use of ‘community sentencing’ rather than incarceration etc, is a small step along the way; however as Neill says in #11 ‘ Labour governments are no longer reformist or progressive.’
So sooner or later you’re going to need that genuine Socialist government and party to really make a challenge to the system as a whole.
It would be a great mistake to think you can have fundemental reform that would eliminate poverty and disadvantage once and forall without also changing the system that depends on it for the exploitation that’s the basis of profit.
Those challenges happen in the here and now and not in some mythical future.
The fight for legalisation of homosexuality and abortion were progressive reforms won under capitalism.
The fight against Aparteid was a victory for all those who supported the AAC, (including a one time radical called Peter Hain! ), but we still have to challenge the system whilst fighting for those reforms.
Comment by Halshall — 31 December, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
I draw your attention to the Gurdian article ‘Overcrowding blamed for 37% rise in suicides among inmates in failing prison system’ 02/01/08.
Sure we can campaign for a better prison system (and better still non-incarceration alternatives)and all power to those that do.
I have been previously involved in both intermediate treatment and residential care.
Currently I work as a volunteer helper for Mind.
An estimated 25% of the UK adult population suffer from mental health problems in any one year, in prisons I guess it’s higher (I don’t have the official figure).
The UK prisons are bursting with overcrowding and this has been allowed to happen by politicians who are tied to electoral opportunism and the law & order agenda.
Certainly it is vital to campaign against these inhumane effects, but you also have to have real and effective alternatives.
These require a radical political approach which IMO can only be acheived by also changing the inequitable nature of the society we have to live in.
A socialist solution needs fundemental social change. This isn’t just a platitude, the need for reforms is still all too evident, but the root causes go much wider.
It is Not an either reforms or revolution argument, one complements the other.
Comment by Halshall — 2 January, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Halshall, I am not disagreeing with you and yeah, reform/revolution compliments but at the moment there isn’t the mass workers party we can look to. It doesn’t mean we give up on the idea but I just think we have to be realistic and work with what we have got at the moment.
Practically there are ways of campaigning and working alongside orgs that are trying to make a difference. Actually, Halshall, I don’t think we disagree on any of this really.
Regarding the numbers of people with mental distress in the prison system the numbers are increasing.
Btw: if you don’t mind me asking, but is your opinion of MIND?
Comment by Louise — 2 January, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
#17 Louise
‘I don’t think we disagree on any of this really’
Thanks for that; I get that feeling too.
It doesn’t suprise me numbers of those with mental health problems in prisons is increasing. I suspect that levels of stress and despair in society at large are as well, with consequences that you can imagine.
As per my view on Mind. In my experience, it helps a lot of vulnerable people who would otherwise be without support or hope of some kind of a life without a network of contacts and friends; but it cannot deal with the wider social issues that lead to the causes of mental ill-health.
Comment by Halshall — 2 January, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
although the prison system is far from ideal and all these points can be repeated again and again lets not forget that the young people in secure training centres are there against their will and some are violent. Whether this is caused by mental disorder, upbringing or inate badness in beisdes the point. If these people are behaving in a way which is violent, a danger to themselves or other, then they NEED TO BE RESTRAINED. If restraint were completely removed from this environment chaos would develop. That is not to say that restraint training and awareness does not need to improve as it clearly does but the authorities have a duty to protect the other people within this environment and the restrained person themselves. From first hand experience in this environment i know that restraint is used for the individual who is being restrained own protection more than any other reason.
the figures might look shocking, but without restraint we would see many more suicide and violent deaths of young persons in such places.
Comment by gw — 15 December, 2008 @ 7:43 pm