October 15, 2007: YOIs “hotbeds of violence” -
Howard League
The Howard League for
Penal Reform has just published a table of figures for assaults in Young
Offenders Institutions (YOIs), which reveals that over 18,000 assaults have
taken place between 2003 and 2006. Over four years, there were 15,565
prisoner-on-prisoner assaults, 2,542 prisoner-on-officer assaults and 224
prisoner-on-other assaults in the 18 YOIs. A recent Parliamentary Question by
the Liberal Democrats revealed that 9
out of the 10 most violent prisons in the UK were YOIs.
Howard League Director Frances Crook commented:
“The National
Offender Management Service estimates that 11% of prisoners involved in
serious assaults are children, despite being only 3% of the prison population.
The assault figures published today include the entire YOI population, of
which a majority are young adults aged 18-21. But while not all the assaults
recorded directly involve children held in prison, those children are at the
very least witness to what goes on in these hotbeds of violence."
“Last week the Howard League for Penal Reform published a
survey that found 95% of children in schools considered themselves victims of
crime, despite the fact that schools are supposedly secure environments
patrolled by adults. It seems that prison, the ultimate ‘secure’ environment
and our other national institution for housing children, is even less safe.
Small wonder that children come out of custody hardened and brutalised, with
reconviction rates within a year of almost 70%."
“The vast majority of children should receive community
sentences, with proven success at cutting reoffending. There are only a small
number of children whose offences are so serious that they require custody and
local authority secure care homes, not prison, should be the only appropriate
secure accommodation.”
The table is published on the same day as an adjournment
debate tabled by Mark Oaten MP takes place in the House of Commons on the Howard
League’s submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child
on the treatment of children in prison. The submission, published in June, found
that the government is failing its obligations in at least 10 Articles of the
UN Convention on the Rights of
the Child.
Despite a 44% decline in crime and no evidence of an increase
in crime committed by children, England and Wales in particular continues to
lock up more children than any other country in Western Europe.
In statistics published by the
Council of Europe in 2005, England and Wales was found to have jailed an
average of 2,274 children in any one week – compared to 1,456 in Germany, 628 in
France, 73 children in the Netherlands and nine in Norway.
At the beginning of this month, 3,006 children were in custody
in England and Wales. Of these, 2,512 were in YOIs.
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