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This scandalous treatment of working class youth must be stopped!

Lizzie Woods
29th November 2009 at 12:04
3 comments

Thousands of children jailed – before being found guilty
Under-18s can be held on remand for a year before being tried, figures reveal

By Nigel Morris, Deputy Political Editor, Independant

Friday, 27 November 2009

More than 27,000 children have been locked up before being convicted of any crime over the last five years. They include 1,004 under-18s held on remand for more than six months and 83 detained for more than one year.

The extent of youngsters being detained before appearing in court emerged as the Government trumpeted a sharp fall in youth crime. Around 2,600 under-18s are behind bars at any one time in England and Wales, which is among the highest rates of youth incarceration in Europe.

Youth Justice Board figures have disclosed that around 5,000 children are held on remand at some point every year. They include 5,471 in 2004-05, 5,673 in 2005-06, 5,601 in 2006-07, 5,301 in 2007-08 and 4,963 last year, adding up to 27,009 over five years.

Last year, 198 children were locked up on remand for more than six months. Numbers of children held on remand are 40 per cent higher than in 2000 and a recent survey estimated two-thirds of them were subsequently acquitted or given a community sentence.

The Prison Reform Trust (PRT) has calculated that one in five of the children locked up is on remand – and that 95 per cent of them have pleaded not guilty. David Howarth, the Liberal Democrat justice spokesman, last night attacked ministers for “letting thousands of children fester in prison without even establishing their guilt”. He told The Independent: “The official policy of only jailing children in exceptional circumstances is clearly not being followed, even before they’ve been tried.

“This barbaric practice of caging children for months on end before they have been found guilty must be stopped in all but the rarest incidents,” he said.

Penelope Gibbs, director of the PRT’s programme to reduce child and youth imprisonment, said: “Remand should only be used when it is dangerous to keep them in the community. If they are acquitted or given a community sentence, clearly they aren’t that dangerous. The impact of locking up children even for a short period of time is terrible. They can be held hundreds of miles away from their families.”

The Ministry of Justice said it regarded custody as a “last resort” for under-18s who are remanded. It said many youngsters in trouble with the law came from “chaotic family backgrounds”, adding: “One of the factors the court needs to take into account is whether the accommodation he or she will be returning to is likely to carry a high risk of offending.”

Yesterday, government figures showed the number of offenders convicted or given a police warning or reprimand was 74,033 last year, a fall of 21 per cent. It followed a 10 per cent reduction during the previous year.

*Thousands of children harmed after running away from home should be protected by a network of new refuge centres, the Children’s Society said yesterday. It denounced the shortage of emergency accommodation for them, claiming only nine beds exist for more than 100,000 youngsters who run away each year.

Comments

on 30th November 2009 at 00:01, Marie Lynam said:

Hello Lizzie

Such a good subject you chose. Such a good article you mention and such good comments you make. Look at the scandalous state of society. I hear only sniggers about Russia, Eastern Europe, the wall and 1989 Day By Day, but such a scandalous society was put in place in East Germany, to replace the old East Germany. This is not a judgement on East Germany, it is a judgement on what sort of society has pushed its way in there. This scandal of the young in prison is happening all over the capitalist world. No one knows quite what to do with the young. How many schools have sold their sports grounds? How many Youth Centres have been closed? Where are the young to go to have a decent and edifying social life? Such a scandal! How little indignation there is! Apart from those in prison below the age of 18, how many young people between the age of 18 and 25 are unemployed? I cannot remember the figure. Is it not near one million?

I am sure this happens in the other capitalist countries, it is not only Britain. But it is a commentary on the capitalist system that after hundreds of years of it taking over the world, by means of wars upon wars, robbing Africa, Asia and Latin America, it has only debts to show for it, and a shortage of anything meaningful for the young, the women, the mothers, the old - and the men young and old.

After having robbed the whole world - and now forcing the poor of the world into terrible deprivation, debt, loss of natural resources and terrible wars - capitalism still cannot provide a decent life for everyone in its metropolitan countries. ‘Decent’ life does not just mean food, even though this is also abominable (modified, salted, sweetened, irradiated, substituted, adulterated, enhanced and forced into shelf-life) - decent life should mean the time to judge what is happening in society, mass discussions about what is happening to society, the right of society to have organisations that are not determined by time or money, but by the well being of the children, the adult and the old. Organisations where the young can participate alongside the adults, to discuss and decide how society should be organised. Why is it that the rotting walls in the bathrooms of the poor cannot be fixed? A whole network of impediments is in the way. Volunteers would soon fix it, but you need permission, insurance, guarantees. In the end, no one cares about those who live in damp accommodation - and they are millions in Britain.

If there were neighbourhood committees, or Committes for the Defence of the People, or whatever you call these, the problems of the young, those of the less young, those of the old people, those of the women and the men would be the business of everyone else to take care of. Not just nameless, self-interested, could-not-care-less bureaucracies that put machines on the end of their phones, and by the time you got through, you have already spend £3 on telephone charges, and perhaps someone, somewhere will turn up to help you - if you can pay.

Children are in prison, and the adults too. There has never been so many people in prison, except perhaps under the Tzar of Russia. There is no need of all these prisons. Their existence is due to a shameless, calous and ‘there is no such thing as society’ polity.

People must run, run and run faster to produce the profits that billionnaires pocket and play roulette with. And when that is not enough, they play roulette with the pensions of the people. Run, run and run. There is no time for the children. No time to talk to them, no time for them to start formulating what happens to them.

Those in society who do not run like the rest are not normal. You must run so that the rich get richer. Mum and Dad must both work to fill the pockets of the banker.

Where is the child? Who knows about the child? The child takes drugs, goes about the streets, feels abandoned, feels that nothing matters. Schools, teachers, parents are expected to pick this problem up, which is the responsibility not just of them, but of the whole of society. It is not just our children future that the bailout has compromised. The present of the children is already cut down to the minimum, like the worker’s wage, just enough to survive, labour to make the rich richer, and reproduce those who will be expected to continue doing this tomorrow.

Keep your indignation going Lizzie,
There is a Spanish Song that says:

Este silencio de hierro, ya no se puede aguantar.

In other words, the worst of it all is the iron silence of the comrades. It is hardly bearable, really.

Marie Lynam

on 15th December 2009 at 22:52, Robert Naether said:

I have for a long time been a member of the Labour party I walked away a few years ago, I’m angry about our youth, but I’m also angry we lock up children and women and men for that matter in interment camps for daring to try and come here, if they were rich Brown would welcome them all with open arms but be poor and your locked up in interment camps.

I have not seen such a poor rubbish labour party

on 4th February 2010 at 21:17, Steve Brown said:

I’m posting this article I wrote recently on the youth question on this thread. I have tried to post a new blog but for some reason it won’t work so I thought i would place it on this thread as it has a bit little to do with the subject matter. Read on!

Steve Brown.

Who says the youth aren’t prepared to fight?

On January 4th a consultation meeting at Ashington Leisure Centre in
Northumberland was held by the Lib/Dem leadership of the County Council to
“discuss” the question of it’s closure. The council has to find £33m worth
of cuts this year and amongst the many services being targeted is the towns
very popular and highly used leisure centre. Round 3-400 people turned up
on the night to hear council leader Simon Reed trying to make the case for
it’s closure only to face a barrage of questions and counter arguments from
the very angry audience. Amongst the crowd were a significant group of
youth who are regular users of the centre who chanted slogans and barracked
the Liberals as they left the building. Around 10-12 young people, mainly
from the High School across the park from the centre, were very angry and
gave the Lib/Dems an ear bashing they wont forget in a hurry. Following on
from this two of the young people, Adam and Thomas both aged 15, set up a
Facebook page called Save Ashington Leisure Centre which, as we go to press,
has almost 3,000 friends and a petition has also been launched which has
hundreds of signatures already. The Liberals, having felt the wrath of the
public and the grim determination of the youth, have backed off and given
the centre a stay of execution till April 2011. This has not taken the
steam out of the campaign but has galvanized the young people into even more
activity. After linking up with the local Trades Council in the county they
called another public meeting which met last Monday 18th January. Around
150 attended and heard Adam, along with other labour movement leaders and
LRC suporters, speak from the platform where he put the case for the centre
and called on the County Council to withdraw the threat of closure completely
and demand that much needed investment in the centre be brought forward. Many
at the meeting spoke in defense of the centre and condemned the cuts and
afterwards several people came forward to join the campaign committee. The youth
themselves have established their own committee to draw more and more young
people into activity and so far 10 or so names have already come forward to
get involved. The leading youth understand the need to link up with
different sections of the community, in particular with the TU’s who they
see as taking the brunt of the cuts through job losses. The work they have
done is now paying off with the temporary back down by the council and the
fact that they now have the support of local cricketing hero Steve Harmison
and Ashington football legend Jack Charlton. “The only way to get the
council to back down is if the whole community gets behind the campaign!”
said Adam Nichol. “This is our centre, our mams and dads have used this
centre when they were kids, and we want our kids to be able to use it in the
future!” Future protests being organised are a lobby of the council
executive in Morpeth on Friday, 29th Jan at 12 noon and the a lobby of the
full council on Wed 10th of February where the council will be setting it’s
annual budget.