Too Many Children Remanded in Custody
"A new (23 December 2018) report from Transform Justice shines an important light on the often neglected issue of remanding children custody. the report: Path of little resistance: is pre-trial detention of children really a last resort? written by Penelope Gibbs and Fionnuala Ratcliffe found that despite a large  fall in remands over the last decade, figures have been rising again in the last two years.

The law and funding for child remand were changed in 2012. The LASPO Act introduced more stringent criteria for the use of custodial remand (officially remand to youth detention accommodation), the elimination of an anomaly whereby sixteen and seventeen-year olds were treated differently to other children and the delegation of remand budgets to local authorities.

Link to the Full Report 
 

HM Chief Inspectorate of Prisons: Staffing Problems Impact Negatively on Children in Custody
Staffing problems meant far too many boys were locked up in cells nearly all day in young offender institutions, according to an annual report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons on the experiences of detained children aged 12 to 18.

Though the numbers who had felt unsafe in YOIs had fallen from a record high level in 2015–16, surveys in 2016–17 still found almost 40% had felt unsafe. Children in secure training centres (STCs), home to a larger number of under-16s, generally felt safer than those in YOIs but a fifth said they had no-one to turn to if they had a problem.

And in 2016–17, across both types of custody, there were disproportionate numbers of black and minority ethnic children, and children from Gypsy, Romany or Traveller communities, compared to their representation in the general population.  Children with disabilities and mental and emotional health problems, and with backgrounds in local authority care, were also held in high numbers.

The report – Children in Custody 2016–17 – summarised findings of surveys distributed in HMIP inspections in the year.

Raising babies in prison

PRISON IS no place to raise a baby. Or is it?

Prisons are punitive, inhospitable by design. So, not surprisingly, the fact that some prisons house infant babies is shocking to most people.

While prison nurseries have existed in this country for a century--the first was established in 1901 at Bedford Hill Correctional Facility north of New York City--there is renewed interest in expanding these programs today.

There are currently prison nurseries in 10 states--California, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Nebraska, New York, South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. And state Rep. DebraLee Hovey recently introduced a bill to establish a prison nursery in Connecticut.

Read on...

Here Are All The Countries Where Children Are Sentenced To Die In Prison

There are about 2,500 youth offenders serving life sentences without the possibility of parole in prisons worldwide. We've come up with a map showing all of the countries where they are incarcerated.

That's right: The United States is the only country in the world that condemns people to spend their lives behind bars for crimes they committed before they turned 18.

A new report from the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for prison reforms, highlights this fact.

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Detaining children in Britain: No place for the innocent

What kind of country drags vulnerable children from their beds at daybreak, puts them behind bars and fills them with terror? Paul Vallely meets a family who have endured this horror – in Britain. And they're not alone

Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Reuters

Corridor of power: Europe's largest detention centre for immigrants, Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre, where the Mansours were taken

The thundering knock came early in the morning. It was 6.30am. Without waiting for an answer the security chain across the door was smashed from its fittings. Feet thundered up the staircase. The five children, all under the age of 10, were alarmed to be woken from their sleep by the dozen burly strangers who burst into their bedrooms, switched on the lights and shouted at them to get up.

This is not a police state. It is Manchester in supposedly civilised Britain in the 21st century. There is a clue to what this is about in the names of the children: Nardin, who is 10; Karin who is seven; the three-year-old twins Bishoy and Anastasia, and their one-year-old baby sister Angela.

Their parents, Hany and Samah Mansour, are Coptic Christians who fled to the UK after a campaign of persecution by a group of Islamic fundamentalists in Egypt whose friends in the secret police tortured Hany. But even though six Coptic Christians were shot dead by Muslim extremists only last week in a town not far from their home, the British Government has decided that it does not believe them. And so Britain's deportation police have launched another of their terrifying dawn raids on sleeping children.

Read on...