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Cost of jailing children too high a price to pay – Nacro report
A report published today by crime reduction charity Nacro highlights the enormous cost of child imprisonment – both to children whose problems and offending behaviour are made significantly worse by their spell in custody as well as to the public purse.
The report, ‘Counting the cost: Reducing child imprisonment’ criticises the UK’s current overuse of child detention as damaging and counterproductive. It also challenges the assumption that locking up children can cut crime. Current figures suggest that it would be necessary to lock up an extra 1,140 children each year to achieve a mere 1% fall in the juvenile offending rate.
The report also highlights the fact that children who offend are very often the victims of abuse and neglect and many are in need of specialist care rather than punishment. It argues that incarceration compounds existing problems, leading to increased susceptibility to self harm and suicide and a greater likelihood of embitterment and continued offending.
England and Wales sentenced 7,600 under-18s to custody in 2001 up from 4,000 in 1992 – a 90% increase in its use, in spite of an historic fall in the youth crime rate. During the same period the number of under-15s incarcerated rose by 800%.
The report challenges the logic of this increased use of custody, citing the fact that reoffending rates for Young Offender Institutions are as high as 84%, with a six month custodial sentence costing the tax payer an average of £21,000. By comparison, alternative non-custodial options for a similar six month period cost as little as £6,000 and have markedly lower rates of reoffending.
Lord Alex Carlile QC, chair of Nacro’s Committee on Children and Crime said,
“Out of the many thousands of children imprisoned by British courts every year, only in a tiny minority of cases is some form of detention actually necessary to protect the public. In all other cases it is quite simply indefensible.
“It is financially indefensible - custody costs the tax payer 350% more than an intensive community sentence. It is ethically indefensible - it takes damaged kids and exposes them to an environment that actually makes the damage worse. And it doesn’t reduce offending – evidence suggests exactly the opposite. In short, our current approach to youth justice fails children and fails society.”
Key facts:
o Research suggests reoffending by young people is actually made more likely by harsh punishments such as imprisonment, by as much as 25%.
o Children sentenced to custody are often highly vulnerable. Literacy levels are low, one third have no educational or training provision, half have previous involvement with social services and many have experienced sexual or physical abuse.
o From January 1998 to January 2002, there were 1,111 reported incidents of self harm in Young Offender Institutions.
o Between 1998 and 2002, twelve boys all aged 16 to 17 committed suicide.
ends
Contact: Adrian Thomas; 020 7840 6497 (direct line), 07974 189 979 (mobile) or Vanessa Livingstone, 020 7840 6759 (direct line)
Out of hours pager service: 07693 305899
Contact for Welsh media only: Richard Jones; 01792 450870 (Nacro Cymru) 07971 795 128 (mobile)
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