Don't Punish Children?

[philosoraptor42]

There's an article in The Guardian today about the Children's Commissioner who is who wants to stop young offenders from the recent riots being named by the media. I'm admittedly pretty much in agreement on that issue. Any information released by the press can lead to a trial being thrown out. It actually benefits the victims of the riots if information about these offenders remains confidential.

I am much more concerned by the Children's Commissioner's expressed principle that: "a child shall only ever be arrested or put in prison as a last resort and for the shortest possible time".

Why am I concerned about this?

Well the less controversial aspect of this would seem to be the suggestion that prison should be a last resort. That is, asides from the fact that young offenders don't go to prison. They are sent to Young Offender's Institutions, which are rather different. Still, those do count as a type of prison so we'll move on. Absolutely we want prison to be a last resort for anyone, so naturally that includes children. But how do we decide what counts as a last resort? When young offenders have been involved in violent crime the punishment needs to reflect that crime and, it seems to me, sending them to a YOI seems to be the next sensible step.

Rather more worrying for me, however, is the decision that any stint in a YOI should be "for the shortest possible time". Do you know who else held that position? Margaret Thatcher....

Naturally I'm not trying to say that everything that Margaret Thatcher promoted must be bad no matter what. But let's look at the mentality behind it in her case. The prisons were filling up and she wanted a way to seem harsh on crime without increasing the prison population. So what was her solution? Well, they called it the "short sharp shock". The idea was that being sent to a YOI should be an unpleasant experience, but it mustn't last too long. This whole principle directly contradicted the intended purpose of prison which is rehabilitation. Now perhaps rehabilitation is somewhat naive, but if we are going to use prison that's the goal we ought to be aiming for those institutions to achieve.

Those working in YOI institutions could see a notable change when the "short sharp shock" was introduced. Young offenders at these institutions now knew that they would not be there very long. They weren't in there for the long haul and so they didn't feel so much need to respect the rules. The result was the complete opposite of what the "short sharp shock" had intended. It reduced the effectiveness of the imprisonment.

And now Maggie Atkinson is encouraging shorter sentences for seemingly the opposite ideological reasons. She just doesn't think that children should have long terms in YOIs if she can possibly help it. It sounds like her main goal must be to keep young offenders out of YOIs at all costs, but if it's been decided that their sentence should be played out in a YOI what sense is there in making the term too short for any progress to be made? A short sharp shock in a YOI is a pathetic joke and the young offender who comes away from their trial with about a week's worth of time left to serve knows this all too well.

I'm actually given cause to wonder whether Maggie Atkinson isn't against punishment as a whole. Now someone wishing to back me up on this point, might point to her insistence that spanking be outlawed. However, as I understand it, the reason for such legislation is because many cases of abuse are not currently being reported. Spanking can include cases where excessive force is used, where implements such as belts are used, or simply cases where spanking is used far too often. Even if spanking becomes illegal, it will likely still be practiced and parents who use a light slap on the bottom in moderation when disciplining children are unlikely to find themselves in court. Meanwhile many more people whose punishments are abusive will be recognised. Heck, it would be nice if cases of abuse were actually brought to justice. The whole "baby P" fiasco was a pretty typical case where the authorities did not have the means to act.

Maggie Atkinson is on rather more shaky ground when she says that a YOI would be the wrong place to send the murderers of James Bulger. The murderers were both 11 years old and they knowingly committed a brutal murder on a younger boy. As a general rule younger offenders are not sent to YOIs, but this would be the sort of case where they would make an exception and I think we can see why.

The Children's Commission has recently started an inquiry into the number of exclusions and they've discovered that the children least likely to be expelled are girls of Indian ethnicity. Colour me entirely unsurprised. Naturally this is a stereotype and being an Indian does not instantly mean that you will given lots of support and encouragement to succeed by your parents (just as being a boy doesn't instantly mean you will cause trouble at school). Even so, it is statistically significant that Indian children are often given a lot of encouragement to do well at school by their parents. If children are going to show respect for others and act in a socially positive way then their parents are generally the ones who will instil that behaviour in them. The positive reinforcement is the most important thing. However, the other side is that those who act in an anti-social way need to know that there are real consequences. If we send out the message that we will do our utmost to avoid punishing young offenders then they will take advantage of that. They will most likely not see it a sign of a caring society. Rather it will be a sign of just how little anyone cares.

The solution to offenders (not just youth offenders, but offenders in general) is to make rehabilitation work. Prisons and YOIs should not simply be places we send people. They should have a goal to turn things around for those sent to them and make them more productive members of society on their release. Perhaps that's naive of me. However, I cannot think of anything more stupid than to say "well it doesn't work so let's send them there for as short a time as possible". That is ridiculously defeatist and counter-productive. If it doesn't work, find out what is going wrong and make appropriate changes.

Obviously we shouldn't release information about youth offenders who rioted in the media. Either they should be successfully tried and convicted, receiving an appropriate punishment for their crimes, or they should be found innocent and be released. Neither requires their names being printed for public consumption. However, if they've committed violent criminal acts (as many young offenders in the riots clearly have) then being sent to a YOI (as much as that might be a last resort) will often be the appropriate punishment for their crime. Once they are there, we need to help build up their skills so that they can have a life worth living when they leave and feel less inclined to reoffend. If they are only given a very short sentence in a YOI then you've pretty much given up on them.