Tuesday, 21 April 2009

Britain has the worst record in Europe for locking up children

The figure is a five-fold increase in just a decade, according to the children's charity Barnardo's.
Barnardo's said the increase meant that many children were "being written off" by the age of 12.
In 1997, the Government lowered the age of criminal responsibility for children from 14 to 10.
Custodial sentences were handed down to 844 children in the age group in 2007, including 133 for burglary, compared with just 21 in 1996.
The charity's chief executive, Martin Narey, a former director general of the Prison Service, said detaining so many youngsters was "inexplicable" and "unjustifiable".
The number of children and young people in custody in England and Wales was the third highest in Europe, behind only the Russian Federation and the Ukraine, the charity said.

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